Case Study on Gender Discrimination

Kaplan University |

Unit 7 Case Analysis |

Professor Morgan |

|

Beth Ingram |

4/19/2011 |

Unit 7 Assignment |

The United States government enacted the Civil Rights Act of 1964 and the Equal Pay Act of 1963 to combat gender discrimination. A section of the Civil Rights Act was amended in 1978 with the Pregnancy Discrimination Act to protect the interests of pregnant females in the workforce

* Gender discrimination is any unequal treatment based on gender and may also be referred to as sexism. Characteristics of gender discrimination are any situation where a person shows a prejudice towards another that would not occur had they been the opposite sex.

* Gender discrimination can apply most commonly to workplace scenarios, but can also apply to educational rights, in household gender roles and in community and organization roles.

Gender discrimination refers to any situation where a person is denied an opportunity or misjudged solely on the basis of their sex. The bona fide occupational qualification defense in Title VII allows intentional discrimination in some circumstances, stating: Not with standing any other provision of this subchapter ... it shall not be an unlawful employment practice for an employer to hire and employ employees ... on the basis of his religion, sex, or national origin in those certain instances where religion, sex, or national origin is a bona fide occupational qualification reasonably necessary to the normal operation of that particular business or enterprise.

An employer arguing a BFOQ defense based on privacy must generally establish three elements: "(1) it has a factual basis for believing that employees of a particular sex are necessary in order to protect the privacy interests of third parties involved; (2) the asserted privacy interest is entitled to protection under the law; and (3) there is no reasonable alternative to protect those privacy interests other than a sex-based policy." In analyzing the...