Wait--I thought all Swedish women were tall!

Volvo Convicted of Gender Discrimination

By MATTIAS KAREN, Associated Press Writer
Wed Sep 21,11:34 AM ET

STOCKHOLM, Sweden - A Swedish court on Wednesday convicted Volvo Cars of gender discrimination for denying a woman a job at its manufacturing plant because she was too short to work at the conveyor belt.

Sweden's Labor Court ordered Volvo to pay 40,000 kronor ($5,200) to the woman, who was not identified, saying the hiring policy constituted "indirect gender discrimination."

Volvo's hiring policy stated that for safety reasons, employees must be between 5 feet 4 inches and 6 feet 5 inches to work at the conveyor belt at its car manufacturing plant outside Goteborg. The woman only measured 5 feet 3 inches, said Equal Opportunity Ombudsman Claes Borgstrom, who sued Volvo on the woman's behalf.

The court ruled that that statistically, the height requirement excluded more women than men, and should therefore be considered as gender discrimination.

"The consequence (of the ruling) must be that Volvo cannot routinely continue to automatically exclude people who are shorter than 163 centimeters (5 feet 4 inches) from employment," Borgstrom said in a statement. "Instead, they will have to make an individual judgment of the applicants' physical conditions for the job, for example span of reach and muscle strength." [...]

But, if a job requires a certain level of muscle strength or span of reach, given the fact that overall, women aren't physically as strong, or as large, as men, wouldn't they be proportionally misrepresented as well using these measurements, even if done on an individual basis? And wouldn't this be the same sort of indirect gender discrimination as the height requirement? And just what IS the exact airspeed of an African swallow carrying a coconut?

Anyway, one wonders if Volvo will also get in trouble for this.

(Tip o'the hat to New York's own Skinnydan for the link to the top article.)