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A UK judge has ruled that calling women "birds" is "plainly sexist," and
even using the term jokingly is "foolish" in a landmark discrimination case.
The ruling came following a tribunal brought by a Barclays investment banker
after her boss repeatedly called women "birds."Anna Anca Lacatus said her boss, James Kinghorn, continued to refer to her as a "bird" despite requesting that he stop and warning that the term was making her feel uncomfortable, the hearing at the East London Employment Tribunals Service was told.
Mr Kinghorn still defended his use of the word as "lighthearted", but judge John Crosfill ruled against him stating
it was "foolish" to think anyone would find the remark funny.
Ms Lacatus is set to receive compensation following the ruling.
Ms Lacatus worked as a £46,000-a-year analyst with Barclays, her first job in investment banking since completing an investments and finance master's degree at Queen Mary University in London.
In a statement, she said her boss Mr Kinghorn referred to a female employee as a "bird" in February 2018.
Comment: It's particularly notable that, whilst various businesses have suffered ransomware attacks and hacks of late, the food supply seems to be a particular target, with a meat processor, grocery stores and now an agricultural company. These vulnerabilities are even more concerning because the global food supply has already taken a beating in various other areas including the nearly 18 months of lockdowns, many years of crop failures due to increasingly extreme weather events, as well as disease and viral outbreaks resulting in mass culls, which, taken together are wreaking havoc on supply chains, farmers, and devastating already depleted stocks.
It's worth bearing in mind that, shortly after an announcement by the the Build Back Better bunch that hacks could disrupt the world's supply chain, there seems to have been an uptick in these kinds of incidents: