Male and female in the workplace

You’ve come a long way, baby” was a 1960s advertising tagline (for Virginia Slims cigarettes) that was quickly appropriated by the feminist movement to celebrate the progress taking place in women’s rights and opportunities in society and in the workplace. Although that advancement has indeed been significant, most advocates say there is still more progress still to be made.

Even as employers continue to make strides in affirming women’s roles in the business and corporate world, members of the “transgender” community have sought and won legal protections against bias in employment based on their self-identity.

Such changes bring pressure on businesses not only to achieve equal opportunity between men and women, but also to avoid legal issues in hiring practices and company policy.

Progress, but slow

“We’ve been in the workforce outside the home for decades now,” said Helen Alvare, law professor at George Mason University, during a Vatican-sponsored workshop on “Women and Work” a few years ago. “Why hasn’t almost anything changed?”

Many things have changed, but perhaps not fast or far enough. More women are working now, and not just in service or factory jobs but increasingly in managerial and executive positions. Yet concerns remain over issues such as hiring discrimination, pay inequities, accommodations, and benefits for working mothers, opportunities for advancement, and sexual harassment.

In the matter of hiring discrimination, the proverbial “glass ceiling” is still said to keep some women from rising into higher-level corporate roles. When this is due to gender bias rather than qualifications, it is rightly regarded as a matter of injustice. Often such bias is rooted in stereotypes, says a Houston Chronicle report: women as weaker, more emotional, less suited for the professional world, and men as more driven, aggressive, and better suited for “mental pursuits and workplace success.”

At the same time, as with other underrepresented groups, there is often a subtleto- moderate pressure on companies to hire or promote women for the sake of correcting a historic imbalance in the workplace, particularly in positions of responsibility and influence.

How should companies balance the “good” of women’s advancement with the “good” of simply hiring the best-credentialed individual?

“I have an obligation to my employer to hire the most qualified candidate,” said Sheila Witous, a Legate of the South Bend-Elkhart (IN) Chapter and chief administrative officer for Radiology, Inc. “From a justice standpoint, I need to thoroughly review the qualifications I am using to measure the candidates and be certain they are free from bias.”

Not only do companies want to hire the best person for the job, they also want to avoid potential litigation over hiring or promotion decisions. Witous said her firm has not experienced such issues. “Employers can protect themselves by well-defined job descriptions, consistent interview questions, documenting discussions, and by working to eliminate bias in the hiring process,” she explained.

Pope Francis has often addressed the need for more women to assume greater leadership roles within the Church. “We must promote the integration of women in the places in which important decisions are taken,” he said in an Angelus address in October 2020, echoing his prayer intention for that month.

As if to underscore his meaning, he made history last February by appointing a French Xavières nun, Sister Nathalie Becquart, as an undersecretary for the Vatican’s Synod of bishops, making her the first woman to have a vote in the synod.

Due respect

Sexual harassment, Witous said, “is likely the biggest issue in the workplace.”

In today’s #metoo culture of heightened awareness, some men — both in and outside the workplace — are having to re-learn how to relate to and regard women in more gentlemanly terms.

The Chronicle report defined sexual harassment as including “a hostile work environment where the woman must endure sexual comments, touching, or materials, as well as unwanted sexual advances that put her in fear of losing her job if she does not comply.” This is another area where managers and executives can find themselves held liable should they fail to handle a sexual harassment report swiftly and effectively.

“It starts with having the right culture in the workplace, and leadership needs to set the right tone,” Witous explained. “Then, there must be clearly defined policies, and the policies must consistently be applied in all instances. Employee education in this regard should also be ongoing.”

When a sexual harassment allegation is raised, “the employer must take it seriously and should investigate the matter objectively,” she added. “Employees need to feel safe at work, and they need to know their employer will handle matters fairly.”

