He is currently doing LLM in Constitutional law & Criminal law from the Central University of Kerala, Thiruvalla campus.
BACKGROUND
In May 2022, we have come across an extremely interesting judgment from United Kingdom’s Employment Tribunal (hereinafter referred to as the Tribunal) holding that Calling a man “Bald” is sex-related harassment.
JUDGMENT
The case was between Tony Finn, a veteran electrician and the manufacturing firm where he was employed. Tony Finn had worked for the West Yorkshire- based British Bung Company for almost 24 years before he was fired in May last year. He took the company to the Tribunal claiming, among other things, that he had been a victim of sex- related harassment after an incident with the factory supervisor, Jamie King. Finn alleged that during a shop floor row in July 2019, King had referred to him as a “Bald C**t”.
The Tribunal heard Finn and they couldn’t find anything weird in the “Anglo Saxon” used by King in this context and they were only concerned about the remarks on his personal appearance only. The panel led by Judge Jonathan Brain considered the issue that whether remarking on his baldness was a simple insult or actual harassment. The Tribunal was of the opinion that rather than using the industrial type of language to the complainant, the more serious crime is the personal comment on his appearance. King has used that term “Bald” to insult and belittle his identity and gender. The Tribunal have referred another case that of a woman who has insulted by stating the size of her breasts and the Tribunal found that both stands at the equal footing and since the latter amounted to sex related harassment, as was held by the Court in that case, the former also amounts to the same. For the reasons stated above, the Tribunal has held that calling a man “Bald” is sex related harassment and should be penalized. (The Anglo-Saxons were a cultural group who inhabited England in the Early Middle Ages).
CRITICAL ANALYSIS
The judgment seems to be appreciable and non- appreciable at the same time. Our society is getting civilized day by day in all areas and ‘Political Correctness’ is one of the key exponents of civilization now a days. Our society is getting more and more politically correct through their acts and words. Earlier, the society was used to accept and enjoy rape jokes, slut shaming, body shaming et cetera, be it in movies or in real life. But now, that mindset has changed to a good extent, and most of us just ignore and condemn that kind of remarks and jokes which were once considered humor. However, the society has not fully transformed yet. If a person is bald, obese or thin, we could still find jokes out of it and the tendency to derive happiness from such acts seems to be an unending phenomenon. The incident which formed the crux of the case at hand is an example for that. So, the judgment in fact urges people to denounce such acts, which would eventually help to prevent this type of insults in future. This judgment may act as a catalyst in igniting thoughts of Political Correctness in the society.
But whether the Tribunal had any intention to balance all kinds of insults and harassment faced by women in the society with the harassment faced by a man is the serious question to be addressed here. Women are subjected to a lot of criticisms, harassment, mockery, insults etc. for various reasons like their dressing, hair style and external appearance. Here, the Tribunal had compared the facts of Finn’s case to that of a woman who was insulted for the size of her breasts. A women’s breast is considered to be a ‘sexual organ’ whereas- the male breasts don’t fall into such a category. Another finding that deserves a mentioning is that ‘Baldness is seen more in men than women. This statement has arisen from the stereotypic thought process from the jury. Baldness is caused due to various reasons, even as a side effect of Chemo Therapy off the Cancer Patients irrespective of the gender. Baldness may be seen lesser in women than men. But the causes are almost same for both the genders. Therefore, associating baldness to a particular gender and comparing baldness in men with the breast size of a women are not at all appreciable. Baldness is a gender- neutral state and it can’t be associated exclusively with one gender or category of people in the society. So, in that perspective, the judgment of the Tribunal requires a revisit.
“Hair brings one’s self image into focus; it is vanity’s proving ground. Hair is terribly personal, a tangle of mysterious prejudices” -Shana Alexander
Progressive judgments are supposed to be aiming at uplifting women to put them at par with the social status of men. On the other hand, no endeavor shall be made to downgrade lower men’s status to achieve equality. Thus, in the future, society will become gender neutral in it’s approach and outlook because it’s high time that the habit of splitting humans into pink and blue should be stopped.
“Judiciary is assigned to present the Welcome note of Social and Political Changes’.
