Modified On July 19, 2005
Maura Dolan, writing in for the Los Angeles Times (we got it from The Standard, China’s Business Newspaper), writes the following:
Workers who lose promotions to colleagues who are sleeping with the boss can sue their employers for sexual harassment, the California Supreme Court has ruled.
In a significant expansion of sexual harassment law in the state, the court unanimously decided a worker can suffer sexual harassment even if her boss never asked her for sexual favors or made inappropriate advances. Previously, only the worker who had the affair or received unwanted sexual attention could prevail in California.
Is this Ms. Dolan’s narrow interpretation of the decision by California’s Supremes? Perhaps. Read this:
“Widespread favoritism based upon consensual sexual affairs may imbue the workplace with an atmosphere that is demeaning to women because a message is conveyed that managers view women as `sexual playthings,'” Chief Justice Ronald George wrote for the court.
There you have it. Right from the Chief himself.
Of course, everyone else reading this is imagining harassment and inappropriate advances in cubicles at large accounting firms or in the front room of the auto repair shop or in the main floor of the chicken processing plant. But this is California… as in Los Angeles… as in Hollywood.
If folks can’t sleep their way to the top (or to the middle), it may mean the end of the entertainment industry. Or… maybe the whole industry will gradually re-locate to Phoenix. Only four hours east… sunny, hot, dry… nice airport… lots of land… plenty of palm trees… and a huge bus station for all the arriving starlets.
One more thing: How come “widespread favoritism based upon consensual sexual affairs” imbues the workplace with an atmosphere that’s only demeaning to women? Are men not human? Do they not have feelings? Do they not bleed?