What did the Supreme Court decide in the Wal-Mart case? And more importantly, how did it justify its decision? (HINT: the key word here is “commonality” (and how it related to “class-action lawsuit”). Try to understand what this legal terms means, as it is key to the court’s decision).

Woman discrimination has been a problem for a while. As for the Wal-mart case is where the woman finally tried to take matters into their own hands. The women decided to sue for a lawsuit.  As evidence was shown the Supreme Court decision still hasn’t been helpful towards women. In this case they was all discriminated by their sex. Everything was supposed to be equal no matter what the gender was. But the women were payed like based on their sex whether if they did the same job as a man , the man will end getting paid more. 

Veronica Gonzalez

POL 100 (0504) – Intro. to American Govt. – Fall 2022

Discussion Board 12.1
Q1.  In Betty Dukes v. Wal-Mart Stores, female employees sued Wal-Mart on the basis of sex discrimination on the job (affecting pay and promotions). The women in the lawsuit decided to sue as a group or “class”. When the case finally was heard by the Supreme Court, though presented with ample evidence that Wal-Mart had indeed created an environment of sex discrimination against their female employees, their decision was not favorable to the women employees. The Supreme Court decided that the female employees misclassified their class action lawsuit when asking for back pay as damages. The class action lawsuit should have been brought under Rule 23 of Civil Procedure b(3), but it was brought under Rule 23 of Civil Procedure b(2), the prior would have been appropriate in allowing the case to qualify as a class action lawsuit, providing them with monetary damages. Secondly, there were issues with commonality. Commonality applied in this case meant that all female employees discriminated against had to have experienced the same discriminatory practices i.e., denied the same promotions, pay raises, were discriminated against in the same store and by the same supervisor/manager, which was not the case for all the female employees involved in the lawsuit. Even though they were all discriminated against based on their sex (female), the commonality requirements that would be required i.e., same manager, same store, say pay raise, were not met, which also meant that without commonality, compensation could not be paid out to all the plaintiffs in equal form. According to the Supreme Court, in Betty Dukes v. Wal-Mart, a class action lawsuit with commonality requirements was not met.

1. What is gender and how is it different from sex?

A person’s dress, their haircut, or even their body language may all be used to convey their gender in a number of different ways. On the other hand, there are often just two ways to express sex: male or female.

2. What is the difference between radical and radical feminism?

There is no one-to-one correlation between biological factors like sex hormones or reproductive organs and one’s assigned gender. This indicates that a person’s gender and sex do not necessarily have to be the same.

1. What is the difference between gender and sex?

Gender is a social construct, which implies that it is not founded on any natural or biological fact. This is because gender is an artificial category that was created by humans. Instead, it is a collection of notions that people have concocted about what it is to be a man or a woman. These notions vary from culture to culture.

2. Describe the difference between cisgender and transgender person

The concept of a person’s gender is considered to be fluid, which indicates that it is subject to change. This stands in stark contrast to sex, which is unchangeable and cannot be altered in any way.

3. What is gender expression?

One’s identity, which can be summed up as how they see themselves, is directly related to their gender presentation. On the other hand, sexuality is about a person’s anatomy, which is a term that refers to the physical aspects of a body.

These questions are based on the “Sex Class Action” article:

1. What did the Supreme Court decide in the Wal-Mart case? And more importantly, how did it justify its decision? (HINT: the key word here is “commonality” (and how it related to “class-action lawsuit”). Try to understand what this legal terms means, as it is key to the court’s decision).