Receiving lower wages than their male counterparts, working longer hours for lesser pay and suffering from many forms of unconscious institutional sexism, women endure a wide variety of discrimination in the workplace today.

The extent of sexism’s influence on employment remains disputed. Mirroring the sentiments of many detractors, Marty Nemko, career and workplace issues specialist, argued that “the data is clear that for the same work men and women are paid roughly the same.”

However, while various discrepancies exist over what the official figure for the wage gap is, general empirical evidence nonetheless asserts that “gender wage discrimination continues across all segments of the American economy.” Fortifying this data, a 2010 Labor Department study claimed that women receive “81 cents for every dollar men earn within the same occupational spheres,” which reveals that, while the divide between the earnings of men and women is smaller than the oft-reported 77 cents for every dollar, a gap still remains.

Further elaborating on these statistics, a 2010 study in The Sociological Quarterly published its findings. “In almost every occupation, the median weekly earnings for women are consistently lower than those for men,” the study stated. “In management, professional and related occupations, [women] take home 72 percent of what men earn; in education, training and library work, the figure is 76 percent; women in the arts, design, entertainment, sports and media make 84 percent of what men in those fields earn; for healthcare, the figure is 79 percent; in service occupations, 80 percent; and female CEOs and directors earn 42 percent less than their male counterparts.”

The gender wage gap can be additionally exacerbated by factors such as race, education levels, disability status, age and transgender status.

When juxtaposed with the wages of White women, women of color tend to suffer a larger wage gap. According to a 2014 American Association of University Women study, “Compared to the earnings of White, non-Hispanic men, Hispanic/Latina women receive 54 percent; African-American women receive 64 percent; Native Hawaiian/Pacific Islander women receive 65 percent; and Asian-American women receive 90 percent.”

Additionally, education can also play a role in the wage gap. “Among full-time, year-round workers, women who started, but did not finish, high school make 71 cents for every dollar their male counterparts make, and among workers with a bachelor’s degree or more, women typically make 74 cents for every dollar men make,” the American Association of University Women found. “Women have to earn a bachelor’s degree to make more than what men with an associate’s degree make ($51, 347 v. $51,112 respectively)–and men with only a high school degree but no college education typically make more than women with an associate’s degree ($40,933 v. $37,475, respectively).”

Also, disability status can worsen the wage gap for women with disabilities. “Women with disabilities working full time, year round are typically paid just 65 cents for every dollar men without disabilities are paid,” the American Association of University Women claimed. “When compared to their male counterparts with disabilities, this figure is 72 cents.”

Furthermore, the older the women are, the less they tend to earn.

“Women ages 15-24 working full time, year round are typically paid just 84 cents for every dollar their male counterparts are paid,” The American Association of University Women said. “Women ages 45-64 working full time, year round are typically paid only 73 cents for every dollar their male counterparts are paid. For women still working at age 65 and older, the figure is 67 cents.”

Moreover, transgender women make less after they transition. While little data has been conducted on this subject, one prominent study found that “the average earnings of transgender women workers fall by nearly one-third after they transition from male to female.”

Although the wage gap certainly is a large symbol of the prejudice women suffer in the workplace, it is not the only element of discrimination. In addition to the gender wage gap, working women also suffer from a variety of other obstacles borne from bias: the lack of prestige associated with “women’s work”; stereotypes that make attaining promotions more difficult; the backlash effect; and the glass escalator effect.

Granted, skeptics of the wage gap claim that the reason why the disparity in salaries between men and women exists is not because of discrimination, but rather because women choose, at higher rates, to enter professions that pay less, such as teaching. Strengthening this assertion, a 2011 study published by Natalia Kolesnikova and Yang Liu, economics experts, claimed that “men are more likely to be lawyers, doctors and business executives, while women are more likely to be teachers, nurses and office clerks. Thus, this gender occupational segregation might be a primary factor behind the wage gap.”

While it is true that women tend to enter professions that pay lower wages, the underlying truth remains that the reason why this phenomenon occurs is that, as women enter fields with higher wages in greater proportions, those fields conversely lose pay and prestige, and thus the prosperity of those originally high-paying positions diminishes the more women seek to obtain them.

Illustrating this effect, a joint study between the University of Haifa in Israel and the University of Pennsylvania stated, “Women’s jobs often pay less precisely because women do them. A study of more than 50 years of data revealed that when women moved into a field in large numbers, wages declined, even when controlling for experience, skills, education, race and religion.”

Perhaps the ultimate example of this phenomenon appeared in the field of computer programming.

Historically, computer programming was a field dominated by women.

