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What legal precedent if any, exists for men who have been discriminated against, on the basis of being men?

LawCurious
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    LawCurious, just as a heads up: the legal term you are looking for is "precedent" (that which has come before), not "precedence"(the condition of being considered more important). – sharur Dec 11 '20 at 06:10
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    Wasn't RBG notorious for filing cases of discrimination against men to get the courts to take notice of sex discrimination in general? – Barmar Dec 11 '20 at 15:37
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    What research have you bothered to do? Why "misandry discrimination," it's not called "misogyny discrimination" when it's women. – Azor Ahai -him- Dec 11 '20 at 16:25
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    @AzorAhai-him- maybe LawCurious wants to know whether it's legal to discriminate against misandrists? – user253751 Dec 11 '20 at 20:46
  • There was a case a number of years ago where a guy sued because he was turned down applying for a job as a Hooters waiter on the basis of gender. (For those outside the US, Hooters is a restaurant chain notorious for its scantily clad, exclusively female wait-staff.) I think he won and got the job, but I don't know how to go about looking up the legal docs for this sort of thing. – Darrel Hoffman Dec 11 '20 at 20:58
  • Most if not all laws in the U.S. on gender discrimination are written to be gender neutral in terminology so that it boils down to "if you discriminate against a person based on their gender, you are guilty". Thus any case where the victim of illegal discrimination was a woman can be precedential for a man in the same or near similar situation. – hszmv Dec 14 '20 at 13:30
  • My above comments true of just about any anti-discrimination law. While the laws were written with the intent to stop discriminatory practices against a minority, the specific wording allows for equal protections when a member of a majority is discriminated by a member of a minority. – hszmv Dec 14 '20 at 13:32
  • @AzorAhai-him- About 20 hours and found very little. I wasn't talking about discrimination against women. Misandry is the correct term.

    For clarity, an example of misandry discrimination would be in family courts, particularly where men are presumed guilty without any real evidence beyond testimony (which you are legally allowed to lie in family court).

     – LawCurious Dec 30 '20 at 05:38
  • I'm just saying it's not consistent with how other forms of discrimination are named. – Azor Ahai -him- Dec 30 '20 at 17:14

3 Answers3

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In the US, there have been a few cases (EEOC v. The Children's Home, Inc., Michael W. Naylor v. City of Burbank) in the realm of employment discrimination. There may well be more cases which are settled without going to court. There are somewhat more court cases in the UK, see here for a number of relevant categories. In addition, there are significant cases regarding discrimination against gay males, for example Bostock v. Clayton Co, decided by SCOTUS this summer.

user6726
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I nominate Craig v. Boren (1976):

Oklahoma passed a statute prohibiting the sale of "nonintoxicating" 3.2% beer to males under the age of 21 but allowed females over the age of 18 to purchase it. The statute was challenged as a Fourteenth Amendment's Equal Protection Clause violation by Curtis Craig, a male who was over 18 but under 21...The [Supreme] Court held that the gender classifications made by the Oklahoma statute were unconstitutional...

Interestingly, this decision was a landmark for women's rights, and Ruth Bader Ginsberg's involvement helped to raise her legal profile. Four years later she was confirmed to the Court of Appeals for the DC Circuit.

Peter Schilling
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In the UK, there was an interesting case many years ago before discrimination based on sexual preference (being gay / lesbian) became illegal:

A company owner had a very jealous wife that stopped him from hiring a female secretary, so he hired a male secretary. Then his wife found out the male secretary was gay, and forced the company owner to fire the secretary.

This went to court. A first court decided that firing the secretary (for being gay) was at that time legal. This went then to a second court. The judge declared that the secretary wasn't fired for being gay - because a lesbian female secretary would have been acceptable to the jealous wife. He was fired for being a man, and won a case for unfair dismissal.

Ryan M
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gnasher729
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