It’s often assumed that if white people have a sexual preference for other white people, they, when using intimate dating platforms, have the right to skip over the profiles of Black people. As some argue, we have the right to act on our sexual preferences, including racialized sexual preferences, because doing so isn’t harmful, and even if it were harmful, this wouldn’t matter because either our “right” to act on our sexual preferences outweighs the harm and/or (...) we cannot even control our sexual preferences. Against this view, I argue that (1) when white people act on anti-Black sexual preferences, white people harm Black people insofar as they reduce their objective welfare level, and (2) we can in fact, to some degree, control our racialized sexual preferences. Moreover, I argue that because white people who engage in racialized sexual discrimination against Blacks disrespect and demean Black people and we don’t have any kind of right to disrespect and demean persons, white people don’t have even a prima facie right to act on anti-Black sexual preferences. Indeed, white racialized sexual discrimination against Black people is always deeply wrong, not only because it wrongs Black people, but it also wrongs the discriminators themselves. (shrink)

Beverley Shaw; Sexual Discrimination and the Equal Opportunities Commission: ought schools to eradicate sex stereotyping?, Journal of Philosophy of Education, V.

In sexual harassment law scholarship, it is often argued that the reasonable person standard should give way to a reasonable victim standard. Yet, this latter standard may unintentionally invite homophobic employees to attempt to use a reasonable homophobe standard to charge gay supervisors with harassment merely for being openly gay at work. In response, I argue that we currently act on an unjustifiable distinction whereby we treat sexuality behavior as necessarily sexualized only for GLBTQ behavior. By disallowing this discriminatory (...) treatment, we can preserve the reasonable victim standard and undermine the homophobe's warrantless charges. (shrink)

Feminist critics of the stigmatization of prostitution such as Martha Nussbaum and Sybil Schwarzenbach argue that the features of the practice do not, or at least need not, differ essentially from those of other more respected sorts of labor. I argue that even the least degraded forms of the current practice of prostitution remain objectionable on feminist grounds because patrons demand a semblance of sexual self-expression that engages discriminatory beliefs about women's sexuality.

Gender discrimination and sexual harassment of female police officers by their male counterparts remain areas of liability where police departments appeared to have failed to effectively confront the nagging issues. However, the appreciable level of research conducted on these issues in the global North has not been matched by the South, where issues bordering on sexual violence have cultural underpinnings. Drawing from the case of the Nigeria Police Force, feminist analysis was used to explore the lived reality (...) of 43 female officers in a qualitative study. Participants expressed distress in abiding by structural discriminatory regulations against female officers which include non-admittance of married women into the force, forbidding unmarried officers from getting pregnant, and a stipulated minimum of three-year work period before a female officer can marry. Findings also indicated that participants suffer a variety of sexual harassment, intimidation, and, violence from their male colleagues, while they feel constrained in reporting their victimization. Important policy and practical implications requiring the Nigerian police to address hegemonic masculinity and promote gender equality were provided. (shrink)

Discrimination, understood as differential treatment of individuals on the basis of their respective group memberships, is widely considered to be morally wrong. This moral judgment is backed in many jurisdictions with the passage of equality of opportunity legislation, which aims to ensure that racial, ethnic, religious, sexual, sexual-orientation, disability and other groups are not subjected to discrimination. This chapter explores the conceptual underpinnings of discrimination and equality of opportunity using the tools of analytical moral and (...) political philosophy. (shrink)

