Diana F. Wells appeals an adverse grant of summary judgment on her claims of gender discrimination and retaliation under Title VII of the Civil Rights Act and the Missouri Human Rights Act. The district court 1 held that Wells failed to establish a prima facie case for either claim. We affirm.
*699 1. BACKGROUND
SCI Missouri Funeral Services, Inc., a subsidiary of Service Corporation International, 2 operates numerous funeral homes in Missouri. In 1981, Diana Wells began working as an apprentice funeral director and embalmer for an SCI subsidiary in Houston, Texas, and eventually advanced to the position of funeral director. In 1990, Wеlls began working as a funeral director in a Saint Louis SCI funeral home. She was promoted to Regional Vice President of Revenue Services in 1995. Two years later, Wells was assigned the same position for a different region, which necessitated a move to Kansas City. In 1999, Wells’s position was eliminated, and she was given a position as funeral director at Mount Moriah, an SCI funeral home in Kansas City. Her immediate supervisor at Mount Moriah was Matt Roen-ing.
Wells’s employment at Mount Moriah was marked by complaints from both customers and co-workers. In 1999, a representativе from the Kansas City Star contacted SCI and complained that Wells was rude and yelled at the newspaper staff in regards to the way the newspaper had planned to word'a particular obituary. In 1999 and 2000, SCI received complaints about Wells from families who had funerals arranged by Mount Mоriah. The McMillan family complained that Wells had been argumentative, untruthful and lacking in compassion. To investigate the complaint, two SCI Area Managers spoke with the McMillan family and then discussed their complaints, as well as the complaints of at least three other families, with Wells. Wells was issued a written warning about her conduct. Subsequently, the Miller and Edmond families, other Mount Moriah customers, also complained about Wells’s behavior. The Dahl family also lodged a complaint against Wells, describing her conduct as “at best abrasive in tone and manner.”
In 2001, three Mount Moriah employees complained to its General Manager, Jerry Griffin, that Wells was rude, unprofessional and disruptive. Griffin interviewed other employees to determine how pervasive the sentiment was and discovered three additional employees whose sentiments еchoed the original complaints. Griffin reported the complaints of the employees, and those of the McMillan and Dahl families, to SCI’s Regional Vice President, Mark McGilley, who suspended Wells for five days and warned her that future problems would result in her termination. Wells filed a complaint with the Missouri Human Rights Commission and Equal Employment Opportunity Commission (collectively, “EEOC”) alleging her suspension was based on her gender. The EEOC declined to take action, and Wells did not pursue the matter further.
In 2003, a co-worker complained to SCI’s “CareLine,” a toll-free ombudsman serviсe, that Wells harassed and belittled him. During that same time, another family, the Boones, complained that Wells had been argumentative during their interaction with Wells in her capacity as funeral director.
SCI received customer complaints about other employees as well. Rodney Hein-sohn, a primary arranger at Mount Mori-ah, received a complaint from a family alleging he was “abrupt, rude and pushy.” Forrest Walker, a funeral director at Mount Moriah, received several complaints from customers, all of which were deter *700 mined to be unsubstantiated. The record is unclear as to the identity of Heinsohn’s and Walker’s supervisor. Though not in response to a customer complaint, John Gattshall and George Salyer, whose supervisor was Michael Shannon, received written disciplinary notices for expressing contempt for management policies.
Wells also presented evidence that she endured sexist comments from coworkers. Leon Ernas, a marketing employee at Mount Moriah, called Wells two sexually explicit and offensive names. Walker also told Wells that she “was not in the good old boys’ club and [she] never would be” and expressed his belief that “women should be barefoot and pregnant.”
In the fall of 2003, SCI determined that, in light of decreasing revenues and high operating expenses, it needed to restructure and that a reduetion-in-force (“RIF”) was necessary. McGilley’s position as Regional Vice President was eliminated, and he accepted a position as Marketing Director for the Kansas City and Wichita areas, in which he was tasked with implementing the RIF. In this capacity, McGil-ley determined Mount Moriah was operating below expectаtions based on financial conditions such as low operating margins and high salary expenses. McGilley’s analysis also persuaded him that SCI had five more funeral directors than it needed in the Kansas City area. As a result, he terminated the employment of five funeral directors, three men and two women. In selecting Wells as one of the five, McGilley considered her personnel record as well as the fact that she was the highest paid funeral director at Mount Moriah. In total, McGilley eliminated nine positions during the RIF, four men and five women.
