Free Republic

AUSTRALIAN companies should be given five years to increase the number of women sitting on their boards before government legislation forces them to do it. Federal Sex Discrimination Commissioner Elizabeth Broderick has outlined her vision to steer corporate Australia toward "the road to gender equality". Just 8.3 per cent of board members in the nation's top 200 companies are women - the same number as two years ago. Ms Broderick said yesterday it was time for radical action to change that. She wants Australia's corporate governance rules to be changed to require top companies to set three- and five-year targets...

A San Francisco County judge, who yesterday struck down California’s ban on homosexual marriage, today ruled on the same basis that separate restrooms for men and women are unconstitutional. Superior Court Judge Richard Kramer likened the division of washrooms to laws requiring racial segregation in schools, and said there appears to be “no rational purpose for denying women access to men’s facilities and vice versa.” “The state’s protracted denial of equal protection cannot be justified simply because such constitutional violation has become traditional,” Judge Kramer wrote. “The court finds that the legal principle of lavatorio proportio [potty parity] offers inadequate...

... Two pay discrimination bills on the House floor Friday could be among the first that labor-friendly Barack Obama signs into law when he becomes president later this month. ... Last year, President George W. Bush threatened to veto both the Lily Ledbetter Fair Pay Act, which would overturn a 2007 Supreme Court decision making it more difficult to sue over past pay discrimination, and the Paycheck Fairness Act, which closes loopholes allowing employers to get around the 1963 law requiring equal pay for equal work. The bill the House is considering would clarify that each paycheck resulting from discrimination...

A former Army Special Forces commander passed over for a job as a terrorism analyst at the Library of Congress because he was in the process of becoming a she won a discrimination lawsuit on Friday.U.S. District Judge James Robinson ruled that the Library of Congress discriminated against Diane Schroer of Alexandria, Va., by not giving her the job after the former David Schroer disclosed he would start becoming Diane before beginning the new job. "The evidence establishes that the Library was enthusiastic about hiring David Schroer -- until she disclosed her transsexuality," Robinson wrote in his decision. "The Library...

No more 'ladies’ day' under sex laws shake-up By Patrick Hennessy Political Editor, Sunday Telegraph  Last Updated: 12:39am BST 03/06/2007   Private clubs are to be banned from discriminating against members and guests on the grounds of sex in a major shake-up of equality laws.The proposals will spell an end to the "sexist" practice of women being stopped from using certain dining rooms or bars, or only being allowed to play golf on certain days of the week.Plans for a Single Equality Act, which aims to bring up to date all existing discrimination legislation, are being drawn up by Ruth...

JEFFERSON CITY | Fred Ferrell, director of the Missouri Department of Agriculture, was forced to resign Monday in the face of allegations he sexually harassed a female employee. Gov. Matt Blunt, who previously had disciplined Ferrell for the alleged harassment and gender discrimination, requested Ferrell’s resignation. Democrats charged that the Republican governor only forced out Ferrell after an uproar started to build over the allegations. The resignation came after specific details of the alleged harassment and gender discrimination became public on Friday, when the agriculture department released a Missouri State Highway Patrol investigative report. Heather Elder, the former employee who...

Boeing Will Pay $72.5 Million to Settle Sex-Discrimination Suit Associated Press November 12, 2005 6:13 p.m. SEATTLE -- Boeing Co. has agreed to pay $72.5 million to thousands of women to settle a class-action action sex-discrimination lawsuit, according to documents filed Thursday in U.S. District Court. The pay out is the maximum allowed under a settlement agreement that won preliminary approval from a federal judge last year, The Seattle Times reported. As part of the deal, Boeing admitted no wrongdoing but agreed to change its hiring, pay, promotion practices and how it investigates employee complaints. "We've moved ahead on numerous...

Screaming and yelling by men at work may now be sex-based discrimination if women at work find the behavior more intimidating than men do. On September 2, 2005, in E.E.O.C. v. National Education Association, (No. 04-35029), the Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals ruled that the “reasonable woman” standard applies to workplace abusive conduct, even if there is no sexual content to the behavior. This decision significantly expands the types of behaviors that may furnish a basis for a claim of discrimination. Three women working for a labor union, the National Education Association, sued for gender discrimination claiming that the NEA...

NEW YORK - A violinist who claims the New York Philharmonic fired him because he is a man says some of the women who were promoted ahead of him gave flowers and other gifts to their bosses. Anton Polezhayev, 29, says in a lawsuit that he was asked to leave after the 2003-2004 season, in the last month of his 17-month probation, despite being told by orchestra officials that he was doing "a fine job" and that his playing was "perfect." Polezhayev's lawyer, Lenard Leeds, said Friday that the Philharmonic's personnel manager, Carl R. Schiebler, even wrote a letter to...

A five-star hotel in the South African port city of Durban is offering female guests rooms on a women-only floor. "The scheme was launched for security reasons. Women travelling alone are often uneasy," the Royal Hotel's deputy general manager Allen Munsami said. Female butlers will serve the food and extra feminine touches like manicure sets and magnifying mirrors for applying make-up will be available. The floor in the 251-room hotel will change from time to time for security. "We want women to feel confident about their safety," Mr Munsami told BBC News Website. But they will have to pay a...

