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Employment
Law : Gender Discrimination
Title VII and the Florida Civil Rights Act
prohibit sex discrimination in employment.
Terms or Conditions of Employment
Sex discrimination is treating an employee or
employees differently because of their gender.
Whenever this discrimination affects the "terms
or conditions of employment", it is illegal.
"Terms or conditions of employment" means just
about anything relating to someone's job: their
position, pay, title, hours, vacations, etc.
Whether or not a person is hired is also
considered a term or condition of employment.
There are two types of sex discrimination: "Disparate
Treatment" and "Disparate Impact."
Disparate Treatment
Disparate treatment is straightforward
discrimination. Simply put, it is treating a
person differently because of his or her sex.
Disparate Impact
Disparate impact discrimination is more
complicated. "Disparate impact" is where some
type of company policy excluded certain
individuals from the job or from promotions. The
policy wasn't designed to exclude them; that was
just the unfortunate result.
One example arose often in fire departments.
These agencies had various strength require-ments
for job applicants. Women were frequently unable
to meet these requirements. In some instances,
the requirements were absolutely necessary to
ensure the firefighters were quali-fied. But in
many instances, the requirements were simply too
high and unnecessary. Qualified women were
therefore being excluded unnecessarily. This
does not mean the fire departments were
necessarily trying to exclude women. That was
just the result of their policy; it had a
disparate impact upon women. Because the policy
wasn't sufficiently job-related (too much
strength was required) there was discrimination.
Stereotyping
It is also illegal to make employment decisions based on
stereotypes regarding gender. For example, in one case an
employer was held to have violated the Federal Title VII anti-discrim-ination
law when it delayed a female employee's promotion based in part
on evaluation com-ments describing her as "macho" and advising
her to "take a course in charm school". This woman was treated
differently because of her gender, and because she seemed too
"male."
Gender Roles
Frequently
employers expect women to have certain duties, such as caring
for children. In one case, an employer did not hire women with
preschool-age children, while at the same time it did hire men
with preschool-age children. Even though most of the people it
hired were women, there was still discrimination. The employer
didn't think women with young children should be working outside
the home. The employer is entitled to this belief. But he
couldn't let it affect his employment decisions. When his
beliefs did influence his hiring decisions, he broke the law.
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