All-Male Iowa Supreme Court Rules It's OK To Fire Women For Being 'Too Attractive'

[Radical Edward]

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2013/07/12/iowa-supreme-court-attractive-woman-firing_n_3586861.html

 

Don't be an attractive woman in Iowa. You might get fired from your job because your boss is a sleezeball.

 

IOWA CITY, Iowa -- The Iowa Supreme Court on Friday stood by its ruling that a dentist acted legally when he fired an assistant because he found her too attractive and worried he would try to start an affair.


Coming to the same conclusion as it did in December, the all-male court found that bosses can fire employees they see as threats to their marriages, even if the subordinates have not engaged in flirtatious or other inappropriate behavior. The court said such firings do not count as illegal sex discrimination because they are motivated by feelings, not gender.


The ruling upholds a judge's decision to dismiss a discrimination lawsuit filed against Fort Dodge dentist James Knight, who fired assistant Melissa Nelson, even while acknowledging she had been a stellar employee for 10 years. Knight and his wife believed that his attraction to Nelson – two decades younger than the dentist – had become a threat to their marriage. Nelson, now 33, was replaced by another woman; Knight had an all-female staff.


The all-male court issued its revised opinion Friday in the case after taking the unusual step last month of withdrawing its December opinion, which had received nationwide publicity, debate and criticism.
Nelson's attorney, Paige Fiedler, had asked the court in January to reconsider, calling the decision a blow for gender and racial equity in the workplace. She had warned the opinion could allow bosses to legally fire dark-skinned blacks and replace them with light-skinned blacks or small-breasted workers in favor of big-breasted workers.

The court had only granted reconsiderations five times in the last decade.

 

 

[Buoyancy]

If she's not behaving inappropriately or dressing in appropriately, then  why is she able to get fired for being pretty? And if her behavior wasn't workplace appropriate, she should be fired on those grounds, not... her looks because her boss is a horny man skank.  What the butt?

Also, I will never work in Iowa. I always knew that place was weird....
 

Edited September 4, 2014 by Boogles

[God-Sent]

haha...i don't even know what to say about that one.

[Guest Mike Spero]

This is just idiotic. It's your own problem if you're such a lowly cur that you'd cheat on your wife in the first place. Ten bucks this dude was really begging her for it and then made up this story and fired her when she refused.

I find the fact that any court would okay this extremely ridiculous. Discrimination in the workplace is illegal, yet this somehow isn't discrimination now?

Edited September 4, 2014 by Mike Spero

[kb5462]

For crying out loud, enough, humanity. 

[Cato]

I see no problem here.

[Will_Power]

The court said such firings do not count as illegal sex discrimination because they are motivated by feelings, not gender.

 

Since when are laws based on feelings? O_o

[Guest Mike Spero]

I see no problem here.

I don't either, in the sense that I believe someone should have full power over their own business, and the law should only step in when criminal actions are present. I think bosses should have the power to fire their employees for whatever reason they like. HOWEVER, with our laws already in place against discrimination, the fact that this is accepted is beyond idiotic; as it clearly is "discrimination" just as much as the other things deemed illegal are

 

Taken outside of our current legal system I also see no problem, but I do in the sense that the law has just been very counter-intuitive to its own design, as well as hypocritical

[Guest JAG]

You shouldn't have to have a reason to fire someone to begin with, the same goes for not having to have a reason to quit your job to begin with.  I see nothing wrong with this.  The 'boss' should never have hired the woman to begin with though if he felt she'd be a distraction in the work place.

[Radical Edward]

So you're fine with a woman being fired because her boss is a sleazeball? 

 

What a world, where one has no job security if they dare to be too pretty and their boss happens to be a creep.

[Cato]

No, I'm not fine with that. I am fine with the fact that it is legal.

Edited September 5, 2014 by afriendlyatheist

[Lefebvre]

I expected this to be a feminist rant.

 

But instead found it to be entirely accurate and devoid of hyperbole.

 

Creepy men of Iowa, I salute your control of the legal system.

