Category: Workforce Discrimination

French court convicts ex-Ubisoft executives over culture of workplace harassment | France 24

A court near Paris has found a former Ubisoft [the publisher of Assassin’s Creed and Far Cry] executive guilty of attempted sexual assault and handed suspended jail terms to two other former executives for allowing a toxic environment of harassment to prosper at the French gaming giant.

 A French court sentenced three former Ubisoft executives on Wednesday to suspended prison terms for enabling a culture of sexual and psychological harassment at the gaming giant.

Thomas François, a former editorial vice president who was also convicted on a charge of attempted sexual assault, was handed a suspended three-year term, while former chief creative officer Serge Hascoet was given an 18-month suspended sentence.

Former games director Guillaume Patrux received a 12-month suspended sentence.

Source: French court convicts ex-Ubisoft executives over culture of workplace harassment; https://www.france24.com/en/20200714-metoo-fallout-at-french-video-game-company-ubisoft-could-signal-industry-shift

 

Academics lose discrimination case over trans-critical film | MSN

Two academics have failed in their attempt to sue their union for stopping their trans-critical film from being shown to students at the University of Edinburgh.

Deirdre O’Neill, a lecturer at the University of Hertfordshire, and Michael Wayne, a professor at Brunel University, argued that they suffered unlawful discrimination when the University and College Union (UCU) opposed their film, Adult Human Female, which challenges claims made by trans rights activists.

On Monday, Employment Judge Laidler, sitting with two side members, concluded the claimants were not treated detrimentally contrary to the Equality Act 2010, and were not subjected to harassment.

The tribunal noted that UCU Edinburgh was not objecting to the beliefs of the claimants but was protesting against a film which it believed presented misinformation about trans and non-binary people and that was damaging to trans and non-binary staff and students.

Source: Academics lose discrimination case over trans-critical film

Trans Women are Men, Supreme Court Win – Maya Forstater, CEO – Sex Matters – YouTube

Liberals have no business bailing out John Pesutto | The Australian

When you’re in a hole the best ­advice is to stop digging. But not if you’re a former Liberal leader in Victoria. Instead, you bring in an excavator, as well as a couple of sticks of gelignite, for good measure. How else do you explain the madness that’s being suggested by John Pesutto, Jeff Kennett, Ted Baillieu and others that the Liberal Party pay the $2.3m in indemnity costs ordered by the Federal Court after Pesutto defamed fellow Liberal Moira Deeming?

In what other workplace would people in a position of authority get bailed out after a court found they had reputationally destroyed a colleague, concealed secret recordings from evidence and generally made someone’s life a living hell?

And yet the Liberal Party wonders why it has a problem with women if this is how one of their own is treated. But to merely equate this with rank misogyny misses the rich vein of snobbery that runs through this whole sorry saga. I mean how dare a former schoolteacher from struggle street in western Melbourne stand up to the lawyer-turned-party-leader from the leafy suburbs of Hawthorn? And in taking him on, how dare she win?

All through this case, the word around Melbourne Liberal circles was that this would be a laydown misere win for Pesutto. Anyone seen to be defending Deeming was to be ostracised and in not-so veiled threats from Kennett, he declared her supporters inside the parliamentary Liberal Party “disloyal and perhaps even treacherous” and threatened to have them “dealt with in due course when preselections are called for the next election”.

What is staggering is that Pesutto, a former solicitor and shadow attorney-general, refused to countenance losing this case and rejected a pre-trial offer to settle for $99,000 without even an apology. Indeed, part of the reason for the massive costs order against him is because he ignored opportunities to mitigate damage and deliberately prolonged proceedings, as repeatedly referenced by Justice O’Callaghan in his judgment.

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Labor women make history by overtaking men in cabinet. So is the job done? | The Conversation

For the first time in Australian history, there will be more women than men in federal cabinet.This comes more than 120 years after women were first allowed to stand for federal parliament, and decades after Labor established its gender quota strategy.

Taking into account the full caucus, women will comprise 56% of the Labor party room, a clear record.

Labor women now easily outnumber the men in both chambers: 54% in the House of Representatives and a likely 63% in the Senate, once results are finalised.

Anthony Albanese’s new cabinet – the very top of the decision making process – is made up of 12 women and 11 men.

By contrast, Liberal prime minister Tony Abbott could find space for only one woman – Julie Bishop – in his cabinet in 2013.

Women are critically underrepresented in the parliamentary Liberal and National parties. They make up just 28.5% of the former coalition across both chambers – a slight increase on the previous parliament.

However, women comprise just 21% of Liberal and National MPs in the lower house, a decline of three percentage points. This has sparked renewed calls from some conservative quarters to introduce quotas.

Sussan Ley has made history as the Liberal Party’s first female leader. However, there are already indications she has inherited a “glass cliff” position, given she was elevated after a catastrophic failure at the ballot box.

Further, having more women in parliament does not guarantee substantive representative or inclusive policy-making. While some research shows women tend to advocate on female issues, a higher number of women politicians does not automatically mean more feminist policy.

