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| 'New Moms Should Stay Home' Is Biased |
Managers making dumb statements about gender roles and family duties can easily lead to claims for illegal "sex stereotyping." Here are two cases involving sex stereotyping about women workers with new children at home.
Be with your baby (at home)
Although the Pep Boys auto shop in West Hartford (CT) says it fired Gisela Rolon for giving customers improper discounts, she claims she was the victim of sex stereotyping.
Rolon says her supervisor, John Samela, refused to let her work full time after she returned from maternity leave. Rolon says Samela told her, "Go home and be with your baby. We don't have work for you," and "Why are you working? You don't want to be here when you have a new baby at home." Soon after, she was fired.
"A reasonable jury could view the remarks as discriminatory because they suggested that Rolon should not have returned to work after giving birth," the Court ruled. "Samela's status as Rolon's supervisor, the proximity of the remarks to the termination, and the discriminatory content of the remarks all suggest an inference of discrimination on the basis of sex and pregnancy." [Rolon v. Pep Boys (CT 2009) no. 3:07-cv-00156]
Working moms won't perform
Shortly after Karen Gerving complained about her supervisor's sex stereotypical remarks, the Aladdin Resort and Casino in Nevada fired her.
Gerving claims her supervisor, Jim Lauster, began to give her poor performance reviews after she became a stepmother. She says Lauster told her (1) working mothers could not perform as well as men, or women without children; (2) mothers should stay at home; and (3) she would have to choose between being a mother and a sales manager.
"Although Aladdin cited customer complaints about Gerving [and] poor performance ... as nondiscriminatory reasons for her termination, Gerving presented ... evidence that those reasons were pretextual [including that] her performance reviews were satisfactory until she became a stepmother," the Court wrote. "From this specific evidence, a reasonable jury might conclude that Gerving was terminated in retaliation for complaining about Lauster's discriminatory comments, and that her termination was motivated by discriminatory animus." [Gerving v. Opbiz (9th Cir. 2009) no. 07-16822]
For information on this topic, request: |
5560 Sex Discrimination: Overview
5610 Definition of Pregnancy & Maternity Discrimination
9510 Equal Employment Opportunity Policy
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