[Wesker]

All this talk of the a son gré by the capitalists renews my faith in Communism. It appears absurd to have an economic system where the majority of the population are dispossessed of the means of production and have to sell their labor power on the whim that it does not conflict with the sexual predilections of the master class.

[GodslilGirl]

Blehh. Men.

Just kidding, but I dont agree with your boss being able to fire you for no reason. That's dumb?... I know I would probably sue if someone fired me because I was a Christian. Or because I was black. I mean, who in thier right mind would fire a girl because she's cute and men in the workplace are perverted. That's the mans issue. Not the womans.

[Guest Mike Spero]

Blehh. Men.

Just kidding, but I dont agree with your boss being able to fire you for no reason. That's dumb?... I know I would probably sue if someone fired me because I was a Christian. Or because I was black. I mean, who in thier right mind would fire a girl because she's cute and men in the workplace are perverted. That's the mans issue. Not the womans.

What gets me is the fact that we made "discrimination" illegal, but apparently being "an attractive female" doesn't fall into that at all.

 

Really? :/

[ComedyMusicHistory]

I expected this to be a feminist rant.

 

But instead found it to be entirely accurate and devoid of hyperbole.

 

 

QFT!

Edited September 5, 2014 by ComedyMusicHistory

[Guest JAG]

So you're fine with a woman being fired because her boss is a sleazeball? 

 

What a world, where one has no job security if they dare to be too pretty and their boss happens to be a creep.

 

The straw man is strong with this one.  I'll just post again what I wrote.

 

You shouldn't have to have a reason to fire someone to begin with, the same goes for not having to have a reason to quit your job to begin with.

[Radical Edward]

The straw man is strong with this one.  I'll just post again what I wrote.

 

You shouldn't have to have a reason to fire someone to begin with, the same goes for not having to have a reason to quit your job to begin with.

You also wrote "I see nothing wrong with this". If you didn't want me to read that as "I see nothing wrong with firing a woman for being too attractive", you should have made yourself more clear. Otherwise, it was not a strawman.

 

You see nothing wrong with firing people willy-nilly for no reason whatsoever. You see nothing wrong with firing a woman for being "too attractive". In essence, you see nothing wrong with some sleezeball of a boss firing a hard working and productive employee because he doesn't think he can keep it in his pants, regardless of whether she's done anything wrong.

 

Don't accuse me of a strawman just because I don't word your views in a way that makes them see sugary and good. They're callous and devoid of any empathy for the employee, so lets not beat around the bush here.

Edited September 6, 2014 by Radical Edward

[Guest JAG]

You also wrote "I see nothing wrong with this". If you didn't want me to read that as "I see nothing wrong with firing a woman for being too attractive", you should have made yourself more clear. Otherwise, it was not a strawman.

 

You see nothing wrong with firing people willy-nilly for no reason whatsoever. You see nothing wrong with firing a woman for being "too attractive". In essence, you see nothing wrong with some sleezeball of a boss firing a hard working and productive employee because he doesn't think he can keep it in his pants, regardless of whether she's done anything wrong.

 

Don't accuse me of a strawman just because I don't word your views in a way that makes them see sugary and good. They're callous and devoid of any empathy for the employee, so lets not beat around the bush here.

 

They aren't devoid of empathy.  I wouldn't want to only be able to quit a job if I had a 'good reason' either.  I thank God I live in a right to work state where I can't be held as a slave laborer to my employer, don't have to join a union to get a job, and likewise I don't have to keep anyone on staff if I don't want to.

Why do you hate freedom so much? (see, I can lay the straw down too).

Edited September 6, 2014 by JAG

[Wesker]

You shouldn't have to have a reason to fire someone to begin with, the same goes for not having to have a reason to quit your job to begin with.

 

It is implicit in your words that the two sides are commensurable and I am not sure that is the case. 

Edited September 6, 2014 by Wesker

[Guest JAG]

It is implicit in your words that the two sides are commensurable and I am not sure that is the case. 