“A lot of computing pioneers–the people who programmed the first digital computers–were women. And for decades, the number of women studying computer science was growing faster than the number of men,” a 2014 NPR report said. “But in 1984… the percentage of women in computer science flattened and then plunged, even as the share of women in other technical and professional fields kept rising.”

This drop is largely attributed to the rise in the use of personal computers, which were “marketed aggressively and almost entirely to men and boys,” and to the efforts made by male computer programmers to “eject women from computer programming” in order to “raise the field’s reputation.” Thus, through these exclusionary measures, the rates of female participation in the computer programming field dropped significantly.

The rise in pay and prestige afforded to computer programming once women left highlights the nature of this phenomenon.

During the period of time in which women constituted a large majority of the field, computer programming was considered a profession that was lower on the intellectual and salarial scale. Displaying how the presence of women in the field lowered its reputation, Nathan Ensmenger, arts and culture expert, stated that, during the 1940s, computer programmers were considered as “obviously low on the intellectual and professional status hierarchy.” Moreover, according to NASA, during this time, adjusting for inflation, computer programmers earned a salary of “$35,958.30 per year.”

Now, in 2016, when the computer programming field is largely dominated by men, the pay has risen dramatically. In comparison to the $35,958.30 per year that female programmers were paid in the 1940s, today’s male computer programmers are paid, on average, “$59,037,” according to PayScale. In addition, once women vacated the field, the position’s prestige has massively improved from one that was on the “lower intellectual scale” to one that required “rigorous intellectual capacity.”

Therefore, from this information, it is clear that the prestige and prosperity of the computer programming field rose significantly as a result of women exiting the profession.

Similarly, this discriminatory phenomenon was reflected in a broad variety of fields.

According to Asav Levanon, professor at the University of Haifa in Israel, claimed that, as the field of recreation–working in parks or leading camps–went from predominantly male to female from 1950 to 2000, the “median hourly wages in this field declined 57 percentage points.” Additionally, the job of ticket agent also went from mainly male to female during this period, and “wages dropped 43 percentage points.”

This same effect occurred in a diverse variety of fields: “when women in large numbers became designers, wages fell 34 percentage points”; “when women became housekeepers, wages fell 21 percentage points”; and “when women became biologists, wages fell 18 percentage points.”

Levanon added, “The reverse was true when a job attracted more men. For instance… when male programmers began to outnumber female ones [in computer programming], the job began paying more and gained prestige.”

The same effect occurs in traditionally lucrative fields. “Female physicians earn 71 percent of what male physicians earn, and lawyers earn 82 percent,” Claudia Goldin, Harvard economist, said.

Likewise, another form of discrimination that plagues women in the workplace are the stereotypes that make earning promotions more difficult.

For instance, women may have to work longer to receive the promotions that provide access to higher pay. Providing an example of this effect, according to the National Center for Education Statistics, “Women often have to work three years longer in a teaching position to be promoted to a principal than their male counterparts.” Portraying that this disparity is due to discrimination, the Urban Institute claimed that this difference in time requirements is due to “gender-based biases.”

Furthermore, due to the stereotypes that women are “more willing” and are “team players,” they are frequently required to perform in subservient or cooperative positions that reduce the amount of time they possess to pursue their ambitions.

Expressing the traits that many attach to women, Joan Williams, coauthor of the novel “What Works for Women at Work,” “Women are expected to be self-modest, self-effacing team players.”

As a result, women are oftentimes required to perform low-value tasks that are detrimental to their careers: “women are often expected to answer the phone, set up meetings and fill out paperwork”; “women are often expected to take notes in a meeting”; “women are often asked to fetch coffee, soda or other beverages”; “women are often expected to mentor young people and assist co workers”; “women are often asked to head thankless committees”; “women are often expected to bring cupcakes for a colleague’s birthday, order food for the office and plan parties.”

Even high-status women are forced to perform secretarial tasks such as answering the phone and filling out meetings. According to Williams, even female science professors are forced to “regularly asked to play the role of mother hen and take care of various secretarial tasks,” simply because “it is assumed that no one else will.”

Forcing women to take notes during meetings can prove harmful to their prospects. According to Adam Grant and Sheryl Sandberg, Wharton business professor and Facebook COO, “In addition to using up valuable time, taking notes during meetings can cause women to miss opportunities, since it’s very difficult for the person scribbling away to also make the killer point.”

In the workplace, women are often asked to fetch various beverages, which is generally regarded as a submissive task. Explaining how this requirement is viewed as a necessity for women, Grant and Sandberg state that “women are often viewed as selfish if they say no,” which damages their chances for receiving a promotion.

