Branded: Corporate Image, Sexual Stereotyping, and the New Face of Capitalism

In the context of unionized workforces covered by collective bargaining agreements, companies have-at most-been required to demonstrate a reasonable relationship between the grooming code and the business's effort to project a corporate image that it believes will result in a larger market share.5 In a small number of cases, sexualized branding that exposes workers to sexual harassment or is predicated upon sexual stereotypes not essential to performance of the job has been curtailed by the antidiscrimination mandate of Title VII.6 However, challenges under Title VII have been effective only where corporate branding is at odds with community norms; where the branding is consistent with community norms that encode sexual stereotypes, customer preferences and community norms become the business justification for branding.