Steel Barrier: Legal Implications from a Gender Equal Opportunity perspective/Barreras De Acero: Implicaciones Legales Desde Una Perspectiva De Gã©nero E Igualdad De Oportunidades

ARTICLE INFORMATIONManuscript received: 30/07/2014Revision received: 20/10/14Accepted: 18/11/14Keywords:Equal opportunitiesIndirect discriminationBarriers to promotionExpatriate womenPalabras clave:Igualdad de oportunidadesDiscriminaciA³n indirectaBarreras a la promociA³nMujeres expatriadasABSTRACTIn recent decades, legal Acts, norms, and regulations have proliferated in order to ensure equal opportunities for women and men in multiple contexts, including public and private organizations. Nevertheless, there is sufficient evidence to suggest that, to date, real and legal equality do not match. The current context of the global economy suggests that there may now be a new barrier, related to the fact that women have been partially excluded from positions abroad which would facilitate the acquisition of professional and personal skills which are essential in the present century. This new inequality in access to senior management seems to be in contradiction with the different pressures and initiatives put in place to achieve equality of opportunities between women and men, protected in our national and international laws. In this paper, the main causes excluding women from international assignments, and consequently from senior management, are reviewed, highlighting the motivational and legal aftereffects that this trend may have.© 2014 Colegio Oficial de PsicA³logos de Madrid. Production by Elsevier EspaA±a, S.L. All rights reserved.Barreras de acero: implicaciones legales desde una perspectiva de gA©nero e igualdad de oportunidadesRESUMENEn las Aoltimas dA©cadas han proliferado diversas disposiciones legales y normativas con el objetivo de garantizar la igualdad de oportunidades entre mujeres y hombres en mAoltiples contextos, entre ellos el que ataA±e a las organizaciones pAoblicas y privadas. Pese a ello, existe suficiente evidencia de que la igualdad real no se acerca, hasta la fecha, a la legal. El contexto actual de economA­a globalizada sugiere que puede aparecer una nueva barrera, al quedar la mujer excluida parcialmente de puestos en el extranjero que le facilitan la adquisiciA³n de capacidades profesionales y personales imprescindibles en el siglo actual. Esta nueva desigualdad en el acceso a puestos de alta direcciA³n no parece responder a las distintas presiones e iniciativas por conseguir la igualdad de oportunidades entre hombres y mujeres, protegida en nuestro ordenamiento jurA­dico nacional e internacional. En este trabajo revisamos las principales causas que alejan a la mujer de los puestos internacionales y, en consecuencia, de la alta direcciA³n, resaltando las derivaciones motivacionales y legales que dicha tendencia pudiese tener.© 2014 Colegio Oficial de PsicA³logos de Madrid. Producido por Elsevier EspaA±a, S.L. Todos los derechos reservados.In the last decade, in the European Union especially but also in other countries, legislators have developed various norms with the aim to protect and guarantee equal opportunities in employment. Directives 2010/41/EU (European Union, 2010), 2006/54/EC (European Commission, 2006), 2004/113/EC (European Union, 2004), 2002/731/EC (European Union, 2012a), and 2000/78/EC (Council of the European Union, 2010a) provide examples in this sense. Spain, as a member of the European Union, has assumed those regulations and, in a further step towards the achievement of real equality, approved in 2007 a law for the effective equality of opportunities between women and men, with the rank of Organic Law (Ley OrgAinica 3/2007, de 22 de marzo, para la igualdad efectiva de mujeres y hombres). This law, which is considered pioneering within the EU, introduces new aspects in its provisions, such as the concepts of direct and indirect discrimination, the shift of the burden of proof in cases of discrimination, the contemplation of affirmative actions, the prevention of discriminatory behaviors, and the recommendation of the design of active procedures to implement the principle of equality. …