Finding Your Way Back - Professional Women and Unjustified Dismissal

Have you ever wondered why many women put up with constant discrimination, bullying and harassment in the workplace and either leave quietly or find themselves exited for some nefarious reason?

I would hazard a guess it is because they are astute enough to know that to raise the issue is to raise the ire and the consequences are too substantial to overcome.

So, what becomes of those women who refuse to be bullied, who refuse to cower and refuse to compromise their integrity in the face of such unrelenting and shameful treatment? 

While the literature on employment disputes and their resolution is reasonably rich, studies that attempt to measure both the personal and financial costs to women, when reinstatement does not follow naturally from an Employment Court or Employment Relations Authority Decision of unjustified dismissal, are more limited.

Furthermore, very little is known about the interactions between the costs to their personal reputations for women following an employment dispute, and the ability of women to recommence work in an equivalent professional role and renumeration parity.

My latest foray into the wild world of academic research sees me exploring this familiar landscape but this time as a researcher rather than a refugee. My motivation for undertaking an LLM research study are twofold: first to estimate the personal and professional cost to women when reinstatement after unjust dismissal is not mandatory in the law; and second to identify the extent to which the assertion that a claim of personal grievance against an employer is career ending for women.

Of particular interest to me as a researcher and a refugee is whether or not women, who earned in excess of six figure salaries and find themselves exited from their careers can find their way back?