DURHAM — The University of New Hampshire is investigating a possible case of discrimination in which a male student says he was asked to leave a public feminist poetry event where women wore scissors on their necks and talked of castrating rapists. But one of the student organizers of the event says the man was asked to leave because he was a journalist for a student paper — "not because he is a man" — and that some women wanted to be anonymous when sharing personal stories that included experiences with rape. UNH senior David Huffman, 22, of Hollis, said...

Mideast Muslims outraged, see 'conspiracy' after woman leads prayers in U.S. 05:56 PM EST Mar 19 NADIA ABOU EL-MAGD CAIRO, Egypt (AP) - Muslims in the Middle East on Saturday angrily denounced prayers led by a woman in New York City the day before as a violation of Islam. One Egyptian newspaper, Al-Messa, reported the news of Amina Wadud leading Friday prayer services on its front page, with the emphatic headline: They are tarnishing Islam in America! It referred to Wadud as "the deranged woman." A female Islamic law professor condemned the act as apostasy, explaining that a woman's body...

SAN FRANCISCO (Reuters) - A female bartender who refused to wear makeup at a Reno, Nevada, casino was not unfairly dismissed from her job, a U.S. federal appeals court ruled on Tuesday. Darlene Jespersen, who had worked for nearly 20 years at a Harrah's Entertainment Inc casino bar in Reno, Nevada, objected to the company's revised policy that required female bartenders, but not men, to wear makeup. A previously much-praised employee, Jespersen was fired in 2000 after the firm instituted a "Beverage Department Image Transformation" program and she sued, alleging sex discrimination. In a 2-1 decision, a three-judge panel of...

Former executive at the London offices of Merrill Lynch has lost her £7.5m ($14.6m) sex discrimination case against the US investment bank. An employment tribunal dismissed Stephanie Villalba's allegations of sexual discrimination and unequal pay. But the 42-year-old won her claim of unfair dismissal, resulting from her sacking in August 2003. The part victory is likely to reduce her compensation to about £50k, a fraction of what she was demanding, damages will be decided in the New Year. The action - the biggest claim heard by an employment tribunal in the UK - had been viewed as a potential landmark...

Key points • Hereditary heir to British throne criticises those with 'ideas above their station' • Such as former secretary, who is claiming unfair dismissal and sexual discrimination • More unwelcome ructions from Clarence House for Monarchy Key quote"People think they can all be pop stars, high court judges, brilliant TV personalities or infinitely more competent heads of state without ever putting in the necessary work or having natural ability. This is the result of social utopianism which believes humanity can be genetically and socially engineered to contradict the lessons of history." - Prince Charles PRINCE Charles’s latest pronouncement on...

LONDON, England (AP) -- A woman who worked as a secretary for Prince Charles' royal staff has filed a complaint alleging sex discrimination and unfair dismissal, officials said Tuesday. Elaine Day worked as a personal assistant during her five years in employment at Clarence House, Prince Charles' London residence, before she left earlier this year.

<p>Don't blame girls, women By Jacqueline E. Woods The American Association of University Women (AAUW) is troubled by recent suggestions that girls and women are somehow to blame for the fact that boys are not excelling in certain academic areas. Is there a "gender war" being waged against boys, as some have claimed? Gender inequity in education is a complex issue. Two years ago, AAUW published "Beyond the 'Gender Wars,' " a summary of the views of some of America's foremost researchers of boys and girls regarding a range of gender-equity questions. One of the major conclusions shared by these researchers was that we do not need to "fix the boys" or "fix the girls."</p>

Augusta National Golf Club is putting its money where its mouth is in its fight with a women's group pressuring the club to admit a female member. Club chairman Hootie Johnson announced Friday that because corporate sponsors of the Masters' telecast are being pressured by the National Council of Women's Organizations, the 2003 tournament will be shown without sponsors or commercials. At least golf fans will benefit from the fight. The 2003 telecast would have contained its normal four commerical minutes per hour. With 12 1/2 hours of live programming, that's 50 minutes of commericials that will not take golf...

Let's make sure boys get to university Stephen T. Easton National Post The last decade of the 20th century saw a profound change in the enrollment structure of Canadian higher education. From 1987 to 1997, total university enrollment increased from 486,000 to 573,000. At the same time, the percentage of women enrolled increased from rough parity in 1987 to a level where there are now 120 women for every 100 men on campus. Remarkably, the national average is is reflected faithfully at the provincial level. This may be a boon for the social lives of the young men, but the...

A pregnant secretary was not the victim of sex discrimination when she was fired by a boss who wanted to reassure his wife he wasn't romantically involved with the woman, a state appeals court has ruled. The Supreme Court's Appellate Division said in a 5-0 decision Tuesday that Mayra Rivera-Maldonado was fired because the physician she worked for was trying to save his marriage not because of discrimination. The court reversed the state Division of Human Rights' finding that Dr. Rainer N. Mittl, an ophthalmologist, discriminated against Rivera-Maldonado. The agency had awarded her more than $178,000 in back pay and...