Skip to main content Accessibility help
×
Hostname: page-component-586b7cd67f-rcrh6 Total loading time: 0 Render date: 2024-11-26T01:26:01.347Z Has data issue: false hasContentIssue false

5 - Harassment Because of Sex

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  01 October 2020

Ann C. McGinley
Affiliation:
University of Nevada, Las Vegas
Nicole Buonocore Porter
Affiliation:
University of Toledo, Ohio
Get access

Summary

In Chapter 5, Meritor Savings Bank, FSB v. Vinson and Oncale v. Sundowner Services deal, respectively, with the proof standards for sexual harassment and the question of whether and when Title VII forbids same-sex harassment. The rewritten Meritor dramatically alters the standard for employer liability, holding employers strictly liable for sexual harassment by supervisors, with no affirmative defense. Rewritten Oncale concludes that same-sex harassment (and hence harassment based on sexual orientation and gender identity) are illegal sex discrimination that occur “because of sex.” By making employers strictly liable, the rewritten Meritor would have effectively precluded hundreds of subsequent lower court cases and two Supreme Court cases. While the original Oncale openly refused to relate the egregious harms that the plaintiff had allegedly suffered, the rewritten opinion employs feminist storytelling techniques to demonstrate the harms suffered by the male plaintiff at the hands of his male coworkers. It explains that harassment by men of other men often occurs because of societal pressures on men to prove their masculinity and to police the boundaries of sex and sexuality.

Type
Chapter
Information
Feminist Judgments
Rewritten Employment Discrimination Opinions
, pp. 215 - 265
Publisher: Cambridge University Press
Print publication year: 2020

Access options

Get access to the full version of this content by using one of the access options below. (Log in options will check for institutional or personal access. Content may require purchase if you do not have access.)

Save book to Kindle

To save this book to your Kindle, first ensure [email protected] is added to your Approved Personal Document E-mail List under your Personal Document Settings on the Manage Your Content and Devices page of your Amazon account. Then enter the ‘name’ part of your Kindle email address below. Find out more about saving to your Kindle.

Note you can select to save to either the @free.kindle.com or @kindle.com variations. ‘@free.kindle.com’ emails are free but can only be saved to your device when it is connected to wi-fi. ‘@kindle.com’ emails can be delivered even when you are not connected to wi-fi, but note that service fees apply.

Find out more about the Kindle Personal Document Service.

Available formats
×

Save book to Dropbox

To save content items to your account, please confirm that you agree to abide by our usage policies. If this is the first time you use this feature, you will be asked to authorise Cambridge Core to connect with your account. Find out more about saving content to Dropbox.

Available formats
×

Save book to Google Drive

To save content items to your account, please confirm that you agree to abide by our usage policies. If this is the first time you use this feature, you will be asked to authorise Cambridge Core to connect with your account. Find out more about saving content to Google Drive.

Available formats
×