What is discrimination and what makes wrongful discrimination wrong? Even after an ever-rising tide of research over the course of the past twenty-five or so years these questions still remain hard to answer. Exercising candid and self-critical hindsight, Larry Alexander, who contributed his fair share to this tide, thus remarked: “All cases of discrimination, if wrongful, are wrongful either because of their quite contingent consequences or perhaps because they are breaches of promises or fiduciary duties.” If this (...) is true it raises serious doubts as to how wrongful discrimination can be a moral wrong in itself. Also, the question comes up as to who it is who breaches a promise or a fiduciary duty. This paper defends the view that the substance of these remarks is better understood by couching them in a political approach towards discrimination. Against this background, they give rise to real and pressing concerns. Once we conceptualise the realm political along Hobbesian lines as the battleground comprising both the private sphere of the individual and the public sphere of the commonwealth it emerges that discrimination has different significance with regard to these respective spheres. In order to illustrate this, I adopt Kasper Lippert-Rasmussen’s descriptive account of discrimination as „differential treatment on the basis of membership of a socially salient group“ and the common view that wrongful discrimination is wrong because it is harmful, disrespectful, or both. In the private sphere the case can be made for morally permissible cases of discrimination. Sexual discrimination due to sexual self-determination with consequently freely choosing your sexual or romantic partner is the central case in point. Where somebody feels unfairly rejected and consequently hurt neither the charge of harm inflicted nor that of disrespect endured need be justified. No “breach of promises or fiduciary duties” is involved. The case is different, however, when it comes to the fiduciary of power. In discriminating, he who exercises the power of the commonwealth necessarily breaches a promise and a fiduciary duty. Discrimination thus appears to be more of a problem of political philosophy than one of applied ethics. [in German] **************************************************************************************************** ******************** Was ist Diskriminierung und warum ist Diskriminierung verwerflich, wenn sie es denn ist? Dies bleibt ungeachtet der seit fünfundzwanzig Jahren anschwellenden Forschungsliteratur unverändert eine harte Nuss. Larry Alexander, der selbst maßgeblich zu dieser Forschungsliteratur beigetragen hat, merkt daher selbstkritisch an: „All cases of discrimination, if wrongful, are wrongful either because of their quite contingent consequences or perhaps because they are breaches of promises or fiduciary duties.“ Wenn dies der Fall ist, stellt sich die Frage, wie moralisch verwerfliche Diskriminierung dann noch an sich verwerflich sein kann. Es stellt sich dann auch die Frage, wer hier ein Versprechen bricht und seine Treuepflichten verletzt. Die leitende Annahme dieses Aufsatzes ist es, dass man dem sachlichen Kern dieser Bedenken Rechnung tragen kann, indem man eine politische Perspektive auf das Phänomen der Diskriminierung einnimmt. Die Bedenken erweisen sich dann als substanziell und zutreffend. Konzeptualisieren wir den Bereich des Politischen mit Thomas Hobbes als das Spannungsfeld, das die private Sphäre des Individuums und die öffentliche Sphäre des Gemeinwesens gegeneinander abgrenzt, wird sichtbar, dass Diskriminierung in diesen Sphären jeweils unterschiedlich zu bewerten ist. Um dies zu verdeutlichen, lege ich Kasper Lippert-Rasmussens deskriptives Verständnis von Diskriminierung als „differential treatment on the basis of membership of a socially salient group“ zugrunde und mache von der in der Diskussion verbreiteten Ansicht Gebrauch, dass das Zufügen von Schaden oder die Verweigerung von Respekt Diskriminierung verwerflich macht. In der privaten Sphäre kann es nun Fälle moralisch zulässiger Diskriminierung geben. Zentral ist die sexuelle Diskriminierung aufgrund der Ausübung einer freien Wahl des eigenen Sexual- oder Liebespartners. Auch wenn sich der Abgewiesene womöglich geschädigt sieht, wird unbilliger Schaden nicht zugefügt und geschul- deter Respekt nicht verweigert. Den Grund finden wir in Alexanders Formel: Ein „breach of promises“ oder eine Verletzung „fiduciary duties“ liegt nicht vor. Anders im Fall staatlicher Diskriminierung: Ein „breach of promises“ oder eine Verletzung „fiduciary duties“ liegt hier stets vor, da Fälle staatlicher Diskriminierung regelmäßig Machtmissbrauch darstellen: Der Inhaber staatlicher Gewalt verletzt die Treuepflicht, das Mandat unparteilich auszuüben, das getreulich auszuführen er gelobt hat. Diskriminierung erscheint also weniger als ein Problem der angewandten Ethik denn als eines der politischen Philosophie. (shrink)

