A labor court determined that calling a man “bald” is sexual harassment: the details of the controversial ruling

In United Kingdom, a court ruled on a conflict in a workplace and found that calling a man “bald” qualifies as sexual harassment. In the ruling, the judges in charge of the case compared the treatment of a man pointing out his lack of hair with making comments about a woman’s bust. The controversial explanation they gave.

It all started from a complaint made by an electrician in the town of West Yorkshire. After 24 years in which he worked for the Bund company, Tony Finn He was fired. The former employee decided to take the company to court for a dispute he had with the supervisor, Jamie King.

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Among other things, claimed to have been sexually harassedAs reported Guardian. According to Finn’s testimony, the incident occurred in July 2019, when King referred disparagingly to his baldness during the fight they had.

Following the complaint, a British labor court led by Judge Jonathan Brain, had to determine if the reference to the lack of hair was simply an insult or if it was indeed harassment. The deliberation concluded that the supervisor “crossed the line” calling Finn “bald”. In the same sense, the judges considered that King “uttered those words for the purpose of violating Finn’s dignity and create a hostile, degrading, humiliating or offensive environment for him”.

A court has ruled that calling a man “bald” qualifies as sexual harassment. (Pexels/)

“King’s intention was to threaten and insult him. In our judgment, there is a connection between the word ‘bald’ on the one hand and the protected characteristic of sex on the other”, they added. The interpretation made by the magistrates is that since alopecia is much more frequent in men, using that characteristic to insult would be a form of sexual harassment due to gender. “We found that it is inherently related”they specified.

To plot this point, they cited a case in which a man was found guilty of harassing a woman for commenting on her bust size.

The court argued that just as the latter case is much more likely to happen to a woman, the opposite is true for alopecia, where mostly the victims would be men.

In concluding the ruling, they stated that King’s conduct “It was a violation of the plaintiff’s dignity, it created an intimidating environment for him, it was made for that purpose and it is related to his sex”. In the document, the thirteen judges who issued the ruling also mentioned the perspective that their lack of hair gave them for this sentence.

The case of alopecia that was the protagonist in Hollywood

Jada Pinkett and Will Smith during the Oscar ceremony that ended in scandal. (AP Photo/Chris Pizzello) Chris Pizzello – Invision/)

Although it is less common in women, baldness was present at the delivery of the last Oscars and took all the attention of the night. It all happened when Chris Rockwho was in charge of conducting the event, made a joke about the lack of hair of Jada Pinkett, partner of Will Smith.

Immediately, the actor got up and slapped his colleaguea fact that brought him bad consequences for his career.

Pinkett Smith told at the end of 2021 the reason why she wore a shaved head and denied rumors that she was sick. In that sense, she explained that she suffers from alopecia, which attacks the hair follicles and causes hair loss.

“This is gonna be a little harder to hideso I thought I’d share it so they don’t ask me questions, “he told his followers on that occasion.

Source: Elcomercio