Women’s Equality Day Celebrates Accomplishments, Struggles of Women Worldwide

Here’s how the fight for women’s equality impacts our work at Deratany & Kosner.

August 22, 2021

Women’s Equality Day is August 26th. Deratany & Kosner joins women and allies across the world in celebrating the accomplishments of women who have preserved despite systematic oppression, misogyny, and sexism. More than ever before, women are breaking glass ceiling after glass ceiling in sports, politics, and even in the legal field. But this is also a day that asks us to contemplate the remaining struggles that women face in gaining full equality.

In some ways, the law has done an excellent job of catching up to institutional sexism by providing a bevy of federal and state statutes that are designed to provide an equal playing field for women in the workplace.

However, these laws can prove frustratingly out-of-reach as far as remedies go when workplace harassment occurs – they’re difficult cases to win because the plaintiff is required to demonstrate that whatever adverse employment decision they’re suing over was predicated on gender.

All an employer has to do under circumstances where they are accused of discrimination is identify a gender neutral non-discriminatory basis for the adverse employment decision and the burden shifts back to the plaintiff to show the ostensible reason for the decision is pretext for the actual reason: prejudice, which despite the myriad of accomplishments women’s equality has cultivated, still exists widely.

It’s important for women who are seeking justice for workplace discrimination/workplace sexism to make sure that their attorneys have an understanding of the complex playing field and the challenges that these cases can present. We stand ready to help women who have been victims of harassment – contact us for a consultation today.

How does gender inequality impact medical malpractice plaintiffs and foster care plaintiffs?

Sexism impacts the facts of many cases that are brought to Deratany & Kosner. In terms of medical malpractice, we’ve seen more exacerbated and absurdly unacceptable standards of care applied to women that simply wouldn’t have been applied if they were men. Women are more than 7x more likely to be misdiagnosed while having a heart attack than men are, for example. Here are some more shocking statistics about how women may experience medical malpractice injuries differently than men do.

In terms of foster care – women and girls are among the most vulnerable of the already vulnerable children in the foster care setting. Young women and girls are subjected to a much higher percentage of sexual and physical abuse than their male counterparts. Most – not all, but most – of the sexual abuse cases Deratany & Kosner has seen in the foster care setting involve young women and girls.

Those women and girls that have the courage to come forward are perceived by us as heroes, and we’re dedicated to making sure the juries hearing the case think so as well. If you’re a woman who was victimized in foster care, Deratany & Kosner has decades of experience fighting for justice for girls just like you. We understand the impact that this trauma might’ve had on you, and we’re ready to help you come forward however you want to. Call us for a free consultation.

-Jay Paul Deratany and Michael Kosner