You know that you’re an excellent employee, and your track record speaks for itself. You’re highly educated and you have been very successful. When you apply for that promotion and watch it go to someone who is far inferior, you start to wonder if you’re being discriminated against by your employer.
Discrimination is so varied and widespread that it can impact you in numerous ways. In fact, you could be experiencing more than one kind of discrimination at once.
Here’s how different kinds of discrimination can intersect
For instance, maybe you’re a female worker from the Middle East. You immigrated to the United States 10 years ago. You believe your employer is discriminating against you, but why?
You could be experiencing discrimination because of your gender. If all of the promotions go to male coworkers, does that mean you have run into the ceiling in this corporation and you can’t advance any further because you’re a woman?
You could also be discriminated against on the basis of race or ethnicity. Now, you may say that your employer doesn’t even know what race you are, so that can’t be it. Not necessarily. The discrimination could be based on your region, the Middle East, making your national origin the sticking point. You could also be seeing discrimination based on your skin color, which leads your employer to make assumptions about your race.
Speaking of assumptions, this could even be religious discrimination. If your employer assumes that you’re Muslim and only wants to promote those with a Christian background, you could be discriminated against — even if you’re not actually part of any religion.
Fighting back against discrimination is your right
Workplace discrimination is illegal on any of these grounds. If you experience it anyway, you need to know what rights you have.