Discrimination in the postmodern society can have many different causes and can affect people of different racial, ethnic, national or social backgrounds, such as communities of Asian or African descent, Roma people, indigenous peoples, Aboriginal people and people of different castes. Discrimination can also refer to people of different cultural, linguistic or religious backgrounds, people with disabilities or the elderly. Moreover, people can be discriminated because of their sexual orientation or preferences. Gender-based discrimination is also common, (...) despite progress in many countries. Women are also particularly prone to violent and abusive practices, and therefore often suffer from a double discrimination, both because of their race or origin and because of their gender, which is why feminist literature in recent years points to new acts or forms of discrimination against women. A major problem in the postmodern world is the discrimination that many people are subjected to, especially women and children, because they live in extreme poverty. These circumstances may force them to migrate and further contribute to a conceptual or social contamination, that may aggravate discriminatory tendencies in the societies where they migrate. The article aims to theoretically analyse the degree of functionality that the principle of non-discrimination based on gender, race, religion and sexual orientation has in the contemporary, postmodern, individualistic society. (shrink)

This chapter delineates several distinct (and often problematically conflated) kinds of sexual exclusion: (1) lack of access to sexual gratification or pleasure, (2) lack of access to partnered sex, and (3) lack of social/psychological validation that comes from being seen as a sexual being. Liberman offers proposals about what our collective responses to these harms should be while weighing in on debates about whether there are rights to various kinds of sexual goods. She concludes that we (...) ought to provide mechanical assistance to those who are incapable of self-stimulation, enhance access to sexual education for everyone, and engage in a systematic effort to change the harmful social norms, stereotypes, and cultural ideals that drive exclusion from partnered sex and can lead to social invalidation. (shrink)

The paper addresses the issue of whether there is something morally defective with someone who sexually prefers members of a particular race or ethnic group (or someone who does not sexually desire or prefer members of a particular race or ethnic group). People with such “racial desires” are often viewed as racists, but virtually no sustained arguments have been given in support of this view. The paper reconstructs three possible arguments—those based in discrimination, exclusion, and stereotypes—that might support the (...) charge of racism. It argues that none is convincing. It further argues that only in some cases are people with racial desires racist, but that in those cases their racism is not because of their sexual desires. (shrink)

In many jurisdictions the list of factors for which anti-discrimination law applies has been expanded to include sexual orientation. As a result, moral and legal difficulties have arisen for religious organizations whose basic beliefs include the belief that sexual acts between persons of the same sex are immoral. In light of these difficulties, is anti-discrimination law of this sort unjust? Recently John Finnis has argued that, as commonly applied, such anti-discrimination law is disproportionate and therefore (...) unjust. In this essay, I critically examine Finnis’s argument, and argue that, on account of the conception of disproportionateness that is employed, it does not succeed. So as to enable the argument from disproportionateness to succeed, I develop and defend a modified conception of disproportionateness. -/- . (shrink)

Racial discrimination uses race as grounds to discriminate in the treatment owed to others; sexual discrimination uses people’s sexual features as grounds for determining how they should be treated compared to others. Analogously, statistical discrimination treats statistical inferences about the groups to which individuals belong as grounds for discriminating amongst them in thought, word and deed. Examples of statistical discrimination include the employer who won’t hire women of childbearing age, because they are likely to (...) take maternity leave at some point in their careers; or insurers who wish to charge more to young drivers than to more experienced ones, because they are more likely to have accidents than the latter – or to favour women over men in the cost of premiums for similar reasons. Finally, a famous – infamous – example of statistical discrimination is racial profiling for police purposes, where statistical evidence of differential propensities to crime are used to justify preventive police measures, such as ‘stop and search’, which mainly target young black men, and other racialized minorities. The philosophical appeal of the concept of statistical discrimination is fairly easy to see: it draws our attention to the way that probabilistic claims figure, or might figure, in the distribution of social costs and benefits such as jobs, security, insurance. It therefore gives us a way to test our moral intuitions across different cases, enables us to see how far our moral judgements can be generalised, and whether they have been affected by particularly emotive examples, or by the particular features of a real or hypothetical case. But does that mean that statistical discrimination is unproblematic? This article takes issue with some arguments of Kasper Lippert Rasmussen on the topic. (shrink)