Gender Dysphoria challenges

Another gender issue in the workplace today involves persons with gender dysphoria, commonly called “transgender” persons — biological males who “identify” as female, biological females who “identify” as males, and other persons who might consider themselves in terms such as “nonbinary.” Depending in part upon how such individuals express their chosen “gender identity,” there exists the potential for distraction in the workplace — as well as for harassment and unjust discrimination in employment opportunity.

A 2019 document by the Vatican’s Congregation for Catholic Education, Male and Female He Created Them, spoke critically of “gender ideology” as “opposed to faith and right reason” and affirmed that a person’s male or female identity is an objective rather than subjective matter. It also reiterated that every person must be treated with respect, and without any form of “unjust discrimination.”

In its 2020 ruling in Bostock v. Clayton County, the U.S. Supreme Court extended Title VII of the Civil Rights Act of 1964 to prohibit employment discrimination and harassment on the basis of gender identity and sexual orientation. Some states already had such laws on the books but differ in the details or in how terms like “gender” are defined. The so-called “Equality Act,” passed by the U.S. House in February and now awaiting Senate approval, aims to make federal law of these sweeping changes with implications that go far beyond the workplace.

Mary Hasson, the Kate O’Beirne Fellow at the Ethics and Public Policy Center in Washington, addressed in a recent interview how Catholics can stand up for truth and remain compassionate toward those with gender dysphoria in society and in the workplace.

“The right thing to do is to treat the person with kindness and dignity and respect their privacy. But it’s also important to have limits — to draw your own boundary lines, including insisting upon respect for our conscience and religious freedom rights and free speech rights,” Hasson told The Catholic Herald, newspaper of the Arlington (VA) diocese.

The “trans-identifying person” may believe that he or she can self-define a gender identity at variance with their biological sex and to compel others to validate it, but both would be false, she explained. And while it’s reasonable to call a co-worker by his or her chosen new name — which an adult has the right to change — “it’s not reasonable for a company to compel other employees to use particular pronouns that conflict with reality,” such as using female pronouns to refer to a biological male, nor “to do or say something that violates your conscience or religious convictions.”

Witous said that though she has not had to deal with such matters, she believes a company’s culture helps define how it plays out.

“We should have a culture in place that treats all employees with respect and dignity,” she said. “There are many areas where I may not agree with my employees regarding personal matters, but my role is to model behavior that is consistent with my faith, and to love all people, regardless of whether I agree or disagree with them on certain issues.”

And with all issues of gender and discrimination in employment, all should go smoothly as long as a firm focuses on hiring the most qualified candidates available, Witous added: “The individual’s work should speak for itself, thereby mitigating one of the biggest workplace distractions: poor work performance.”

GERALD KORSON, editorial consultant for Legatus magazine, is based in Indiana.

Exceptions and non-exceptions

In June 2020, in a 6-3 vote, the U.S. Supreme Court handed down a decision ruling that Title VII of the Civil Rights Act of 1964 protects gay and transgender employees from workplace discrimination. Writing for the majority, Justice Neil Gorsuch said plainly that “an employer who fires an individual merely for being gay or transgender defies the law.”

Just a few weeks later in early July 2020, in a 7-2 ruling, the same court ruled that laws barring discrimination on the job do not apply to most lay teachers at religious elementary schools. The decision extends the “ministerial exception” established by earlier Supreme Court rulings that protects defined religious institutions from employment-discrimination claims by those who carry out the religious mission of the organization.

In many religious institutions, this “ministerial exception” is supported by “morals clauses” and similar documents in which employees must agree to support the organization’s mission and to observe particular norms of morals and ethics even in their off-duty conduct.

One of the cases that informed the June ruling involved a Michigan funeral home director who, citing in part religious grounds, fired a biologically male employee who identified as transgender and wished to dress on the job as a woman. The high court did not address the merits of the case, but its decision forced the matter to be reconsidered in a lower court that later ruled in favor of the plaintiff.

The “ministerial exception” applies narrowly to defined religious employers but does not protect employment decisions made by executives and managers within secular or for-profit companies who happen to hold particular religious beliefs.