National Women's Law Center

SEX DISCRIMINATION IN THE AMERICAN WORKPLACE:
STILL A FACT OF LIFE

Discrimination against women in the American workplace is very much alive and well. Although much has changed for the better in the nearly four decades since the enactment of the Civil Rights Act of 1964, the Equal Pay Act, and other
prohibitions against employment discrimination based on sex, women continue to encounter serious obstacles to equal job opportunity. Women continue to be passed over for jobs and promotions for which they are qualified; to be paid less than
men for equal work; to be sexually harassed on the job; and to be disadvantaged in numerous other ways based not on their abilities or their qualifications but on the fact that they are female. The illustrative cases and other evidence summarized below make this all too clear. That is why aggressive enforcement of the anti-discrimination laws, as well as affirmative action measures for women in the workplace - to ensure that qualified women are fully considered for job openings and for promotion opportunities - remain essential.

Sex Discrimination Cases

Specific examples of blatant discrimination against women in the workplace are not hard to find. In 1999, nearly 24,000 sex discrimination complaints were filed with the Equal Employment Opportunity Commission.(1) Numerous workplace
sex-discrimination cases fill the courts as well. Set forth below are just a few egregious examples of court cases drawn from judicial decisions and newspaper articles between 1991 and 2000. The experiences recounted here occurred in
every part of the United States and in every kind of workplace. They affected secretaries, saleswomen, cashiers, prison guards, stock brokers, attorneys, factory workers, police officers, air traffic controllers, college professors - women from
just about every walk of American life. They involved sexual harassment, unequal pay for equal work, and discrimination in hiring, firing, promotions and job assignments. And these examples represent just a small sampling of the large number
of cases demonstrating the sex discrimination women continue to face in our country today.

A federal court found that Lucky Stores, a grocery store chain in California, discriminated against women in promotions and hiring. Notes from a meeting on discrimination issues attended by store management included comments such as "men do not want competition from women," "women don't have as much drive to get ahead," "the crew won't work for a black female," "customers might object to seeing a woman in management," and "[it is] impossible [to] . . . find qualified women."(2) A teenaged boy who joined the company was given training opportunities that his mother - a cash register operator at Lucky for 21 years - had never had.(3) The company eventually settled, paying some 12,000 women employees $107 million.(4)

When the only female salesperson at a Pennsylvania car dealership requested a six-week leave for medical reasons during her pregnancy, the general manager fired her and declared he would never hire another woman or black. The record showed no white male employee had ever been fired for medical problems.(5)

In March 2000, the federal government agreed to pay $508 million to a class of more than 1,100 women who alleged that the Voice of America and U.S. Information Agency denied them jobs because of their gender. The plaintiffs claimed that the government engaged in a deliberate policy of excluding women from consideration for several occupations, such as writer, editor, foreign language broadcaster, and technical positions. Examples of gender bias alleged by the women included rigging tests to ensure that preselected male candidates were hired, selection of males who failed tests over women who passed the same tests, and subsequent destruction of tests files to cover up the policy of sex discrimination.(6)

A Louisiana corrections facility discriminated against women in hiring by requiring female applicants to have a higher minimum passing score on a written examination than men. The minimum passing score was 105 for women and only 90 for men. One female applicant who scored a 100 on the exam was disqualified while a male applicant who scored 79 was hired, even though he had a prior arrest record and lacked a high school diploma.(7)

Del Laboratories, a New York cosmetics and pharmaceutical company, agreed to settle for $1.2 million an EEOC complaint filed on behalf of 15 female employees. The women, mostly members of a secretarial pool, claimed that they were sexually harassed by the company's chief executive officer, who indulged for years in lewd and abusive behavior toward them. His behavior reportedly included grabbing one woman's breast, conducting business with his fly open and other crude acts. The secretaries also claimed that the company tried to coerce them into lying about what they had experienced.(8)