Human papillomavirus (HPV) is one of the most common sexually transmitted infections. It is a leading cause of cervical cancer in women but the virus is increasingly being linked to several other cancers in men and women alike. Since the introduction of safe and effective but also expensive vaccines, many developed countries have implemented selective vaccination programs for girls. Some however argue that these programs should be expanded to include boys, since (1) HPV constitutes non-negligible health risks for boys as (...) well and (2) protected boys will indirectly also protect girls. In this paper we approach this discussion from an ethical perspective. First, on which moral grounds can one justify not reimbursing vaccination for the male sex? We develop an ethical framework to evaluate selective vaccination programs and conclude that, in the case of HPV, efficiency needs to be balanced against non-stigmatization, non-discrimination and justice. Second, if vaccination programs were to be expanded to boys as well, do the latter then also have a moral duty to become immunized? Two arguments in favor of such a moral duty are well known in vaccination ethics: the duty not to harm others and to contribute to the public good of public health. However, we argue that these are not particularly convincing in the context of HPV. In contrast, we believe a third, more powerful but also more controversial argument is possible. In our view, the sexual mode of transmission of HPV constitutes an additional reason to believe that boys in fact may have a moral obligation to accept vaccination. (shrink)

Sexual Justice defends a robust a robust conception of lesbian and gay rights, emphasizing protection against discrimination and recognition of queer relationships and families. Synthesizing materials from law, philosophy, psychoanalysis and literature, Kaplan argues that sexual desire is central to the pursuit of happiness: equal citizenship requires individual freedom to shape oneself through a variety of intimate associations.

_Sexual Justice_ defends a robust a robust conception of lesbian and gay rights, emphasizing protection against discrimination and recognition of queer relationships and families. Synthesizing materials from law, philosophy, psychoanalysis and literature, Kaplan argues that sexual desire is central to the pursuit of happiness: equal citizenship requires individual freedom to shape oneself through a variety of intimate associations.

Federal discrimination laws have defined two distinct types of activity that constitute sexual harassment – "hostile environment" and "quid pro quo." The Civil Rights Act of 1991 and more recent Supreme Court rulings make it easier for workers to win lawsuits claiming they were sexually harassed in the work environment.While the public accounting profession continues to address gender-related problems, it remains vulnerable to claims of sexual harassment. In an attempt to better understand the underlying risk the public (...) accounting profession faces, this study focuses on identifying (1) the extent of sexual harassment in the public accounting profession, (2) the type of harassing behavior that is most common, and (3) where the harassment occurs. (shrink)

Gender, sexuality and embodiment in digital spheres have been increasingly studied from various critical perspectives: From research highlighting the articulation of intimacies, desires, and sexualities in and through digital spaces to theoretical explorations of materiality in the digital realm. With such a high level of (inter)disciplinarity, theories, methods, and analyses of gender, sexuality, and embodiment in relation to digital spheres have become highly diversified. Aiming to reflect this diversity, this special issue brings together innovative and newly developed theoretical, empirical, analytical, (...) and critical approaches in the study of gender, sexuality, and embodiment in digital spheres. By connecting intersectionality and digitality to one another, it adopts an integrated approach that reflects the intricacy and interconnectedness of social categories and markers of difference, privilege, performance, and discrimination. The contributions explore a range of differently situated digital cultural practices, including intimate and sexual experiences with(in) digital media, online self-presentation, expressions of digital resistance, and forms of backlash and online attacks. What connects all these articles, is their critical approach to intersectional inequalities and privileges in relation to digitality, plus their nuanced perspective on gender, sexuality, and embodiment interferentially. The final article is based on a roundtable discussion and aims to encourage interdisciplinary connections and suggests ways of doing research that builds bridges between academia and activism. (shrink)

Sometimes, a form of discrimination is hard to register, understand, and articulate. A rich precedent demonstrates how victim testimonies have been key in uncovering such “hidden” forms of discrimination, from sexual harassment to microaggressions. I reflect on how this plausibly goes too for “attentional discrimination”, referring to cases where the more meaningful attributes of one social group are made salient in attention in contrast to the less meaningful attributes of another. Victim testimonies understandably dominate the “context-of-discovery” (...) stage of research into these initially opaque forms of discrimination; a victim’s encounter with the gap between their experience and dominant conceptual frameworks for understanding it is what provides an initial foothold for analysis to begin. Some object, however, to this methodology continuing to dominate the later “context-of-justification” stage, where the hypothesis is rigorously challenged. I argue that this objection underestimates not just how other methodologies are more likely to inherit the various mechanisms of invisibility hiding the discrimination in question, but also how victim testimonies are distinctively well-suited to recognize and challenge those mechanisms. Victim testimonies, then, ought to continue playing a dominant role into these later stages of research regarding hidden forms of discrimination. (shrink)

