manual: women workers' rights and gender equality - International ...

4.3 Equality at Work
Objectives
• To understand the concept of equality at work
• To discuss inequality issues at the workplace
• To discuss measures to promote equality at the workplace
Target group
• Both men or women together or separately
• All ages
• All educational levels
• Formal sector workers
Material
• Flipchart or large sheet of paper
• Marker
Exercise
Step 1
• Place the flipchart or hang a large sheet of paper at a place where all participants can see it
clearly
• Explain to participants that you would like to discuss the different treatment of men and women
at the workplace
• Introduce Vibol and Sorya:
Vibol and Sorya are working for a small enterprise. They do exactly the same type of work and
both work 8 hours a day. They are both working two years for this enterprise. Vibol earns 40
dollars and Sorya 20 dollars per month.
• Draw a scale that is unbalanced because at one side is the salary of Vibol and at the other
side the salary of Sorya (see example drawing in the notes for the trainer)
• Ask the participants the following questions:
- What do they see?
- Why is this happening?
- Does it happen at their work?
- Do they think it is fair?
- What can be done about it in their view?
Step 2
• Give the participants another example: a man and a woman work in a shrimp factory where
the men shuffle the shrimp on the table and the women weight and check the shrimp to
distinguish the lighter from the heavier ones. The men are paid more than the women,
although the latter seems to require a higher skill
- Do they think this is fair?
- Can they give examples like this at their work?
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