Nadine Taub, Keeping Women in Their Place: Stereotyping Per Se as a Form of Employment Discrimination (1980)

Nadine Taub, Keeping Women in Their Place: Stereotyping Per Se as a Form of Employment Discrimination (1980)

“Employers’ preconceived notions of appropriate role behavior influence the definition of jobs, the evaluation of work performance, and the assignment of workers to jobs, thus detracting from the maximal contribution that the individual worker’s abilities would allow. At the same time, employer and society role expectations of women have a negative impact on a woman’s motivation and performance in a work environment. Thus, the first section concludes that attitudinal factors internalized by both employer and employee constitute a primary obstacle to equal employment opportunity, and that such attitudinal factors are reinforced continually by adverse employment decisions grounded in stereotypical role expectations. The first section of this article proposes that such stereotypically based decisions be recognized under our fair employment laws as discrimination per se. Following this review of social science studies, the case law concerning sexual harassment is examined in detail to show the inadequacies of present concepts of discrimination in addressing discriminatory employment decisions that reflect and reinforce these attitudinal barriers. The capacity of present concepts to explain other instances believed to constitute discrimination is also explored. From this review it is again concluded that an additional concept of discrimination is needed. In the final section, this proposal is related to present concepts of discrimination and evaluated in terms of its feasibility.”