In a sexual harassment suit against Smith Barney, a major investment banking and brokerage firm, female employees allege that managers at the firm engaged in sexual harassment and retaliated against the women who dared to complain. One branch manager is accused of building a room in the basement of the office called the "boom boom room." The branch manager claimed that female employees "who did not behave would be 'dealt with' in the 'boom boom room.'"(9) The suit also alleges that the company excluded qualified women from its training program, did not promote women, did not provide equal pay, penalized women for taking maternity leave and generally created a hostile and offensive work environment.(10)

A class action filed in California against the Publix supermarket chain was settled for $81.5 million. The lawsuit alleged that women were excluded from management level positions, were segregated into what the company considered stereotypical "female" jobs and were denied higher paying job opportunities. The plaintiffs alleged that despite the fact that 50% of the company's employees were women, there had been only one female district manager in 66 years (hired in 1994) and 80% of the store managers were male.(11)

In a suit filed in federal court, 28 former and current female employees of Boeing Co., the Seattle-based aerospace giant, allege that the company discriminated against at least 45,000 female workers in pay, promotions and other workplace benefits. According to the complaint, "women lucky enough to be assigned to 'skill' departments [were] often asked to sweep the floors or clean up after the male workers, rather than perform the assigned skill-related tasks."(12) The suit follows a Labor Department settlement in which Boeing agreed to pay over $4.5 million to resolve claims that the company underpaid women and minorities.(13)

Women at a chili processing plant in California filed suit claiming that they were forced to wear diapers because they were denied bathroom breaks. The women also alleged that they were steered to assembly line jobs, while men were assigned to machine and forklift jobs where they could take bathroom breaks at will. Women who did steal bathroom breaks were suspended for three days without pay. The suit was settled for an undisclosed amount in April 1996.(14)

In a class action suit against W.R. Grace & Co. and Townsend Culinary, Inc., the plaintiffs, 22 recent immigrants from Central America who spoke little English, accused male managers and co-workers at a food processing plant in Laurel, Maryland of routinely groping them and making explicit requests for sex. One woman was allegedly locked in a freezer by her supervisor after she turned down his sexual request, and two other women - pregnant at the time - were demoted and eventually fired after refusing to have sex with plant managers.(15) Grace and Townsend agreed to settle the case for $1 million in June 2000.(16) W.R. Grace will also pay $187,000 to settle charges that its Northern California chemical plant refused to hire women.(17)

A Florida restaurant discriminated against pregnant employees by refusing to let them wait tables after their fifth month of pregnancy and requiring them, instead, either to suspend work or to work in the positions of cashier or hostess. Because they do not receive gratuities from customers, the cashier and hostess positions pay less than does the waitress position. The EEOC filed suit on behalf of three pregnant employees and won.(18)

In June 1998, Mitsubishi agreed to pay $34 million to settle claims that the company allowed male employees and managers to sexually harass hundreds of female workers at its plant in Normal, Illinois.(19) The male employees are said to have subjected female employees to repeated "groping, grabbing and touching," sexually explicit verbal harassment and threats of sexual attacks. The EEOC claims that between 300 and 500 women were affected by this hostile work environment. Supervisors routinely called female employees "sluts," "whores" and "bitches" rather than by their names. Women who complained of their treatment were ostracized, physically threatened and sometimes forced to resign. One woman alleged that her male co-workers crowded around her, touching her breast and crotch, and drew sexually explicit pictures of her and placed them on the cars as they moved through the assembly line. On one occasion, she claims, four men gathered around her and demanded that she have sex with them. Many of the men openly admitted to harassing the women, one claiming that he got "caught up in the feeling."(20)

Five female air traffic controllers (ATCs) have filed a class action lawsuit against the U.S. Department of Transportation, alleging job discrimination and sexual harassment so severe that it distracted them from their duties and threatened the safety of airline passengers.(21) One plaintiff claimed that male co-workers directed planes through her airspace, without proper coordination, in order to harass her.(22) The women also charge that approximately 1,400 female ATCs have been denied training and promotion, have been subjected to harsher discipline than men, and have received lower pay and worse assignments.(23)

