Women and Justice: Keywords

Plaintiff sought to challenge what he saw as state-sponsored and supported gender bias against men. He alleged that the New Zealand Bill of Rights Act of 1990 is discriminatory because it specifically requires that a range of broadcasts be available to provide for the interests of women while failing to include men, and that in doing so, the Act implicitly discriminates against men. The High Court dismissed the case based on the defendant agencies’ lack of standing to defend the claim, and therefore lack of jurisdiction by the High Court to hear the case.

Ms. Strickland sued her former employer, Prime Care of Dothan, on the theory Prime Care terminated her employment as a medical assistant because of her pregnancy. Prime Care filed a motion for summary judgment on the sole issue of whether Ms. Strickland had sufficient evidence to create an issue of fact on the question of pretext. In order to rebut the inference of discrimination, Prime Care was required to articulate a legitimate nondiscriminatory reason for its decision to terminate Ms. Strickland. To this end, Prime Care asserted that it based its termination decision on violation of work rules, including that Ms. Strickland was rude and/or unprofessional on several occasions, was frequently tardy, and failed to return to work after attending a doctor’s visit. Because, if true, the reasons asserted by Prime Care were nondiscriminatory, the burden shifted back to Ms. Strickland to show that the proffered reasons were really pretext for unlawful discrimination. Ms. Strickland achieved this by showing her conduct did not violate Prime Care’s established policies, and presenting circumstantial evidence that, if true, demonstrated her supervisor harbored a discriminatory animus toward unmarried pregnant women. Prime Care also argued that even if it did discriminate against unmarried, pregnant women, such discrimination did not violate Title VII because the differential treatment was not based on sex. Rather, Prime Care claimed such a policy was neutral toward women, since women were both members of the group of married pregnant women and unmarried pregnant women. The court held that Congress and the Supreme Court had expressly rejected this argument, finding that the terms “because of sex” or “on the basis of sex” include because of or on the basis of pregnancy. Thus, an employer violated the Pregnancy Discrimination Act when it premises an employment decision, in whole or in part, on the fact that one of its female employees or applicants was pregnant out of wedlock. For these reasons, the court denied Prime Care’s motion for summary judgment.

Plaintiff was hired as a police officer. Since the beginning of her employment she felt that other members of the Department were unhappy because they felt it was not a job for women. Plaintiff also suffered sexual harassment. During her first four years there, plaintiff had a locker in the men’s room as there were no women’s locker rooms, and male co-workers would shower and walk around naked in the locker room. Plaintiff’s boss told her that he did not expect her to make it as an officer, that he did not want women on the job, and that he would not accommodate her, but that he had a mattress waiting for her in his closet. The plaintiff interpreted this as a sexual advance. Plaintiff also received other inappropriate remarks, for example, in response to plaintiff’s complaint about not having a shower, her boss told her several times that he would wash her. Officers also kept pornographic magazines and pinups both at work and in patrol cars. The plaintiff also received in her mailbox at work panties, a motel key, and a note reading, “back stabbing c-t.” There were also sexual cartoons, some pertaining to her and others to other women. Plaintiff ultimately sued for sexual harassment and sex discrimination. At trial, the jury awarded the plaintiff $1 million in compensatory damages and $500,000 in punitive damages. The trial court vacated the punitive damages and reduced the compensatory damages. The defendant appealed, asserting laches – that the plaintiff unreasonably delayed in filing the suit. The court found the defendant did not make an adequate factual record in this defense and it otherwise affirmed the holding finding the defendant liable.

Special journal issue of the African Development Bank focused on gender statistics.

Report published by the World Economic Forum presenting the scope of gender-based disparities and tracking their progress by providing benchmarks of national gender gaps on economic, political, education- and health-based criteria (2010).

UN Women report presenting innovative measures states and international institutions are taking to increase accountability to women, focusing on politics and governance, access to public services, economic opportunities, justice, and the distribution of international assistance for development and security (2008).

Report of the Partners for Gender Justice Conference, Accra, Ghana 19-21 Nov. 2008. French version.