The two kinds of discrimination I want to talk about are political discrimination and cognitive discrimination. By political discrimination, I mean what we ordinarily understand by the term "discrimination" in political contexts: A manifest attitude in which a particular property of a person which is irrelevant to judgments of that person's intrinsic value or competence, for example his race, gender, class, sexual orientation, or religious or ethnic affiliation, is seen as a source of disvalue (...) or incompetence; in general, as a source of inferiority.By cognitive discrimination, I mean what we ordinarily understand by the term "discrimination" in cognitive contexts: A manifest capacity to distinguish veridically between one property and another, and to respond appropriately to each. I want to explore the relation between these two kinds of discrimination, and to argue that the first type of discrimination depends upon a failure of the second. (shrink)

In The Bodies of Women , Rosalyn Diprose argues that traditional approaches to ethics both perpetuate and remain blind to the mechanisms of the subordination of women. She shows that injustice against women begins in the ways that social discourses and practices place women's embodied existence as improper and secondary to men. She intervenes into debates about sexual difference, ethics, philosophies of the body and theories of self in order to develop a new ethics which places sexual difference (...) at the very center of meaning. Diprose analyzes attempts in both feminist and non-feminist ethics to recognize the role of sexual difference. She critiques biomedical discourses whose descriptions mask a constitution and regulation of "the body." Drawing on insights from continental philosophy and feminist theory, The Bodies of Women includes critical readings of Hegel, Nietzsche, Merleau-Ponty, Derrida and Foucault as well as productive engagementwith contemporary feminist scholars such as Irigaray, Cornell and Young. What emerges is a unique approach to the ethics of sexual difference which both locates and subverts mechanisms of sexual discrimination. (shrink)

This case note reviews the guidelines issued by Morison J. in the Employment Appeal Tribunal at the end of the decision in Reed and Bull Information Systems Ltd v. Stedman [1999] I.R.L.R.299. The author argues that while the judge’s decision is to be welcomed in adopting an approach more sympathetic to victims of sexual harassment, it also raises a number of problems by placing a burden on the victim to place the harasser on notice that she does not welcome (...) his conduct. The guidelines are likely to be usefully applied in any jurisdiction that has rules forbidding sexual harassment. The author considers the guidelines from both a practical and a doctrinal angle and indicates that the right to be free from sexual harassment is one that the courts are reluctant to protect like other civil rights. (shrink)

The sexual assault of persons with mental disabilities occurs at alarmingly high rates worldwide. These assaults are a form of gender-based violence intersecting with discrimination based on disability. Our research on the treatment of such cases in the Canadian criminal justice system demonstrates the systemic barriers these victims face at the level of both substantive legal doctrine and trial procedure. Relying on feminist legal theory and disability theory, we argue in this paper that abuses of trust and power (...) underlie most sexual assaults of women with mental disabilities. We argue that existing Criminal Code provisions in Canada are inadequate to address this type of exploitation because courts have consistently failed to recognize that such abuses of power and trust are fundamentally inconsistent with any notion of voluntary consent. (shrink)

The purpose of this article is to argue in favor of a private employer’s right to discriminate amongst job applicants on any basis he chooses, and this certainly includes unlawful characteristics such as race, sex, national origin, sexual preference, religion, etc. John Locke and many after him have argued that people have natural rights to life, liberty, and property or the pursuit of happiness. In this view, law should be confined to protecting these rights and be limited to prohibiting (...) other people from transgressing those rights. The law should not hinder an employer’s ability to discriminate, any more than it should compel people to marry against their wishes. These laws generally emerge from a moral perspective that people think should be imposed on everyone else. But those who don’t welcome those morals are in effect being coerced to abide by them against their will; this is unethical. Finally, it will be argued that the free market has mechanisms by which discrimination will, be rendered powerless to harm its victims. (shrink)