 

Why wouldn't it be?  Isn't work nothing more than a contract.  One person gets paid for as long as someone is willing to hire, and the other person pays so long as the one is willing to work?  It's an equitable exchange of goods/services. 

[Guest JAG]

Ok, I don't think you know what a straw man fallacy is.  This is a prime example: "You think it's fine for this sleezeball to fire a hardworking employee of ten years because he's a bad husband."

 

Your 'because' statement isn't my reasoning.  I gave my reasoning.  It has nothing to do with being a bad or good husband (the man, most likely, fired her at the request of his wife though - as sometimes spouses can be jealous).  It has everything to do with freedom.  My reasoning is simply that: freedom.  Please grasp this.

Edited September 6, 2014 by JAG

[Chris-M]

You think it's fine for this sleezeball to fire a hardworking employee of ten years because he's a bad husband. She did nothing wrong, was by his own admission an excellent and loyal employee. But his deficiencies mean she must be shown the door. And you're fine with that. You see nothing wrong with a woman being punished with unemployment because her boss can't stop staring.

 

It's not a strawman. It's your own statements being repeated to you in a way that makes it clear just how callous they all are. If this bothers you, perhaps you should rethink your views.

 

 

 

"I think that it would be wrong to criminalize X" is not equivalent to "I'm fine with X," and you know it. Unless you're some sort of morally totalitarian monster, there are lots of cases where you yourself hold beliefs with this tension.  

 

Your refusal to recognize this basic distinction is indicative of your response to opposition as a whole--you attempt to shame "the enemy" into submission without ever actually providing an argument. You are so unwilling to disengage your emotions or to consider diverse opinions as anything but willfully evil that I groan whenever I see you post, even if I know I'm going to agree with you. You're the least tolerant and least kind person I've met on this board, and your so-called arguments are little more than the tactics of a bully.

Edited September 6, 2014 by Yves

[Wesker]

Why wouldn't it be?  Isn't work nothing more than a contract.  One person gets paid for as long as someone is willing to hire, and the other person pays so long as the one is willing to work?  It's an equitable exchange of goods/services. 

 

I would take issue with the idea that it is an equitable exchange of goods. The owner obviously receives more value than the worker does in the exchange. If workers got paid the full value of their labor, then capitalism would not function, because owners would not make any profit. 

 

Yes, while some small business people are on the margins and struggle to keep open, or put food on the table, I think "business" as a concept is not commensurable to "labor" as a concept. The laborer, as capitalism has structured our economic world, is dependent upon another class for his or her very survival. Laborers are all fundamentally dispossessed, compared to the older feudal form of economic organization. 

 

In reference to Chris point, I do not even think we need systematic prejudice to show how one instance of prejudice can cause irreparable harm in the free market system. So let us say attractive girl, Mindy, has a well paying job with this company, with a salary of $80,000 a year. She is a single mother and can take good care of her daughter. However, her boss fires her for being too attractive and tempting him to have an affair on his wife. She is now back on the job market. With the job market depressed, there are no equal positions of her old job available in her area. Mindy cannot move because the mortgage bubble has left her home underwater, and she would have to fight an expensive custody battle with the Dad. She, therefore, has to take a job that only pays $40,000 a year. Mindy has to pull her daughter out of the good private school she was sending her to and put her back in public school.

 

Karl Polanyi was correct when he said that free market liberalism is a utopian ideology. Aggregate demand and aggregate supply always balance out to a perfect equilibrium for society. 

Edited September 6, 2014 by Wesker

[GodslilGirl]

Woahh.... Uhm, I'm with RE on this one. I believe a guy/girl needs a good reason to fire a hard working employer of the opposite sex, or even the same sex. Haha. I wonder what would have happened if it was a guy getting fired because he was too cute. I'm trying to see the logic in the other side, but I'm having trouble. Someone explain to me why you think it's okay to fire anyone over these dumb reasons or any not good reason.

Ahh..... Men......

Edited September 6, 2014 by GodslilGirl