In March 1999, Concord, California agreed to settle the sex discrimination and harassment claims of eight female employees of a California police department for a total of $1.25 million. The women alleged that they were denied training and assignment opportunities, were forced to jump extra hurdles in order to apply for promotions, received poor assignments, had their written work over scrutinized, and were refused in the field back-up cover by male officers. The complaint also reported that a supervisor told a plaintiff, "women do not belong in police work, they really belong at home, cooking and taking care of the house and children" and propositioned her and another female officer to engage with him in a ménage á trois.(24)

Six female former employees of the Douglas County, Georgia, District Attorney's office filed a sexual harassment and discrimination suit against the District Attorney. One of the plaintiffs alleges that the District Attorney told her that female assistant district attorneys "don't have what it takes" and instructed her to interview female attorneys who submitted resumes but then to send them letters of regret. The complaint also charges that the defendant threatened the plaintiffs that if they embarrassed him with a lawsuit, he would "own all their houses and they [would] send all [his] kids to college."(25)

A woman who began working at a Vermont plastics company as a secretary and worked her way up to higher-level positions during a 23-year career brought suit alleging she was paid unequally for equal work. On her retirement, the company offered male candidates about $10,000 a year more to do the job she had been doing. Then when her male replacement didn't work out, the company asked her to return - but still failed to offer her the salary it had offered to her replacement.(26)

Eagle-Picher, a Nevada mining company, agreed to pay $92,471 to settle charges that it discriminated against 49 women who were not hired to fill entry-level laborer jobs. The complaint charged that in rejecting female, but not male, applicants for such reasons as unavailability for work, the company did not uniformly apply its selection criteria.(27)

Other Evidence of Persistent Sex Discrimination

The persistence of sex-based workplace discrimination is documented not only by the individual cases like those described above but also by national wage and employment data and a variety of studies.

The Wage Gap

Women earn, on average, only 73 cents for every dollar earned by all men.(28) The wage gap hovered around 60 cents to the dollar throughout the 1960s and 1970s, then decreased during the 1980s. During the 1990s, however, progress slowed in closing the gap.

The wage gap figure compares the median earnings of only those men and women who work full-time, year-round, and therefore is not skewed by women who work only part-time or in temporary jobs.

Minority women fare significantly worse. African American women earn 63 cents and Hispanic women 53 cents for every dollar earned by white men.(29)

These gaps cannot be explained away by different voluntary choices made by men and women or other variables. Studies show that women who make exactly the same career choices as men and work exactly the same hours as men often still advance more slowly and earn less:

A 1998 report by the Council of Economic Advisers cites studies showing that a pay gap for women remains even when variables such as occupation, age, experience, and education are held constant, and concludes that some of the pay gap is due to discrimination.(30)

One comprehensive study of the wage gap that took into account observable gender differences in education, experience, occupation, industry and union status found that 43% of the wage gap is due to discrimination.(31)

A 1999 study covering all industries and occupations across all regions of the United States found that between one quarter and one half of the wage gap is due solely to differences in pay between men and women working in the same establishments and in similar jobs.(32)

Even when workers are paid on a piece-rate basis rather than on an hourly or weekly rate, a gender wage gap persists. Comparing men and women working in the same occupation in the same establishment, researchers have found that one third of the wage gap is due to sex discrimination while the remainder is due to piece-work productivity differences.(33)

A study that tracked lawyers 15 years after graduation from the University of Michigan Law School revealed significant wage differentials between male and female lawyers, even when hours of work, family responsibilities, choice of careers and other potential variables were held constant.(34)

Another study showed that after about 11 years on medical school faculties, 23% of men, but only 5% of women, had achieved the rank of full professor, and a significant gap persisted when the researchers held constant the number of hours worked per week.(35)

Audit Studies

Audit studies test the existence of discrimination by pairing equally qualified male and female (or white and minority) candidates for jobs, and comparing their success in applying for the same openings. Candidates with identical work experience, background, demeanor, interviewing skills, etc. apply separately for the same job, to determine whether gender (or race) makes a difference in how they are treated.