In conjunction with the stereotype that women must be team players, female workers are punished more severely than male workers when they refuse to spend extra time assisting fellow employees. Psychologist Madeline Heilman said that, after leading a study in which participants were asked to rate the performance of a male or female employee who did or did not offer to stay after work to help a colleague, “if a man stayed late, his favorability was enhanced by 14 percent, and when both the man and woman declined to stay late, the woman was rated 12 percent less favorably than the man.” Elaborating further, Heilman stated, “Repeatedly, after offering identical work-related altruism, the man was more likely to be promoted and offered important projects, raises and bonuses.”

In a similar vein, women are often asked to head thankless committees, risking damage to their careers if they refuse. “When a man says no, he faces no negative consequences; he is regarded as busy,” Grant and Sandberg report. “When a woman does the same, she is considered selfish.”

Lastly, when women are expected to perform maternal tasks, such as bringing cupcakes for a colleague’s birthday and planning parties, they suffer a psychological toll. According to an analysis of 183 studies across 15 countries and various occupations, as a result of these expectations, “Women were more likely to feel emotionally exhausted, which significantly increases their chances of burning out.”

There are additional stereotypes that women suffer that causes employers to undervalue their performance.

Exemplifying one particular difficulty women face, women may be punished for displaying the same assertiveness that would be celebrated if it was performed by men.

“When women are assertive, it can be seen as aggressive,” psychotherapist Sonya Rhodes, Ph.D., stated. “Whatever women do at work, they have to do it nicely. But the more you back off, the more they don’t take you seriously.” Thus, women have to walk a thin line between being too nice and too forceful.

Another difficulty for women is that, for many employers, competence is frequently equated to “untrustworthiness.” Demonstrating this bias, the results of a 2013 study by the New York University Stern School of Business showed that when two identical copies of a resume, one displaying the name “Heidi” and the other showing the name “Howard,” were distributed to students, both were considered equally competent, but Heidi was judged as more “political” and “untrustworthy” than Howard.

In a similar vein, women are more likely to get lower initial offers for a position than their male counterparts. A study conducted by Yale University revealed that, when science students were offered identical resumes for a managerial position that differed only on the gender of the applicants, female applicants were rated significantly lower than the males in “competence, hireability and whether the scientist would be willing to mentor the applicant,” which likewise resulted in a starting salary of $26,500 for women and $30,200 for men for the same position based on identical resumes.

Likewise, when paired with men, women are less likely to receive credit in group projects. Mirroring this trend, according to a continuing study published by Heather Sarsons, a researcher for Harvard University, “While women in the field publish as much as men, they are twice as likely to [fail], even after accounting for differences in tenure rates across universities, the different subfields of economics that women work in, the quality of their publications and other influenes that may have changed over time.” This disparity in results is largely attributed to the fact that most in the field tend to give more credit to the males rather than the females who share the byline.

Similarly, women are oftentimes assumed to be incompetent until they prove themselves. Displaying how this form of prejudice affects women, Linda Hudson, former CEO of security and defense company BAE Systems, stated that, even though she was the CEO of a company, “everyone’s first impression was that [she was] not qualified to do the job,” but when a male walked into a room, “[he was] assumed to be competent until he proved otherwise.”

Moreover, women get promoted on performance, and men get promoted on potential. According to research by McKinsey&Company, “Women must prove that they are capable of succeeding in a role before they are promoted into it, whereas men may be promoted on their perceived potential.” As a result, men often move up faster in organizations.

In addition, while talkative men are regarded as competent, talkative women are seen as incompetent. Depicting the existence of this stereotype, Victoria Brescoll, assistant professor of organizational behavior at the Yale School of Management, stated, “When women get power, talking a lot is seen negatively by other people.” Elaborating further, Brescoll said, “Women leaders who speak more are rated as signifncantly less competent and less suitable for leadership than a male CEO who was reported as speaking for the same amount of time.”

Yet another stereotype that women must confront is the one that asserts that angry women are overly emotional. Portraying the reality of this discrimination, Caryl Rivers, coathor of “The New Soft War on Women,” explained, “Research shows that both men and women think women should be nice, kind and nurturing, and that men should be strong.” Explaining further, Rivers stated, When men show anger, it looks like strength, but when women do the same, they are perceived as too emotional and out of control.”

Additionally, “men get a fatherhood bonus, and women get a motherhood penalty.” This discriminatory belief influences employers to believe that while “men will put more effort into succeeding at work once they become fathers, women will direct more effort towards their kids.”

