A panel of judges in Sheffield, UK, have ruled that calling a man “bald” is sexual harassment.
The Telegraph reports the three judges overseeing the North Yorkshire tribunal suffered from hair loss themselves and concluded that using the word “bald” to describe someone is a form of discrimination.
The Telegraph notes the judges moaned about their own baldness during the hearing, and that their ruling suggests that commenting on a man’s baldness at work is the same as remarking on the size of a woman’s breasts.
The ruling comes from a case brought by electrician Tony Finn, who was fired from the British Bung Company in May 2021, after nearly 24 years on the job.
Finn claimed he was sexually harassed in 2019 when a factory supervisor called him a “bald c***.”
Finn told the court he “feared for his personal safety” after the incident and wasn’t a fan of having his personal appearance criticized.
The tribunal said in part, “The tribunal therefore determines that by referring to the claimant as a ‘bald c***,’ Mr. King’s conduct was a violation of the claimant’s dignity, it created an intimidating environment for him, it was done for that purpose, and it related to the claimant’s sex.”
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