Audit studies have documented sex discrimination in the workplace. For example, when comparably matched pairs of men and women applied for jobs as waiters at 65 restaurants in Philadelphia, the women received half the number of job offers from the high-priced, better-paying restaurants than the men. The women job applicants were also 40% less likely even to get an interview. The researchers concluded that the restaurants were discriminating against women in their hiring practices. (36)

Another study examined the effects of audition screens on the hiring of orchestra musicians. This study found that auditioning behind heavy cloth screens, which prevent the judges from seeing the musicians gender, increases by 50% a female musician's chances of progressing beyond the preliminary rounds and makes it several times more likely that she will ultimately be offered an orchestra position.(37)

The Glass Ceiling

In 1999, only 11.9% of corporate officers in America's 500 largest companies, and only 5.1% of high-ranking corporate officers in these companies, were women. Less than 15% of these companies have a woman among their five highest earning officers and only 3.3% of top earners are women. (38)

All women are under-represented in management but women of color are less well represented, and paid less, than white women. According to a recent survey, women of color report a "concrete ceiling" -- one that cannot even be seen through due to a lack of role models and mentors -- barring their advancement.(39)

According to the bipartisan Glass Ceiling Commission, 25% of surveyed female corporate executives felt that "being a woman/sexism" was the biggest obstacle they had to overcome, and 59% said they had personally experienced sexual harassment on the job.(40)

The Glass Ceiling Commission further reported that in the corporate world, certain stereotypes are applied across the board to women of all races and ethnicities, including these: that women don't want to work, aren't tough enough, are unwilling or unable to make decisions, are too emotional, are not sufficiently aggressive, are too aggressive and are too passive.(41)

Occupational Segregation

Women remain disproportionately clustered in traditionally female jobs with lower pay and fewer benefits.(42) For example, in 1999 approximately one in four employed women worked in an administrative support or clerical job, and 78.7% of administrative workers in all industries were women.(43)

Women remain severely under-represented in most non-traditional professional occupations as well as blue collar trades. For example, women are only 10.6% of all engineers; 3.1% of airplane pilots and navigators; less than 2% of carpenters and auto mechanics; 15.7% of architects; and about one-quarter of doctors and lawyers. Women are 99% of dental hygienists, but are only 16.5% of dentists.(44)

Some progress has been made, particularly in good economic times. But overall, occupational segregation by sex has declined very little over the past 15 years.(45)

Conclusion

By whatever measure is chosen, the evidence demonstrates the sad but undeniable truth: even today, women across this country continue to face a series of arbitrary and unfair barriers to equal opportunity in the workplace.

The National Women's Law Center is a non-profit organization that has been working since 1972 to advance and protect women's legal rights. The Center focuses on major policy areas of importance to women and their families including child and adult care, child support, employment, education, reproductive rights and health, public assistance, tax reform, and social security - with special attention given to the concerns of low-income women.

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References

1. See U.S. Equal Employment Opportunity Commission, Sex Based Charges FY 1992-FY 1999 (visited June 30, 2000) <http://www.eeoc.gov/stats/sex.html>.

2. See Stender v. Lucky Stores, 803 F. Supp. 259 (N.D. Cal. 1992).

3. See Barbara R. Bergmann, In Defense of Affirmative Action 48 (1996).

4. See Kirstin Downey Grimsley, Florida Grocery Chain Settles Sex-Bias Case, Wash. Post, Jan. 25, 1997, at D1.

5. See Gallo v. Powell Chevrolet, 765 F. Supp. 198 (M.D. Pa. 1991).

6. See Federal Government Settles for $508 Million Bias Suit Involving U.S. Information Agency, 14-13 Empl. Discrimination Rep. (BNA) 421 (Mar. 29, 2000).

7. See Before the Subcomm. on Employer-Employee Relations of the U.S. House of Representatives Comm. on Econ. and Educational Opportunities (Mar. 24, 1995) (statement of Deval Patrick, Assistant Attorney General for Civil Rights).

