Last December, an all-male Iowa Supreme Court ruled that it is legal for employers to fire an employee for being too attractive. The legal term used was “irresistible attraction,” and can be a terminable offense if the employer feels they cannot control their desires.
The case arose after a dentist fired his dental assistant for being too attractive, and he and his wife felt the woman was a threat to their marriage. Neither the dentist nor the assistant acted on the attraction or engaged in any flirtatious behavior but the court ruled 7-0 nonetheless. The assistant, Melissa Nelson, worked for Dr. James Knight for 10 years and is married with two children. For the final year of her employment, Knight began making remarks to her, saying that is his pants were bulging, she should know her clothing was too revealing. In the last six months of her employment under Knight, they began texting about work and family life and in a text message he sent her he asked how often she experienced an orgasm. Not only did she not respond to the text message, his wife found out about the text messaging and ordered him to fire her.
Knight brought Nelson in, with his pastor present, and told her that in the interest of his marriage and hers that he should end their professional relationship. Nelson’s husband met with Knight to reason with him to let her keep her job and Knight told him that he feared he would have an affair with her down the road. Nelson’s attorney tried to find Knight guilty of gender discrimination but the courts failed to recognize this as a viable defense given Iowa’s laws are based on “feelings” and not gender. However, this is a matter of sexism. Men would not be held to this same standard of termination and have never been terminated for being held responsible for another person’s inability to control their animal urges. Because women have always been a prime target of “you were asking for it” fodder, laws such as these can be voted on unanimously.
The level of her attractiveness is irrelevant to the point that women shouldn’t be held responsible for a man’s inability to control his urges. Having women held legally under the expectation that they are directly responsible for how a man feels about them, especially when said feeling is unprovoked contributes to rape culture. Rape culture is apart of our society, and is defined as the attitudes and formalities in our society that contribute to the mistreatment of women. One of the behaviors in rape culture that is more than relevant to the Nelson’s case against her boss is victim blaming. Nelson is the victim in this case because she in no way provoked or purposefully drew the sexual urges from Knight. But she is being fired and held in the court of law as a jezebel because it is expected that a man’s ability to control his self is only as strong as a women’s ability to remain covered up.
It absolves men of any real responsibility for their actions and their role in fair gender relations. A potential rapist or sexist can see this law and think it excuses them of victimizing a woman so long as she brings out an urge in him he can’t control. This law allows for any individual to use this Supreme Court holding as an excuse to treat a person unfairly for bringing out urges in themselves they can’t control even if it’s unprovoked. This is a dangerous law that contributes to this country’s tendency to demonize the victims and institutionally defend the victimizers.
The work force is still a dangerous, sexist place for women to enter into, and this case proves that. Women have no real support when in a pool of a male dominated industry and are seen as invaluable assets that are disposable even with the shoddy defense used against Nelson. Our country has a lot of repairing to do, for the current generation and one’s to come.