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Full-Text Articles in Law

Madonnas And Whores In The Workplace, Jessica K. Fink Jan 2016

Madonnas And Whores In The Workplace, Jessica K. Fink

Faculty Scholarship

Much has been written about “lookism” – the preferential treatment given to those who conform to societal standards of beauty. But in a recent case before the Iowa Supreme Court, a gender discrimination plaintiff alleged a sort of “reverse-lookism,” claiming that her male employer terminated her long-term employment because the employee was too physically attractive, thus tempting the employer to think about entering into an extramarital affair. To the great surprise of many who followed this case, the Iowa Supreme Court sided with the employer, declining to find him liable for gender discrimination. As one might expect, uproar ensued, with …


Lifetime Disadvantage, Susan Bisom-Rapp, Malcolm Sargeant Jan 2016

Lifetime Disadvantage, Susan Bisom-Rapp, Malcolm Sargeant

Faculty Scholarship

Lifetime Disadvantage, Discrimination and the Gendered Workforce fills a gap in the literature on discrimination and disadvantage suffered by women at work by focusing on the inadequacies of the current law and the need for a new holistic approach. Each stage of the working life cycle for women is examined with a critical consideration of how the law attempts to address the problems that inhibit women's labor force participation. By using their model of lifetime disadvantage, the authors show how the law adopts an incremental and disjointed approach to resolving the challenges, and argue that a more holistic orientation towards …