Gender Discrimination Law
This page details some of the current gender legislation.
General Duty
The Equality Act 2006 amends the Sex Discrimination Act 1975 to
place a statutory duty on the Council, when carrying out all its
functions, to have due regard to the need to:
- eliminate unlawful gender discrimination and
harassment
- promote equality of opportunity between women and men
This is known as the 'general duty' and came into effect on 6
April 2007. It applies to all the Council's functions - policy
making, service delivery, employment and to services and functions
that are contracted out to other organisations and companies.
Transgender
The Duty also requires the Council to eliminate unlawful
discrimination and harassment against transsexual people in the
fields of employment and vocational training.
Advice and guidance on these issues is available from Gender
Matters an independent organisation covering Worcestershire and
the West Midlands.
Specific Duty
To support the delivery of the general duty there are also a
series of specific duties. These are:
- prepare and publish a gender equality scheme, which sets out
gender equality objectives by no later than 30 April
2007
- consider the need to include objectives to address the causes
of any gender pay gap
- gather and use information on how the council's policies and
practices affect gender equality in employment and service delivery
- for instance, do women and men use services in different ways, do
they have different needs from a service?
- consult stakeholders in determining the objectives
- assess the impact of current and proposed policies and
practices (equalities impact assessments)
- implement the actions in the scheme and monitor
annually
- review the scheme every three years
The Sex Discrimination Act (SDA) 1975 and the Equal Pay Act
(EPA) 1975
The SDA makes it unlawful to discriminate on the grounds of sex.
Specifically, sex discrimination is not allowed in employment,
education, advertising or when providing housing, goods, services
or facilities. It is unlawful to discriminate because
someone is married, in employment or advertisements for
jobs. It is also unlawful to discriminate in the
employment field on the grounds of gender reassignment, or
pregnancy and maternity. Harassment in employment, vocational
training and further education is also specifically prohibited. The
EPA says women must be paid the same as men when they are doing
equal work and vice-versa.
Direct Sex Discrimination
It is direct sex discrimination to treat a person less
favourably on grounds of their sex than someone of the other sex
would be treated in the same circumstances.
Indirect Sex Discrimination
Indirect sex discrimination is where a condition or practice is
applied to both sexes but it adversely affects a considerably
larger proportion of one sex than the other, and it is not
justifiable irrespective of sex, to apply that condition or
practice. This would apply particularly to employers
advertising for a new member of staff.
The Sex Discrimination (Gender Reassignment) Regulations
1999
The Sex Discrimination (Gender Reassignment) Regulations 1999
amended the Sex Discrimination Act 1975 (SDA) with effect from 1
May 1999, making it unlawful to discriminate on grounds of gender
reassignment in employment and vocational training. There are,
however, no express provisions prohibiting discrimination on
grounds of gender reassignment in the other fields covered by the
SDA. However, there is a good argument that the general definition
of sex discrimination prohibits this, although there is not yet any
legal authority on this point.