Adopting this idea would both further the female cause for equal pay and would do away with employers avoiding paying women equal wages by giving them different job titles from men who are basically doing the same job. The Supreme Court recently had the opportunity to either adopt the idea of comparable worth or to eliminate the concept from title VII cases. Instead the Court did neither. The Court held that women may sue their employers under title VII without establishing that they performed equal work to that of men. However, although Gunther appears to widen the cause of action based on title VII, the equal work standard will remain until the Court either adopts the comparable worth standard or moves closer to what it represents.
Statutory rape is defined as the carnal knowledge of a female under legal age.
The offense is based upon the idea that females under this age cannot understand the consequences of sex. The purpose of statutory rape laws was originally to protect the chastity of these underage girls. Recently, many states have moved to include both underage females as well as males in the definition of statutory rape. California, however, does not extend the definition to both males and females. The constitutional challenges made in Michael arise from this exclusion of males from the definition of the offense.