“The minute women become mothers, the attitude towards them changes,” Rivers said. “When women become mothers, they suffer financially.”

Furthermore, women are oftentimes interrupted or ignored in meetings.

“When women speak at meetings, it’s very common that others may interrupt them, finish their sentences or not give them the focus and subtle encouragement to continue,” Sonya Rhodes stated. “More frustrating is when a woman offers her idea, and no one responds. Then, a few minutes later, a man in the room presents the same idea, and only then is it heard and received well.”

Also, it is more difficult for female speakers to both gain and retain attention. Women presenters at male-dominated events have a harder time getting the attention of the room,” Rhodes explained.

On a social sphere, it can also be difficult for women to gain traction in the workplace because women are frequently excluded from out-of-office events. “Getting together to drink, watch the game or play sports is typically how social bonds are formed at the office, and when valuable information, like who’s position might be opening up or how to get in the graces of a certain boss, is shared,” Rhodes shared. “When women aren’t included in these events, it can marginalize them and limit their knowledge.”

Along with the other forms of discrimination, in the workplace, women are also judged more harshly on their appearance than men. In a major survey conducted by the Center for Talent Innovation, “senior executives listed twice as many appearance blunders committed by women than men.” Also, the survey reported that while “women might be seen as lacking leadership skills if she’s slightly overweight, a man would only receive the same judgment if severely obese.”

In addition to the stereotypes that they suffer in the workplace, women must balance male mannerisms–which are generally celebrated in various spheres of employment–with female ones in order to avoid the “backlash effect.”

A Stanford Graduate School of Business study explains the “backlash effect” as a “conundrum that has plagued women in the business arena, in which, for them to be successful, they must be assertive and confident, but they are then simultaneously punished for behaving in ways that are contrary to the feminine stereotype.” To summarize the term, the “backlash effect” is the “negative response to assertive women.”

The study then goes on to suggest that “for women to be successful, they must simultaneously present themselves as self-confident and dominant while tempering these qualities with displays of communal characteristics.”

To summarize, due to the backlash effect inflicted upon women, in order for a woman to achieve the same level of success as a man, she must learn how to both assume celebrated male characteristics and smoothen them with various derided female qualities, a feat that can be extraordinarily difficult to achieve.

Lastly, even in fields dominated by women, female employees oftentimes suffer the “glass escalator effect.”

Defining the term, Christine L. Williams, a researcher for the University of California, explained the “glass escalator” as an effect in which “men in female-dominated careers, such as teaching and nursing, often rise higher and faster than women in male-dominated fields.”

According to Caren Goldberg, Ph.D. and assistant professor of management at American University’s Kogod School of Business, “Men that enter female-dominated professions tend to be promoted at faster rates than women in those professions.”

Elaborating further, Goldberg stated, “When you look at senior management, you tend to see men disproportionately represented. So while there may be less than 5 percent of all nurses who are male, you see a much larger percentage than 5 percent in senior-level positions like hospital administrators.”

Additionally, Goldberg said that “research shows that men in female-dominated fields tend to fare better even than men in male-dominated jobs, and they typically earn higher salaries, receive more promotions and achieve higher levels within organizations than their female counterparts.”

Explaining the reasons for why the “glass escalator effect” occurs, Goldberg attributes its existence to “women’s increased likelihood of experiencing ‘career interruptions,’ like taking time off to care for children or aging parents” and “stereotypes about men and the characteristics of strong leadership that work to men’s advantage.”

Namely, “stereotypes about what a prototypical man is match with stereotypes about what a prototypical manager is.” Consequently, “when in a female-dominated career field, there are few people who fit these stereotypes except for the men, causing them to be promoted faster and noticed more than the women in these occupations.” In addition, “the fact that men are a rarity brings awareness to them and their potential for promotions,” an effect that does not occur with women in male-dominated professions mainly because “women typically do not conform to the stereotypes of what a manager should be.”

Thus, because of sexism’s hindering effect on a woman’s socioeconomic prospects, in order to provide females a fair chance in the workplace, the following tasks should be performed: employers should undergo unconscious bias training to help prevent sexism from becoming an obstacle in either the hiring or promotions process; educational institutions should provide and promote leadership training programs for women; K-12 schools should encourage the creation of clubs that aid girls in fields that are historically dominated by males, such as STEM (Statistics, Technology, Engineering, Mathematics) fields.

While these efforts will not completely resolve the issues formed by sexism, which are deeply ingrained into our collective consciouses and culture, they will create a necessary platform to offer women the assistance and community they need in order to be successful in their chosen fields.