The New York Women’s Equality Coalition has produced a funny, pointed video in which a hapless game show contestant discovers that women in New York have less legal protection than she imagined.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zqXnqtIjKjQ#t=87

The video was produced to support the Women’s Equality Act, legislation which came close to passing the New York legislature last term, and which, among other things, would ban sexual harassment in very small workplaces, strengthen penalties under the state Equal Pay Act, end discrimination against parents in the workplace, and allow people who win their claims against their employers under the state discrimination laws to obtain attorney fees from their employers.  Some of these protections are already available to employees in New York City, and to employees who are covered by federal law.  But these gaps in state law mean that women in New York, like the game show contestant in the video, may have less legal protection than they imagine, and certainly less than they deserve.