In this article, we discuss the relationships between discrimination, harassment, and the glass ceiling, arguing that many of the factors that preclude women from occupying executive and managerial positions also foster sexual harassment. We suggest that measures designed to increase numbers of women in higher level positions will reduce sexual harassment. We first define and discuss discrimination, harassment, and the glass ceiling, relationships between each, and relevant legislation. We next discuss the relationships between gender and (...) class='Hi'>sexual harassment, emphasizing the influence of gender inequality on sexual harassment. We then present recommendations for organizations seeking to reduce sexual harassment, emphasizing the role that women executives may play in such efforts and, importantly, the recursive effects of such efforts on increasing the numbers of women in higher level positions in organizations. (shrink)

Reducing prejudice is a critical research agenda, and never before has counterfactual priming been evaluated as a potential prejudice-reduction strategy. In the present experiment, participants were randomly assigned to imagine a pleasant interaction with a homosexual man and then think counterfactually about how an incident of sexual discrimination against him might not have occurred (experimental condition) or to imagine a nature scene (control condition). Results demonstrated a significant reduction in sexual prejudice from baseline levels in the counterfactual (...) simulation group. Importantly, whereas intergroup anxiety and motivation to control prejudice were not predictive factors, number of counterfactual thoughts generated independently predicted variance in prejudice reduction. Mechanisms for, and implications of, prejudice-reduction strategies including counterfactual thinking are discussed. (shrink)

Does the black struggle for civil rights make common cause with the movement to foster queer community, protest anti-queer violence or discrimination, and demand respect for the rights and sensibilities of queer people? Confronting this emotionally charged question, Ladelle McWhorter reveals how a carefully structured campaign against abnormality in the late 19th and early 20th centuries encouraged white Americans to purge society of so-called biological contaminants, people who were poor, disabled, black, or queer. Building on a legacy of savage (...) hate crimes—such as the killings of Matthew Shepard and James Byrd—McWhorter shows that racism, sexual oppression, and discrimination against the disabled, the feeble, and the poor are all aspects of the same societal distemper, and that when the civil rights of one group are challenged, so are the rights of all. (shrink)

The aim of this study is to investigate the necessity of revising the Ethics Code of the Psychology and Counseling Organization of the Islamic Republic of Iran with respect to people’s rights and dignity and to avoid unfair discriminations toward sexual orientation and gender identity. It is said that confused diagnoses; wrong decision making; unethical practice; and the subsequent harm caused to lesbian, gay, bisexual, and transgender clients result from the lack of a clear code and relevant guidelines. In (...) addition, certain conditions in Iran lead professional psychologists and researchers to avoid researching sexual minorities and gender identity, which negatively impacts the Ethics Code of the PCOIRI. Iranian and Western researchers have identified four primary sources to which psychologists and counselors can refer when faced with ethical dilemmas: developmental psychology, professional ethics codes, philosophy of psychology literature, and available researches and compilations on professional ethics. Finally it is suggested that, when dealing with homosexual clients and the related ethical dilemmas, Iranian psychologists and counselors need clear and specific guidelines and a professional ethics code developed from more appropriate reference points than legal and religious sources. (shrink)

What rights govern heterosexual and homosexual behaviors? Two distinguished philosophers debate this important issue in Sexual Orientation and Human Rights. Laurence M. Thomas argues that a society which has the constitutional resources to protect hate groups can protect homosexuals without valorizing the homosexual life-style. He defends the view that the Bible cannot warrant the venom that, in the name of religion, is often expressed against homosexuals. Michael E. Levin defends the unorthodox view that the aversion some people experience toward (...) homosexuality deserves respect. He further argues that while homosexuals enjoy the same rights as others to be free of violence and discrimination, they do not have more extensive rights. (shrink)

This article discusses recent legal conflicts between state universities and conservative religious students in the United States, focusing on Christian Legal Society v. Martinez. In recent years, several universities have denied recognition to religious student organizations that discriminate on the basis of religion or sexual orientation. I argue that scholars on both sides of the issue have failed to recognize the full scope of the privilege that the universities demand. If the courts accept the universities' demands, then the courts (...) dangerously expand the government's authority to suppress dissenters. No proponent of civil liberties should welcome this change. (shrink)