After her position was eliminated, Wells filed another charge with the EEOC. After exhausting her administrative remedies, Wells filed a complaint in district court alleging gender discrimination and unlawful retaliation. SCI moved for and received summary judgment on both counts. The district court concluded that Wells’s evidence was devoid of fаcts that would permit an inference that gender played a role in the adverse employment action to support her discrimination claim. As for the retaliation claim, the district court concluded that Wells failed to establish a causal connection between hеr complaint to the EEOC and the elimination of her position during the RIF. Wells appeals the grant of summary judgment.
II. DISCUSSION
We review a grant of summary judgment de novo, viewing the facts in the light most favorable to the non-moving party.
Cottrill v. MFA, Inc.,
A. Gender Discrimination
Because Wells concedes that she does not have direct evidence to support her claim of disсrimination, we analyze her claim under the
McDonnell Douglas
burden-shifting framework.
Griffith v. City of Des Moines,
Wells failed to establish the fourth element of the prima facie case because she did not show that she was treated differently from similarly situated males. Wells received complaints from four customers in 1999, one customer in 2000, three employees in 2001, and one customer and one employee in 2003. SCI managers gave her a warning about her conduct in 1999 and suspended her in 2001.
Wells presented evidence that four males, Heinsohn, Gattshall, Salyer and Walker, also received complaints and argues that, unlike her, they wеre not disciplined. Wells has the burden of demonstrating that she and the allegedly disparately treated men were “similarly situated in all respects.”
Clark v. Runyon,
Wells also failed to show that she was treated differently from similarly situated males during the RIF. Wells presented no evidence that similarly situated males were not terminated pursuant to the RIF. Rather, the record is clear that for the Kansas City area, McGilley eliminated five funeral director positions, three men and two women. In total, McGilley eliminated nine positions, including, in addition to funeral directors, administrative and driver positions. Of the nine people terminated under the RIF, four were men. This evidence, even viewed in a light most favorable to Wells, does not give rise to an inference that gender played a role in her termination.
See Hesse v. Avis Rent A Car Sys., Inc.,
Wells also presented evidence that she endured sexist comments made by some of her male co-workers at Mount
*702
Moriah. We decline to address this argument to the extent that Wells frames it as evidence of the “environment” at Mount Moriah because she did not allege a hostile work environment claim. As to the gender discrimination claim, we believe the statements are immaterial because they were made by nondecisionmakers and were unrelated to the decisional process itself.
See Rivers-Frison v. Southeast Mo. Cmty. Treatment Ctr.,
Having determined that Wells failed to present a prima facie case of discrimination, we need not analyze SCI’s proffered legitimate, nondiseriminatory reason for the discharge, although we note a RIF certainly constitutes such a reason.
See Wittenburg v. Am. Express Fin. Advisors, Inc.,
B. Retaliation
To survive summary judgment, Wells must make a prima facie case of unlawful retaliation by demonstrating that: (1) she engaged in statutorily protected conduct; (2) she suffered an adversе employment action; and (3) a causal connection exists between the two.
Cheshewalla v. Rand & Son Constr. Co.,
Wells filed her initial charge of discrimination with the EEOC in January 2001 and was fired in November 2003, creating a 34-month gap betweеn the charge and the termination. “A gap in time between the protected activity and the adverse employment action weakens an inference of retaliatory motive.”
Hesse,
*703
Wells asserts that the same evidence that supports her claim of discrimination supports her claim of retaliation. We have addressed those arguments, and based upon our review of the record we find Wells’s claim too attenuated to withstand summary judgment, for there is a notable absence of any causal connection between her report of discrimination to the EEOC and the termination of her employment pursuant to the RIF. Because Wells failed to еstablish a prima facie case for unlawful retaliation, we are not required to address her argument that the RIF was pretextual.
Turner,
III. CONCLUSION
For the foregoing reasons, we affirm the judgment of the district court.