What's Sex Got To Do With It?
Plenty!

Ranking first in numbers of cases filed are sex discrimination and sexual harassment complaints. While sex discrimination (denial of employment opportunities or benefits based upon gender) and sexual harassment (misconduct, based on sex) have always been a bitter fact of life for women in the workplace, until recent years only a relative few were willing to take on employers in the legal arena.

Certainly the women's rights movement encouraged such actions. Women wanted their fair share of the market pie. But despite much public attention and many successful suits, that "glass ceiling," limiting promotional opportunities, still plagues executives who happen to be women, and women at all levels of employment still make only seventy-eight cents for every dollar earned by men in the same position.

While the uphill battle for sexual equality continues to be fought at what may seem like a snail's pace of victories, sexual harassment, which has always been a problem and which many women "just dealt with," attained national (probably worldwide) attention with the Anita Hill-Clarence Thomas controversy in 1991. Women continue to experience the same fears and trepidation regarding retaliation by employers, and possible damage to their future careers as a result of speaking out and challenging discriminatory employment practices. But increasingly, they are now willing to fight to vindicate their legal rights.