by Sarah Glazer

About the author: Sarah Glazer is a freelance writer from New York who specializes in health and social policy issues.

Peggy Kimzey, a Wal-Mart shipping clerk in Warsaw, Mo., was bending over a package when she heard the store manager and another male employee snickering behind her. Kimzey stood up and asked what they were doing. “Well,” the manager smirked, “I just found someplace to put my screwdriver.” When Kimzey asked him to stop the crude remarks, he replied, “You don’t know, you might like it.”

That may have been the most offensive comment directed at Kimzey during her four years at Wal-Mart, but it was far from all she endured, according to her attorneys. Toward the end of her employment, Kimzey says, female employees were subjected almost...