Favoritism is an issue that exists in society for a long period of time.

It could be on the basis of

someone’s appearance, money, social status, reputation etc. people are judged upon such factors.
Whether it is to get a job, make buddies in college or to become a member of a band, some
people would be preferred by many other people and some would not be. Favoritism is an issue
that could not be avoided and we could learn to accept it because it’s going to remain even if you
die.

Favoritism could be of any type. The first type we going to study is gender. There is no question
in that practicing favoritism is considered to be bad management. It creates exasperation,
destroys employee spirit, and creates obstructions for greater performances. Once an employee
gets to know the benefits of being on the good side of the manager but not from working hard it
gets a little difficult to work for the others. Favoritism leads to less productivity, like other
employees rather than working hard focus upon or discuss how unfair the system is.

Favoritism is not always considered to be illegal. It all depends upon how the employees are
being favored or disfavored. No laws restrain companies from having shoddy managers or
running a workplace like a schoolyard. If favoritism is considered in discrimination, harassment,
or retaliation however, it crosses its line from bad management to illegal behavior.

Discrimination occurs when employers make job decisions on the basis of employees' protected
characteristics; basically traits that federal, state, or local governments have decided should not
be taken as the basis of employment actions. Under federal law, for example, it's illegal for the
employer to hire someone on the basis of his or her race, not allowing women to get a promotion,
to entrust employees with disabilities to low-paying positions, or to fire employees based on age.

If favoritism in the workplace is based on protected characteristics, then it is considered to be

illegal discrimination. For example, if a manager promotes only men instead of women or gives
the best assignments and shifts are given to those employees who share his religious beliefs then
that would be discrimination.

On the other hand, favoritism which based upon other factors may not be discriminatory, even if
it considered being bad management. For example, if a manager favors employees who are her
school buddies, who are fans of the same football team, or who love the same music band, which
is not discrimination.

Today we all know that women tend to get less hire for a job than men, even when the candidates
have the same skills and qualifications. Companies favor men not because they discriminate
against women but they have a thought that men can perform better than women on a daily basis.

Gender discrimination runs in the workplace for a very long time. A woman tends to earn less
than men in many fields. We could take an example from film industry where an actress’s salary
is less than the actor's salary. For e.g.;- The famous Priyanka Chopra also used to pay less than

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the actor of the film. She was also told that “female actors are replicable as they only have to
stand behind the actor1”.

Sexual harassment in favoritism

To explain this we could take a famous case in California which talks about job favoritism in
sexual harassment. The case involved former female employees at the Valley State Prison for
Women in Chowchilla, who filed sexual harassment against the warden. The warden had been
sexually involved with at least three female employees at the same time and had promoted them
on the basis of their sexual involvement. The two former employees argued that the warden's
widespread favoritism based upon these consensual sexual affairs filled their workplace with an
atmosphere that was not in accordance with them. They stated that the warden's actions spread
the message to the office that he viewed women as "sexual playthings" and the only way they
could move up in their employment was to become sexually involved with him.

The lower court stated against the women that, they were not subjected to sexual harassment and
were not treated differently but the Supreme Court overturned the lower court’s decision in favor
of the employs.

Gender favoritism could also be vice versa i.e. men’s also sometimes fall into the category of
discrimination. If women succeed in calming an equal pay comparing her to the higher paid male
companion then what happen to the male who is paid less for doing the similar job as the women
has done. In Hartlepool Borough council V/S Llewellyn 2 and other appeals, the EAT agrees that
a man can do “piggy back” claim, comparing himself with the female foe the similar with the
similar work done by both.

In case of Eversheds Legal Services Ltd V de Belin 3, law firm tried to fairly deals with the
repetition scores of maternity leave of a women backfired. Eat held that men suffers from sex
discrimination when he was selected for redundancy when hi college took the leave.

There are many cases where many females staff tends to discriminate against male employees or
job applicants. In case of Taylor V Freemans Mail Order 4, a male manager was unlawfully
redundant in a predominated female organization just because she thought that women would
better fir in the organization.

1
Available at: https://people.com/celebrity/female-celebs-who-have-spoken-out-about-equal-pay/? (Visited on 11
oct, 2019)

2
Hartlepool Borough council V/S Llewellyn

3
Eversheds Legal Services Ltd V de Belin
4
Taylor V Freemans Mail Order

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Same happened in the case of Flynn V the Governors of St peters C of E combined school 5, in
this case also the major applicants who were selected were women also and less number of males
which leads to sex discrimination.

Now the second type which we are going to study is how favoritism takes place in the case of
caste. Indian society is divided into various classes. This is due to the caste system which is
common in the country. The roots of the caste system go to the ancient Vedas dividing people
according to their occupation. Many evil has been brought in society. The Government is
constantly trying to determine the harms of the system and to overcome it and also bring equality
among the people.

The caste system becomes the curse for the Indian society. This system divides the Indian society
into various groups and classes. Till today, it plays a major role in our society apart from the
growth of culture and civilization.

The terms ‘Scheduled Castes and Scheduled Tribes’ (SC/ST) are the terms that are officially
used in government documents to identify untouchables and tribes people. But, in 2008 the
National Commission for Scheduled Castes, noticed that the word ‘Dalit’ was used with the
official term ‘Scheduled Castes’, they asked the State Governments to stop using the word
‘Dalit’ in official documents and to replace it with the term ‘Scheduled Caste’ instead.

The roots of the caste system have come from ancient times. While one side views the system as
upper caste and the lower case while the others sees them from the origin from the work they
tend to do.

Favoritism in caste plays a major role as from ancient times the SC/ST group is considered to be
the backward group. A person from the general category will have respect in society but the
person from the lower caste will not be considered as supreme as the general category person.

We could give the example of a school in bihar6 where there was discrimination in school on the
basis of their caste.

That school has divided the students into different rooms and sections based on their religion and
their caste-like (Hindu, Muslim, Dalits, OBC’s and Upper caste )

5
Flynn V the Governors of St peters C of E combined school
6
Availableat:https://www.indiatoday.in/education-today/news/story/caste-based-discrimination-bihar-school-
1412713-2018-12-19 (visited on 13 oct, 2019)

When all this came into the knowledge of the government they started inquiring about the

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same. Also, the Bihar Education Minister Krishnandan Prasad Verma started inquiring and

Assuming that those found guilty and punished. After the Education officer Arvind Kumar

Tiwari visits the school and said, that according to the report by IANS it has been found

True.

Now the 3rd type we are going to talk about is favoritism on the basis of race. Favoritism is
affection towards a person or a group. Racism is the belief that race leads to different human
characters or ability and that a specific race is superior to others. So the difference between the
two is due to the difference in the skin color.

When most people think of racism, they picture one group having positive feelings toward
another group. Research since the 1970s has found that many groups belonging to the same
category will tend to create favoritism or a positive feeling toward each other but for other
groups, they have a negative feeling. One study found that people are more likely to cooperate
with another person when they learn that the person shares their birthday. Even major life
decisions such as whom to live, where to live your life, and what occupation to do can be
influenced by relatively minor similarities.

Women are more likely to marry men who share the first letter of their last name.

People are more likely to live in cities that include their birthday numbers.

People named Louis would love to live in St. Louis, people named Paul going to live in St. Paul,
people named Helen going to live in St. Helen, and people named Mary going to live in St.
Mary.

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