Can a minority agent, Jamal, discriminate against a majority agent, Dave, conceptually speaking? Taking an experimental-philosophical approach, this article addresses the conceptual puzzle by investigating both the ordinary usage of discrimination and whether the academic literature reflects the folk concept. First, it provides a conceptual analysis of discrimination as it is used across the discrimination research field. The analysis produces two novel definitions of discrimination: a symmetric conception, which implies multi-directionality, and an asymmetric conception, which implies (...) uni-directionality. Then, I empirically investigate the US lay concept of discrimination (N = 1,487). The highlight of the paper is an experiment on whether US ordinary usage is symmetric or asymmetric (Study 1), tested across four contexts and three traits (Hiring: Gender, Club: Sexuality, Dating: Race, Parental: Gender). In addition, I study which groups are most often discriminated against, according to respondents, to record potential sensitivity to the frequency of discrimination (Study 2). Overall, the results show that ordinary usage in the US is symmetric across different contexts and traits, and that paradigmatic minority groups are most often discriminated against. So, according to respondents, Jamal can discriminate against Dave, although Jamal is more often discriminated against than Dave. (shrink)

Discrimination is a social phenomenon which seems to be widespread across different societies and cultures. Examples of discrimination concerning race, class, gender, and sexual orientation are not difficult to find in contemporary western societies. In this article, the author focus on the ontological ground of this phenomenon, with particular attention to its diffuse and institutionalised forms. The author defends a broadly speaking reductionist approach, according to which the various manifestations of discrimination are grounded on the existence (...) of the effects of “discriminatory stances” in social contexts. Discrimination may become part of the institutional sphere, either by way of bottom-up “crystallisation” of discriminatory practices, or by top-down “dilution” of institutional defaults into ordinary interactions. (shrink)

This chapter contains sections titled: Conscription and Combat Violence Corporal Punishment Sexual Assault Circumcision Education Family and Other Relationships Bodily Privacy Life Expectancy Imprisonment and Capital Punishment Conclusion.

In his "Reply to Iddo Landau," Edmund Wall responds to the author’s critique of some of the views expressed in his "Sexual Harassment and Wrongful Communication." The present article concentrates on what the author takes to be the main problem in Wall’s definition: by requiring that any act, even if intentional and cruel in nature, needs to be repeated to count as sexual harassment, Wall allows too much leeway and renders permissible a wide range of intentional, mean, and (...) harmful actions that most, including, the author believes, Wall himself, would like to outlaw. The article considers Wall’s linguistic and nonlinguistic responses to this critique and finds them problematic. Key Words: sexual harassment • discrimination • law • ethics • feminism. (shrink)

The question of what constitutes sexual harassment—from suggestive remarks to outright threats, from off-color jokes to lewd posters on office walls—is contentious, as is the question of how to address sexual harassment. Do all instances of sexual harassment constitute sex discrimination? Are some instances merely sexual attraction gone wrong? Do social policies aimed at eliminating sexual harassment in the workplace violate freedom of expression or do they make working relationships possible between women and men? (...) In this uncompromising yet respectful debate, two philosophers of widely divergent views present clear arguments and then respond directly to each other's reasoning. LeMonchek argues for a feminist perspective on sexual harassment that is sensitive to the politics of gender. Hajdin contends that this perspective is both morally confusing and legally problematic, and that sexual harassment can be better addressed by traditional moral and legal categories. (shrink)

The years since the rise of gay liberation in 1969 have seen remarkable changes in the realm of sexuality. Lesbians and gay men have won important rights and attained a cultural visibility that would have been impossible to imagine even thirty years ago. Yet these rights are limited, and apply only to specific sections of those who face exclusion, discrimination or violence on the basis of their queerness in the realm of gender and/or sexuality.

Although "intrasexual selection" has been accepted as the mechanism by which males evolve elaborate secondary sexual traits which are used in aggressive contests, the importance of "intersexual selection" as a mechanism by which males have acquired exaggerated traits to display to females during courtship was less readily accepted. In spite of this scepticism, several genetic models have supported the latter idea, and many empirical studies showed that females were generally more discriminating in mate choice than males, because of differences (...) in relative investment between sexes. Nowadays, this idea is reinforced by various concepts (parental investment, potential reproductive rate, environmental potential for polygamy...) which stress that the strength of sexual selection is related to many interdependent factors, such as mating systems, resource distribution (food, habitat, mate), life history and other ecological characteristics. The case of Salmonids is presented here to show how novel information on sexual selection has contributed to the understanding of the plasticity of breeding patterns in the context of evolutionary biology. (shrink)