Of the 42 frontbenchers who make up the full ministry, 23 are men and 19 are women.

Source: Labor women make history by overtaking men in cabinet. So is the job done?

Lesbians: the canaries in the mine (Susan Hawthorne) – Verity La La

I would suggest that when lesbians become victims of attack, they are a signal. They are the canaries in the mine. And if the perpetrators get away with it, then other attacks will follow. So, we need to be protesting every attack on lesbians, because it is a sign of hatred in the social system. If lesbians are not protected, then people who don’t fit some other social dimension will not be safe from attack either. Keep your lesbian sister safe and watch the effect it has on society (Hawthorne 2020, pp. 171-172).

Source: Lesbians: the canaries in the mine (Susan Hawthorne) – Verity La La

Donations double for pool body sued by transgender player | MSN

Donations have doubled in a day for the legal defence of a pool federation being sued by a banned transgender player.

The amount pledged to the crowdfunding page of the English Blackball Pool Federation (EBPF) has soared from around £6,600 to more than £13,000.

The money was pledged after Telegraph Sport highlighted that the ruling body had been seeking financial support amid fears the costs involved in the case would prove beyond its means.

Harriet Haynes is suing the EBPF for discrimination after it banned players born male from competing in women’s events. She claims it led her to suffer a “loss of opportunity” and “injured feelings”.

As the case has entered its fourth day, Canterbury County Court was due to hear evidence from the transgender goalkeeper who caused a storm in women’s football after Haynes called her as an expert witness.

Blair Hamilton, who is an academic affiliated with Manchester Metropolitan University, the University of Brighton and the Tavistock NHS Gender Identity Clinic, was expected to endorse Haynes’s claims.

In August, Telegraph Sport reported how Sutton United, who appointed Lucy Clark as the first trans manager in the top five tiers of the English female game, had provoked controversy by signing Hamilton for their women’s team.

Source: Donations double for pool body sued by transgender player

Gender pay gaps getting worse in Aussie law firms – Lawyers Weekly

The Workplace Gender Equality Agency’s (WGEA) data for 2023–24 revealed that just under half of the 62 major law firms with comparable data to the previous reporting year had a worse gender pay gap (GPG).

Source: Gender pay gaps getting worse in Aussie law firms – Lawyers Weekly

ICC chief prosecutor seeks arrest warrants for Taliban leaders over persecution of women | Taliban | The Guardian

The international criminal court’s chief prosecutor has requested arrest warrants for the Taliban’s supreme leader and Afghanistan’s chief justice on the grounds that their persecution of women and girls in Afghanistan is a crime against humanity.

It marks the first time the prosecutor has built a case around systemic crimes against women and girls, legal experts say. It is also a rare moment of vindication for Afghan activists, who over the last three years have often felt abandoned by the international community even as Taliban oppression deepened.

Since sweeping back to power in 2021, the Taliban have issued more than 80 decrees that violate women’s basic rights. Women are barred from most work, secondary education and public spaces, and their daily life is restricted in various ways.

Recently the group banned windows in rooms frequently used by women, to ensure they could not be seen by men not related to them. New buildings should be constructed without windows in these rooms and existing windows should be covered up, the order stipulated.

Activists are campaigning for the crime of gender apartheid to be recognised under international law, to reflect the scale of Taliban restrictions.

Source: ICC chief prosecutor seeks arrest warrants for Taliban leaders over persecution of women | Taliban | The Guardian

‘I got rape threats over claims I put a feminist symbol in a video game’ | BBC

Young male gamers had taken issue with a single frame in the trailer, in which the female character could be seen holding her thumb and forefinger close together.

They thought it resembled a hand gesture used by a radical online feminist community almost a decade ago to poke fun at the size of Korean men’s penises.

Darim had become the latest victim in a series of vicious online witch hunts, in which men in South Korea attack women they suspect of having feminist views. They bombard them with abuse and try to get them sacked.

This is part of a growing backlash to feminism, in which feminists have been branded man-haters who deserve to be punished. The witch hunts are having a chilling effect on women, with many now scared to admit they are feminists.

This is forcing the movement underground, in a country where gender discrimination is still deeply entrenched. South Korea has the largest gender pay gap in the OECD, a group of the world’s rich countries.

The backlash began in the mid-2010s, following a surge of feminist activism. During this time, women took to the streets in protest at sexual violence and the widespread use of hidden cameras that secretly film women using toilets and changing rooms – around 5,000 to 6,000 cases are reported annually.

There is evidence the authorities are also capitulating to the anti-feminists’ demands. When Darim reported her abuse to the police, they refused to take her case.

They said because the finger-pinching gesture was taboo, it was “logical” that she, as a feminist, had been attacked. “I was astonished,” she said. “Why would the authorities not protect me?”

A 2024 IPSOS poll of 31 countries found only 24% of women in South Korea defined themselves as feminist, compared to an average of 45%, and down from 33% in 2019.

Source: ‘I got rape threats over claims I put a feminist symbol in a video game’