Employ Respons Rights J (2007) 19:95–111 DOI 10.1007/s10672-007-9037-z
Appearance-based Sex Discrimination and Stereotyping in the Workplace: Whose Conduct Should We Regulate?
Stan Malos
Published online: 12 April 2007 # Springer Science + Business Media, LLC 2007
Abstract Court treatment of sex discrimination and harassment claims based on appearance and gender stereotyping has been inconsistent, particularly where the facts involve reference to sexual orientation. Ironically, court willingness to allow such claims may turn on the choice of verbal or physical conduct by, or the sex or sexual orientation of, the alleged offenders. Because plaintiffs in such situations may assert retaliation claims to increase their chances of
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Johnson 1976; Philips v. Martin Marietta Corp. 1971; UAW v. Johnson Controls, Inc. 1991; Wilson v. Southwest Airlines Co. 1981). Such regulations, including limitations or prohibitions applicable to hair length, hair style, uniforms, jewelry, and (more recently) body piercings, have drawn minimal judicial concern under Title VII because they do not involve “immutable characteristics” such as race or color, and individuals typically have the ability to comply (see, e.g., Baker v. Cal. Land Title 1974, and Harper v. Blockbuster 1998 [hair length]; Booth et al. v. Maryland Dept. of Public Safety 2003 [dreadlocks]; Cloutier v. Costco 2004 [piercing and body modification]). Although courts generally have been deferential to an employer’s desire to regulate employee appearance in order to present to its customers a professional-looking workforce (Cloutier v. Costco 2004; Wisely v. Harrah’s 2004), where appearance standards clearly apply differently to men and women, they are typically held to be prima facie discriminatory under Title VII, and thus sustainable only if based on a BFOQ. For example, in Frank v. United Airlines (2000), the Ninth Circuit held that flight attendant weight
Plaintiff Jocelyn Harkin (“Harkin” or “Plaintiff”) alleges that Starboard are culpable to her for violations of Title VII by discriminating against her based-on sex, [dkt. 1 at ¶223], and for retaliation for her utilizing her rights under Title VII, [id. 1 at ¶25], and for violating the Equal Pay Act [id. 1 at ¶27]. The Complaint provides no factual allegations that meet pleading standards of the foregoing federal statutes. Since she fails to allege any basis for imposing liability against Starboard under Title VII for retaliation or under the Equal Pay Act, Harkin’s complaints of retaliation and violations
Plaintiff, Deborah Burke, submits this memorandum in opposition to Defendant Strickland Watson Pierce, P.C.’s Motion to Dismiss. Plaintiff’s retaliation claim should not be dismissed because she exhausted all the administrative remedies by filing a charge of discrimination with the EEOC and being terminated during the investigation. Jones v. Calvert Group, Ltd., 551 F.3d 297 (4th Cir. 2009); Clockedile v. New Hampshire Dept. of Corr., 245 F.3d 1 (1st Cir. 2001); Franceschi v. U.S. Dept. of Veterans Affairs, 514 F.3d 81 (1st Cir. 2008). Further, the conduct she suffered in the workplace was sufficiently severe to qualify as a sexually hostile environment. The Court should deny the motion.
The case of Dothard v. Rawlinson presented two separate factors, the first was that of discrimination against gender based upon height and weight, the second was discrimination against women impartially (Cornell University Law School, n.d.). The court upheld that limiting hiring based on height and weight could not be a substantial judgment of strength. This ruling paved a new road for several individuals to enter into a career in law enforcement that had previously been restricted from doing so. The statistics presented in the Dothard v. Rawlinson case displayed that over 40% of females were automatically eliminated from the application pool due to the height and weight restrictions, consequently, less that 1% of male applicants were affected
Public Law 88-352 (78 Stat. 241) included sex to ensure women rights were included in the law as well. It was from this act Equal Employment Opportunity Commission (EEOC) to implement the law. “Today, according to the U. S. Government Manual of 1998-99, the EEOC enforces laws that prohibit discrimination based on race, color, religion, sex, national origin, disability, or age in hiring, promoting, firing, setting wages, testing, training, apprenticeship, and all other terms and conditions of employment. Race, color, sex, creed, and age are now protected classes”, reports www.archives.gov. The EEOC investigates charges of discrimination against employers. The EEOC will file a lawsuit if the charges are proven and they are unable to settle with the employer. To be covered by the EEOC laws, you must have at least 15 employees
Thus, an employer violates Title VII when the workplace is filled with discriminatory sex-based intimidation, ridicule, and insult that is sufficiently severe or pervasive to alter the conditions of the victim 's employment and create an abusive working environment. In order to establish that she has an actionable claim for sexual harassment in the workplace under Title VII, Mrs. Singleton was required to exhibit that the offensive conduct was unwelcome, was based on her sex, was sufficiently severe or pervasive to alter the conditions of her employment and create an abusive work environment, and was imputable to her employer (Wellington-James, 2015).
