The Price Tag for Corporate Sexism? $250 Million and Change

Think your boss is a jerk? What if your employer systemically engaged in sexist behavior? I love a good flick in which the beleaguered ladies win their case, but films like North Country tend to glamorize the lengthy court battles that many women fight and lose against sexist employers every year. That said, we have another victory on our hands. Last month, Swiss pharmaceutical giant Novartis lost a costly — and publicly damaging — gender bias suit. While the Wall Street Journal called the $250 million punitive damages payout "manageable" from a financial perspective, I'm hoping it isn't so simple.

What's particularly compelling about this case is that it makes way for up to 5,588 other plaintiffs to receive class action damages. Having been through a few of my own minor legal trials myself, I can only be so clear: paving the way for others in these cases is extraordinarily difficult at best. I salute the first 12 women who testified, and apparently, the jury did too, since they awarded the women an additional $3.3 million in compensatory damages — or actual lost wages — on top of the punitive payout.

As Sharon Lerner at Slate points out, Novartis has been the subject of quite a bit of backlash after being included on Working Mother's 100 best companies list for the past decade. It also makes us question just what sort of actual research goes into shaping these ideals and creating these lists — often employer self-reporting is seen as sufficient evidence of a female/family-friendly workplace — though perhaps it should go without saying that one person's idea of good PR is another person's version of lying.

Cynthia Thomas Calvert, deputy director of the Hastings Center for Work/Life Law, a research and advocacy group in California, told Lerner, "If you're in a culture that devalues women as workers once they become mothers, it doesn't matter if you have a policy on the books." If you've ever worked in a male-dominated environment, you know exactly what she's talking about.

It's also generally true that higher-paid female workers are the ones engaged in measures of self-reporting, which also adds inherent bias since those women are more likely to have better benefits and access to family-friendly policies. Again, speaking as someone who's done more than my share of clerical work, it's easy to see how the lowest paid ladies in administration and sales get trampled.

It's true that you can't put a price on your own safety, well-being, mental health, or pride. But if someone's rights are so egregiously trampled as in the Novartis case, you can be damn sure a few of us will find an acceptable dollar figure to attach to our suffering. It takes a lot to stand up to a giant corporation, but more and more female workers are doing just that. Instead of misunderstanding their intentions or questioning their choices, we need to support them. If we don't, what kind of example do we set for younger generations?

Photo Credit: stevendepolo