8. See Sexual Harassment Complaint: Del Labs Settles Case Against Top Executive, Chi. Trib., Aug. 4, 1995, at 3.

9. See Michael Siconolfi & Margaret A. Jacobs, Wall Street Fails to Stem the Rising Claims of Sex Harassment and Discrimination, Wall St. J. Eur., May 29, 1996, at 16.

10. See Three Accuse Smith Barney of Sex Bias, Harassment, Minneapolis-St. Paul Star-Trib., May 21, 1996, at 3D.

11. See Kristin Downey Grimsley, Florida Grocery Chain Settles Sex-Bias Case, Wash. Post, Jan. 25, 1997, at D1. See also, press release from Saperstein, Goldstein, Demchak and Baller, counsel for plaintiffs, Mar. 12, 1996.

12. See Nan Netherson, Female Current, Former Boeing Employees File Claims on Behalf of Class of 30,000, 14-10 Empl. Discrimination Rep. (BNA) 332 (Mar. 8, 2000).

13. See U.S. Department of Labor Press Release, Boeing Agrees to End Pay Disparity: Second Largest Federal Contractor Will Adjust Pay Practices Corporate Wide (Nov. 19, 1999); Boeing Agrees to Pay $4.5 Million as Bias Settlement, L.A. Times, Nov. 20, 1999; Mike Maharry, Boeing Denies Discrimination Charges, Pays Back Pay to Women, Minorities, Knight-Ridder Trib. Bus. News, Nov. 20, 1999; 45,000 Women May Be Included in Bias Suit Against Boeing, Seattle Post-Intelligencer, Mar. 2, 2000, at C1.

14. See Ellen Neuborne, Experts See Sexual Harassment Growing in Blue-Collar Industries, Seattle Times, May 12, 1996, at F2.

15. See Kirstin Downey Grimsley & Frank Swoboda, Women at Plant Coerced into Sex on Job, Suit Says, Wash. Post, June 21, 1998, at 7A.

16. See EEOC Press Release, EEOC Obtains $1 Million for Low-Wage Workers Who Were Sexually Harassed at Food Processing Plant (June 1, 2000).

17. See W.R. Grace Will Pay $187,000 To Settle EEOC Charges It Refused to Hire Women, 13-4 Empl. Discrimination (BNA) 167 (July 28, 1999).

18. See EEOC v. W&O Inc., Nos. 98-5515 & 98-5646, 2000 U.S. App. LEXIS 11935 (11th Cir. May 30, 2000).

19. See Stephanie Armour, Mitsubishi Settles Suit for $34 Million, USA Today, Jun. 12, 1998, at 1A; Wake-up Call on Sexual Harassment, Tampa Trib., June 18, 1998, at 16.

20. See Kirsten Downey Grimsley, et al., Fear on the Line at Mitsubishi, Wash. Post, Apr. 29, 1996, at A1.

21. See Emelyn Cruz Lat, Air Traffic Controllers Sue, Claiming Sex Harassment, San Francisco Examiner, June 12, 1998, at A8.

22. See Female Controllers Sue FAA, Patriot Ledger (Quincy, MA), June 15, 1998, at B6.

23. The court denied the city's motion for summary judgment. See Female Air Controllers May Proceed with Class Claims Against FAA, Court Says, 12-26 Empl. Discrimination (BNA) 992 (June 30, 1999).

24. See City Police Settle Harassment Claims; Will Pay $1.25 Million to Eight Women, 12-14 Empl. Discrimination (BNA) 506-07 (Mar. 23, 1999).

25. The plaintiff's § 1983 claims against the District Attorney survived summary judgment. See Female Former Employees May Pursue Some Claims Against District Attorney, 13-4 Empl. Discrimination (BNA)169 (July 28, 1999).

26. The court denied the defendant's motion for summary judgment. See Knight v. G.W. Plastics, 903 F. Supp. 674 (D. Vt. 1995).

27. See Nevada Mining Firm Will Pay $92,000 To Settle OFCCP Charges of Sex Bias, 12-22 Empl. Discrimination (BNA) 795 (June 2, 1999).

