Is it legal to require female employees to wear heels?

April 25, 2012 6:39 PM

Is it legal for a restaurant in San Francisco to require its female hosts to wear high heels?
posted by BuddhaInABucket to Work & Money (11 answers total)

You may find illuminating this en banc decision from the Ninth Circuit, which is the federal circuit that governs California. It's about the application of different grooming and dress standards to men and women, and when that is okay under federal employment law.

There may also be state laws specific to California that are relevant; I do not know.
posted by willbaude at 6:44 PM on April 25, 2012

California labor law protects workers from discrimination based on gender expression and high heels could be considered a form of feminine gender expression (if someone's gender expression includes never wearing heels, for example). I don't know whether/how much this law has been tested or interepreted.
posted by cushie at 6:55 PM on April 25, 2012

It is not specifically illegal. It could be problematic though, my guess would be that if anyone actually fought them on it their lawyer would tell them to change the policy and settle.
posted by magnetsphere at 6:56 PM on April 25, 2012 [1 favorite]

The Legal Aid Society's Employment Law Center might be a place to start.
posted by smirkette at 7:24 PM on April 25, 2012 [1 favorite]

Yes, call the LAS-ELC (per smirkette above). They have free call-in legal clinics and you can ask your question there (with additional background information that will likely help frame the legal issue(s) involved).
posted by anya32 at 7:53 PM on April 25, 2012 [1 favorite]

Of course, provided the restaurant hires "models" rather than waitstaff/hosts.
posted by lalala1234 at 9:34 PM on April 25, 2012

It's likely a problematic requirement in terms of accommodating health issue, no? (Though IANAL.) Any podiatrist will be happy to point out the evil of both heels and flip-flops in no uncertain terms.
posted by desuetude at 11:27 PM on April 25, 2012

IANAL, but I don't think there's anything illegal about having a dress code, even one that includes heels, but if it is causing physical problems or you have a medical issue that makes heels detrimental, I believe that would be covered by OSHA. Unless they specify a length, you may be able to get around this with a low, wedge heel that would be far more comfortable than the stereotypical high heel.
posted by katemcd at 11:51 PM on April 25, 2012 [2 favorites]

It seems like there is so much evidence about the bad health effects of heels that you could never impose a comparable grooming standard for men.
posted by yarly at 3:45 AM on April 26, 2012

Reading the en banc decision willbaude refers to, at least part of the issue was that the person complaining about the policy did not actually present evidence of gender disparity (e.g. higher cost of conforming to the grooming standard for women) and instead expected the court to guess about such disparity.

In other words, if you were for some reason to take this issue to court, you would need to present actual evidence that the requirement for women to wear high heels is more burdensome than whatever requirement is put on the men.
posted by nat at 8:36 AM on April 26, 2012

Indeed. A competent lawyer would need more information to provide you with a definitive answer, and the place to start would be in what the dress codes and grooming standards are as a whole for both men and women.
posted by willbaude at 11:42 AM on April 26, 2012