Sexual and gender minorities in contemporary India are formed in the interstices between the neoliberal, Hindutva state; transnational discourses of liberal democracy and sexual ‘rights’; as well as cosmopolitan culture and global LGBT movements. As is evident in recent court judgments and legislation, particularly since 2014, postcolonial Hindu nationalism has created cultural conditions where forms of queer gender are permissible while queer sexuality is generally unacceptable. In recent years, significant developments have focused on transgender communities, complicating activism surrounding (...) sexual and gender identities. By positing some identities as state-sanctioned acceptable citizens and others as not, certain ‘transgender’ individuals are conceptualised as bearers of rights while finding other facets of their identities discriminated against and maintained as illegal. The 2014 Supreme Court NALSA v. Union of India judgment and The Transgender Persons (Protection of Rights) Bill, 2016 passed by the Lok Sabha, alongside further judgments and legislation affecting wider LGBT communities, have kept discourses fixed on sexual and gender identities and their relationship to Indian citizenship at the forefront of discussions of gender justices and injustices in India today. Focusing on recent judicial and legislative developments, this paper examines how transgender rights are being granted in the context of the neoliberal, Hindutva state and considers which forms of transgender identity are currently being conceptualised as legitimate and authentic in such discourses, which can serve to bolster larger right-wing visions and ideologies of the nation and its citizens. It contemplates the ways in which gender ‘justices’, framed in relation to both transnational LGBT rights discourses and right-wing agendas, are conceptualised and played out on the bodies of sexual and gender minorities. (shrink)

The social acceptance of lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgender (LGBT) is recently widely debated. Although some Western countries have taken a more favourable course towards these minority groups, we still see a certain level of resistance to same sex marriage and discrimination against LGBT even in normally regarded liberal societies. Islam, which is often believed to clash with so-called Western values, regards LGBT as abhorrent and even apostate. However, we see a new endeavour of LGBT people in the most Muslim (...) populous country in the world, Indonesia. This paper explores the treatment of these minorities in Islam, including the possibility of co-existence of all humans in a future. For this purpose, we consider the activities of this Islamic school in Indonesia and the life history of the students. We also examine both the pro and con of the religious standpoint of the ulamas. We especially pay attention to some of the ulama’s attempts to create a new fiqh (a legal standard for religious rituals and obligations) to accept LGBT. (shrink)

In 2002 the constitutionality of the Sexual Offences Act, which criminalizes the behaviour of sex workers but fails to punish their clients, was at issue in the South African Constitutional Court. The majority of the Court held that the legislation does not constitute indirect discrimination on the basis of gender. The minority judgment found indirect gender discrimination, but held that the legislation did not infringe upon sex workers’ rights to dignity and privacy. This note argues that the (...) reasoning in both the majority and minority judgments reflects and contributes to detrimental stereotypes of feminine sexuality, which, in turn, exacerbate women’s vulnerability to H.I.V. infection in South Africa. (shrink)

Many people believe that a person's sexual orientation is genetic. Given the widespread prejudice against, and hatred of, homosexuals in many societies, it seems likely that many parents will be interested in using genetic technologies to prevent the birth of children who will not be heterosexual. This paper considers the moral and legal implications of such procedures (whether or not they would work). It is argued that the availability of procedures to select the sexual orientation of children would (...) contribute to discrimination and prejudice against lesbians, gay men and bisexuals and, more generally, undermine the maintenance of a just society. These effects carry significant weight in determining whether genetic technologies should be developed and whether their use is, or should be, legally permissible and morally acceptable. (shrink)

In summary, Hellman’s book is well worth reading. It is powerful, well-written, and interesting and explains much of the prominent case law on discrimination. Her theory, however, is false because her explanation of wrongful discrimination fails to track a wrong-making feature. Her theory does not focus on a right-infringement in or unfair treatment of the person whom is discriminated against. It also does not focus on an incorrect attitude in the person who discriminates. These intuitively seem to exhaust (...) the reasons that make an act wrong because it wrongs someone. Her account of wrongful discrimination fails to identify the correct wrong-making feature. (shrink)