issues

Gender Discrimination

Gender discrimination is illegal, but it remains deeply embedded in many workplaces and can affect how you're hired, evaluated, promoted, paid, and treated in other aspects of employment.

Gender discrimination remains a pervasive issue in the workplace that can hold you back at every stage of your career.

 

The “broken rung,” for instance, describes women getting stuck on the corporate ladder because they’re passed over for promotions from entry-level roles into management, while the “glass ceiling” is the invisible barrier that prevents women from reaching the highest leadership positions. 

Gender discrimination is sometimes right out in the open, such as when a woman is paid less than a male colleague for similar work. But the harm usually appears in more subtle ways, including gender bias that affects how employees are interviewed, hired, supported, evaluated, and promoted. Gender discrimination also frequently intersects with bias surrounding race, ethnicity, and other traits. 

Bias can accumulate over time, causing a demoralizing workplace that few employees know how to address. 

Outten & Golden is a leader on fighting gender discrimination. Our attorneys have helped thousands of employees, professionals, and executives navigate their relationships with their employer and advocate for positive changes in their workplace. 

Through counseling, negotiation, arbitration, and litigation, we address both situations involving individual workers and class action cases that have the potential to benefit wide swaths of employees. 

In doing so, we’ve secured many of the largest and most notable gender discrimination settlements on record. 

Protection from Harassment and Retaliation 

Gender-based mistreatment can reveal itself in various forms of sexual harassment, such as unwanted comments, exclusion, or sexual advances tied to gender, gender expression, or gender identity. 

The same laws that make gender discrimination illegal also protect your right to speak up, meaning your employer can’t legally retaliate against you for doing so. 

If you believe gender-based bias has negatively affected you as an employee, we can help you understand your rights, whether you’re still employed or have already left your employer. 

Framing the Issue

  • For women in the workplace, earning recognition means overcoming subtle biases. If you’ve felt you had to work twice as hard as male colleagues for half the credit, harmful assumptions about gender roles could be a factor.
  • Just thinking about speaking up against unfair treatment can also be a heavy burden. Advocating for what’s right could bring retaliation, like being sidelined from key projects, enduring baseless critiques, or even being fired.
  • Gender bias often occurs with parental and family leave, which sets back women’s careers more than men’s. If you aren’t a parent, you may get limited promotion opportunities as others assume you plan to have children.
  • Discrimination can happen regardless of your gender. Fathers may face stereotypes about caregiving, and transgender employees may be denied jobs, promotions, or fair treatment.

Notable Matters

  • Represented a Department of Justice professional in Stoe v. Garland, securing a jury victory and more than $800,000 in compensation.
  • Litigated and settled a discrimination and retaliation lawsuit on behalf of a female professional at one of the world’s largest private equity firms.
  • Secured a $215 million settlement for 2,800 women at Goldman Sachs who claimed the company’s pay, evaluation, and promotion policies were biased toward men.  
  • Negotiated a $3.7 million settlement for five female faculty members of Syracuse University, who challenged the university’s compensation and promotion practices. 
  • Obtained a $26 million pay equity settlement for female, Black and Hispanic employees of Mastercard.
  • Won a $1.15 million trial victory for a Google Cloud professional who alleged the company hired her at a lower salary level than male peers, overlooked her for a promotion, and retaliated against her for raising complaints and filing a discrimination lawsuit. 
  • Recovered $20 million for women at Google who alleged they were paid, leveled, promoted and evaluated treated less favorably than their male counterparts. 
  • Obtained a $1.2 million settlement on behalf of a woman with equal pay claims against a large global bank. 

Has this happened

to you?

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Do you believe gender was a factor in the professional development or promotion opportunities you received?

Your workplace should support your family needs. We can help.

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