I'm sure you have heard of the recent class action law suit against Wal Mart for, in the words of Nigel Tufnel (lead guitarist of Spinal Tap), "being sexy". Wal Mart managers, alledgedly, made some edgy comments to female employees.
I read the article and I didn't see anything that would justify a billion dollar settlement. "Dust off your make up" was a good line. I remember trying to sell chip displays in to ceratin grocery chains and the manager wouldn't buy the display unless we send in Lisa (I changed the name). But basically, the Grocery Manager wanted to see our cute blonde manager come in and sell the product or he wouldn't buy it. Situations like this hurt men's ability to sell. So telling this woman to "dust off your make up" might have been a good selling point.
Another piece to the closing of the American mind.
Any reference to Spinal Tap should result in a +1 added to your score.
ReplyDeleteIt seems like you're tackling three things at once:
1) The lawsuit itself seems more concerned with job status of women within Walmart
2) A passing reference is made to women needing to doll themselves up to look good and then
3) You bring up the (unfair?) advantage that cute women may have as salespeople.
Regarding 1, this seems like total bullshit. All the libs and lawyers (one is a subset of the other of course) doing nothing more than looking to take down evil Walmart and score big bucks.
Regarding 2, men and women have dress codes they need to meet at their places of employment. Within reason, their employers should have the right to tell them what those codes will be. It bums me out that I don't get to wear sandles in the summer: women can at my company. Life's not fair.
Regarding 3, Sex sells. Ask talentless hacks Madonna, Britney Spears, or Lady Gaga. Video killed the radio star. There do seem to be a number of cute females in the sales department of many companies. And who is the employer to tell the small minimart owner whom he needs to buy chips from?
(I guess YouTube has commercials now) http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8EK6Y1X_xa4
ReplyDeleteThomas Sowell gives some interesting information on this topic.
Wal Mart represents capitalism and its achievements and for this reason alone is attacked by government and unions and other groups. I don't know of many other compaines that are hated by the public, or most of its employees too. Most people shop there and the company saves the average family 3500 dollars a year regardless of where they shop.
One of the complaintents said "She never heard a supervisor tell a man, as she says one told her, to "doll up" or "blow the cobwebs off" her make-up." Maybe this is because males don't wear makeup and not much can be done to "doll up" a man. I know that men are told to tuck their shirts in or even pressured to get a hair cut.
If find it hard to believe that there are any hot females that work at Wal Mart. I think an employer should be able to tell its employees what to wear and to tell females to stop dressing like hookers, wearing excessive makeup although they may need it.
A stated goal of Wal Mart is to find females to promote to managers as the majority of Wal Mart's customers are females. Where are the men suing to complain about this? This is not sexist.
I think the whole fuse is just a bunch of free loading Americans wanting free money from a law suit. It is pathetic that people try to get rich in this way. And I think a lot of the perceived slights on the part of the women that this case deals with is the result of the female character of finding insults or slights when none exist--they take everything personal.
Whats sad, is that Wal Mart will probably settle. They don't want this to drag out. In that case, they will admit some guilt and restrictions will be enforced.
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