Sexual Discrimination Against Women

Sexual discrimination can arise in different contexts. For instance an employee may be discriminated against by being asked discriminatory questions during a job interview, or because an employer did not hire, promote or wrongfully terminated an employee based on his or her gender, or employers pay unequally based on gender. In an educational setting there could be claims that a student was excluded from an educational institution, program, opportunity, loan, student group, or scholarship on account of his or her gender. In the housing setting there could be claims that a person was refused negotiations on seeking a house, contracting/leasing a house or getting a loan based on his or her gender.

Socially, sexual differences have been used to justify different roles for men and women, in some cases giving rise to claims of primary and secondary roles. While there are non-physical differences between men and women, there is little agreement as to what those differences are.

These examples of sex discrimination are to help you decide if you are being discriminated against because of your sex.

Hiring
You apply for a job as an executive consultant.Although you have experience and excellent qualifications, you are not hired because some of the company’s long-time clients are more comfortable dealing with men.
Firing
You are told that you are laid off due to company cutbacks and reorganization.However, men in the same job and with less seniority keep their jobs.
Promotion
You work as a sales clerk at a retail store for ten years but have been repeatedly denied the opportunity to advance.Men with less experience, including men that you trained and/or supervised, receive the promotions instead.
Job Classification
You work at a company that has an eight-tier job classification system.Your responsibilities have increased over time, but your job classification and pay has remained stagnant. Male colleagues have their job classification and pay adjusted to reflect their increased responsibilities.

Benefits
You are required to use your sick and vacation leave to take time off for your pregnancy because your employer doesn’t provide long-term disability leave for pregnancy, but does cover other health conditions. A male co-worker was on leave for six months because he had a heart attack and he was able to use the long-term disability plan.
Pay
You work your way up from the position of cook’s helper to chef.Now another chef has been hired. He has similar training and work experience, but you find out that he is being paid more than you.
Sexual Harassment
Your boss is the vice-president of the company.He repeatedly makes unwelcome comments about your body and routinely puts his arm around your waist when discussing work-related matters. You tell him his behavior makes you uncomfortable and ask him to stop. He says, “Maybe you are too uptight for this job. I probably should never have hired you.“ You now are afraid of losing your job if you don’t “loosen up.”