TRSM Research Seminar by Dr. Pnina Alon-Shenker

Title: Intersecting Age and Gender in Workplace Discrimination Complaints
Pnina Alon-Shenker and Therese MacDermott

Description: Older female workers experience significant vulnerability in the labor market. Recent studies show that their experience is often shaped by the distinct impact of intersectional age and gender discrimination. Given this evidence, and the fact that the legal protections against age discrimination are often weaker compared to other grounds, framing age discrimination complaints in intersection with gender may be strategically more effective in pursuing a claim. This article explores the potential for intersectionality analysis in Canada (Ontario) and Australia through a case law analysis of workplace age discrimination complaints in these two jurisdictions. It examines whether complainants and adjudicators conceptualize ageism as potentially gendered, and whether adjudicators account for the distinct impact of ageism and sexism in their legal analysis and in awarding remedies. The analysis highlights the limitations of the current grounds-based approach to anti-discrimination law and explores ways to reduce the impact of siloed categories, so as to better capture the lived experiences of older women in the labor market.

Presenter: Pnina Alon-Shenker is an associate professor in Ryerson Faculty of Law and the Ted Rogers School of Management (TRSM) in the Department of Law & Business. She is also the founding academic director of Ryerson Law & Business Clinic. She served as a law clerk to the Honourable Justice Dalia Dorner of the Supreme Court of Israel in 2002-2003 and was called to the Israeli Bar in 2003. She earned her LL.B. from Haifa University, LL.M. from the Hebrew University and University of Toronto, and S.J.D from University of Toronto. She joined Ryerson as a sessional instructor in 2009 and as an assistant professor in 2010.
Alon-Shenker’s research interests centre on labour and employment law with an emphasis on workplace discrimination and diversity, the aging workforce, and forms of employee representation and voice. Her research advances an innovative critique of contemporary legal analyses of age discrimination in the workplace and develops a new paradigm, founded in legal and philosophical theories of equality, which better articulates the wrongs associated with age discrimination in the workplace. This research also has significant practical implications for topical legal challenges faced by the aging workforce such as the duty to accommodate senior workers, mandatory retirement and cost-based defence claims. Her recent research projects expand to issues of diversity at work, intergenerational equity, and age & intersectionality.
Alon-Shenker received the Dean’s Scholarly, Research and Creative Activity Award in 2014 for her scholarly achievements. In 2016, she received the Provost's Experiential Teaching Award in recognition of her work to develop and lead the Ryerson Law & Business Clinic. Alon-Shenker is also the co-editor-in-chief of International Journal of Comparative Labour Law and Industrial Relations, and a member of the Labour Law Casebook Group co-editing the Labour and Employment Law: Cases, Material, and Commentary (Irwin Law).