28. See U.S. Census Bureau, Current Population Reports, Money Income in the United States: 1998, at 60-206 tbl. 10 (1999).

29. See id.

30. See Council of Econ. Advisers, Explaining Trends in the Gender Wage Gap 1 (1998).

31. See Francine Blau & Lawrence Kahn, Swimming Upstream: Trends in the Gender Wage Differential in the 1980s, 15-1 J. of Lab. Econ., 1, 1-42 (1997).

32. See Kimberly Bayard et al., New Evidence on Sex Segregation and Sex Differences in Wages from Matched Employee-Employer Data 30 (National Bureau of Econ. Res., Working Paper No. 7003, 1999).

33. See E.M. Meyerson et al., Are Female Workers Less Productive Than Male Workers? Productivity and the Gender Wage Gap 1 (Industrial Instit. for Econ. and Soc. Res., Working Paper No. 509, 1998).

34. See Robert Wood et al., Pay Differentials Among the Highly Paid: The Male-Female Earnings Gap in Lawyers' Salaries, J. of Lab. Econ, July 1993. See also Committee on Women in the Prof., N.Y. City Bar Ass'n, Glass Ceilings and Open Doors: Women's Advancement in the Legal Profession (1995) (reporting that male attorneys are three times more likely than female attorneys to be named partners in large New York firms).

35. See Leslie Miller, Women Trail Men in Med School Tenure, USA Today, April 13, 1995; Bonnie Tesch, et al., Promotion of Women Physicians in Academic Medicine: Glass Ceiling or Sticky Floor? JAMA, April 5, 1995, at 1022.

36. See David Neumark et al., Sex Discrimination in Restaurant Hiring: An Audit Study (National Bureau of Econ. Res., Working Paper No. 5024, 1995).

37. See C. Goldin & C. Rouse (1996) Orchestrating Impartiality : The Impact of "Blind" Auditions on Female Musicians (Princeton, Department of Economics, Industrial Relations Sections, Working Paper).

38. See Catalyst, News Release, Catalyst Census Posits Solid Gains in Percentage of Women Corporate Officers in America's Largest 500 Corporations, November 11, 1999.

39. See Catalyst Fact Sheet, Women of Color in Corporate Management: Opportunities and Barriers (visited May 17, 2000) <http://www.catalystwomen.org/press/mediakit/factwoc3.html>.

40. See Federal Glass Ceiling Commission, Good for Business: Making Full Use of the Nation's Human Capital iii-iv (1995).

41. See id. at 148.

42. See Employee Benefits Res. Inst., Sources of Health and Characteristics of the Uninsured, Analysis of the March 1998 Current Population Survey (1998). Women are heavily concentrated in low-income jobs, where employers are less likely to offer health insurance.

43. See Bureau of Lab. Stat., U.S.. Department of Lab., Current Population Survey, tbl. 11 (2000). Employed persons by detailed occupation, sex, race, and Hispanic origin, 1999 annual averages.

44. See id.

45. Occupational segregation can be measured by the Dissimilarity Index (D.I.), which is calculated as one half of the sum over 491 occupations of the absolute difference between the proportion of all females and the proportion of all males
in each occupation. A minimum value of 0 means no sex segregation and a maximum value of 100 means complete sex segregation. The D.I. declined by only six percentage points over 15 years, from 58 in 1985 to 52 in 1999. This means
that 58% of women (or men) would have had to change occupations in 1985 in order for men and women to be distributed equally across all occupations, and in 1999, 52% of women (or men) would have had to change jobs in order to be distributed equally across all occupations. See Richard Anker, Gender and Jobs: Sex Segregation of Occupations in the World 75 (1998). The 1985 to 1999 D.I. time series was constructed from: National Women's Law Center calculations for 1995 to 1999 based on Bureau of Labor Statistics, Current Population Survey, annual averages; and Barbara H. Wooton "Gender Differences in Occupational Employment" Monthly Labor Review, April 1997 for 1985 to 1995.

National Women's Law Center, Washington, D.C., July 2000