Under Title VII sexual harassment is considered unwelcome sexual advances, requests for sexual favors, and other verbal or physical conduct of sexual nature that makes a submission a condition of employment or a factor in employment decisions or that creates an intimidating hostile or offensive work environment. There are two types of sexual harassment that of quid pro quo or creation of Hostile environment, which is allegedly what Hamilton is accusing her supervisor for. However, a hostile environment was never created. The supervisor told Hamilton that she was gay to make her aware. She invited not just Hamilton, but the rest of the department for a night out. She complimented Hamilton’s wardrobe, not complemented her legs in a sexual way. The supervisor didn’t cross the line of sexual harassment because she never took offensive or hostile action to create such work environment. I think Hamilton so upset that her supervisor fired her, that she tried to accuse her of sexual harassment based on the simply things she’s
As defined by the United States' Equal Employment Opportunity Commission (EEOC), "It is unlawful to harass a person (an applicant or employee) because of that person's sex." Harassment can include "sexual harassment" or unwelcome sexual advances, requests for sexual favors, and other verbal or physical harassment of a sexual nature. I also want to point out that it is illegal to discriminate against employees who have an injury or disability, or who file any type of compensation claim.
Charges of workplace discrimination is said to be at an all time high. During the 2015 fiscal year the U.S. Equal Employment Opportunity released information that claims there were more than 89,000 charges filed for workplace discrimination. One of the top ten charges is said to be retaliation, which had an estimate 39,757 cases in 2015, which is 44.5 percent of all charges filed. Retaliation is said to be in violation of the Title VII of the Civil Rights Act of 1964, For the purpose of this research paper I will provide the understanding of both Acts, while also taking a case that deals with to provide the basis of the case, the findings, and the outcome of the charges.
Providing equality within sexual harassment cases gives rise to the question of the Reasonable Woman Standard, a gendered variant of the Reasonable Person Standard. I will argue in this essay that the reasonable woman standard in theory, is a progressive concept; however, in practice it hinders the unobstructed application of the law and negatively affects women.
Like employment discrimination, sexual discrimination is something both male and female officers’ face in the workforce, internally and externally. However, it is the female officer that is the more common victim to this rather than their male counterpart. An example of internal sexual discrimination would be a male officer telling there counterpart that “women have no right being in part of an organization that strongly relies on men to get the job done.” This may also be known as a form of sexual harassment toward a co-worker which is unacceptable in any job. An example of external sexual discrimination would be when a female officer arrives to the scene of a crime and the victim refuses to cooperate with them because of the fact that they were expecting assistance from someone of more masculinity, like a male officer. Ethically, if any of these scenarios were to happen to either gender of law enforcement, the best thing to do once more is set aside all emotions for the time being.
Gender discrimination is discrimination based on the sex of a person, and there is a common violation of civil rights in many forms which may include: sexual harassment, pregnancy discrimination and unequal judgment due to sex
Harassment has no boundaries when it comes to race, age, or gender. As mentioned previously, there are sometimes underlying problems when it comes to lower-status positions and high-status positions. Power can be dangerous in the hands of the wrong person and can often be said in the workplace where power can lead to sexual harassment. Debbie Dougherty, an assistant professor of communication in the College of Arts and Science at the University of Missouri-Columbia, did an assessment based on opinions and perceptions of 23 participants. The study was focused around the question “why does sexual harassment occur?” and the most common answer that came up was “power.” One thing Debbie noticed was the fact that men and women had different opinions
Verbal hostility is one characteristic of sex discrimination. Verbal hostility refers to any language or behavior that seeks to coerce its victims to doubt their perceptions or their abilities to subjugate themselves to the abuser. Verbal hostility is especially prominent with individuals that belong to the lesbian, gays, bisexual and transgender (LGBT) community. The LGBT community has received negative stigmatization because of their sexual orientation. As a consequence of this, the LGBT community has faced verbal hostility treatments such as physical assault. For example, perfect strangers often act violently by kicking, hitting and even stabbing LGBT members because of their sexual orientation. Harassment also continues to affect the LGBT
Being a member of a protected group was established by Title VII by the Supreme Court including the protection for both male and females. All individuals regardless of gender are protected by Title VII. An individual must prove that they did not welcome the behavior or gestures which were displayed in a sexual nature. The plaintiff would need to prove that any harassment they endured was initiated because of the individuals gender whether it be male or female. An individual does not have to endure situations which cause their work environment to become hostile because of sufficiently severe or pervasive behavior by another individual.
The Canterbury tales collection by Geoffrey Chaucer presents varied characters that each one have to tell a tale in their way to Canterbury, those characters belongs to different social, religious classes. In the time of many religious social differences has happened, such as the raise of doubt towards corrupted churches and religion in general, it could be noticed how Chaucer portrays the characters in several different ways, there are the good heroine characters, the low class characters, the holly religious characters, the corrupted greedy characters and so on. Through roaming in the Canterbury tales collection, there were several tales were told by religious characters that have drawn my attention to it, such as the Prioress's Tale and the second Nun's Tale. Both of these tales opened my eyes to notice how Chaucer uses the concept of religion in an ambiguous way to serve his portrayed aim behind each tale. Therefore, in this paper I tend