Female discrimination and male discrimination

[ant]

During the debate yesterday regarding Barach Obama it was apparent to me anyway that many women (ans some men) who posted compared institutional discrimination against blacks to that against women.

The following areas for further debate then come to mind:

- What is the historical context for this view
- How does the past affect womens current thinking
- Do women still think they are disciminated against
- Do men now feel they are discriminated against

Feel free to go beyond these areas if you think they are valid as they are just ideas I had.

As regards the historical context , I am sure there are people with much more accurate facts than me but what I had in mind are things like when women got the vote, there ability to own property and their rights in marriage among others.

Does the past affect womens current thinking and do women currently feel discriminated against? I don't feel qualified to answer these questions.

Why may men now feel like they are discriminated against, the rights of mothers over children, more draconian divorce laws, current employment law, a womans minister pushing for more and more rights on their behalf with no similar minister acting for men, among others.

[martingold]

This is something that i have been thinking about for some time now

I am not racist, anti any particular religion (i dislike them all) or sexist

If your colored, of a different religion or creed, female, disabled, out of work(for whatever reason even if its deliberate) you have someone to fight for you
when your a working, middle aged relatively fit male in this country everything is against you
for example there has to be so many female candidates in an election
If you employ so many able bodied people you have to employ at a percentage disabled (even if they are not fit for the job)
You are not allowed to discriminate against pregnant women when advertising a job

A few years ago a friend of mine had a shop he needed an assistant as his had left
The job entailed dealing with stock ie heavy boxes, securing the shop at night with large metal window screens etc
He interviewed 10 people and chose one
When he called her she said you do know i am 6 months pregnant dont you
She had not told him this at interview stage
He said well i am really sorry but i now dont think your suitable for the job as you cant do the work it entails until after you have had your baby
She took him to court and won on sexual discrimination
He ended up having to close down his business as he couldnt aford to run it once he had paid her compensation
Turns out a few years later her mother worked with barbs (my wife) and she was boasting how her daughter had done this deliberately to get the money to bring up her baby

There are various societies and laws to protect everyone else but none to protect me or my working male friends

[Jivejunkie]

Sex Descrimination against the female....really!
This is something that I feel quite strongly about and it always sparks a debate, with me on the losing side for exactly the reasons that started the debate in the first place Confused?... you will be!

Well actually I'm going to try and bite my lip this time but just to say that apart from the 'well-publicised' discrimination about the differences between pay for males and females doing similar jobs (Which I have no experience of, so won't make any comment!) Can you think of any other area in society where women don't come out on top - especially with kids in tow!

Try being a single divorced unemployed male over 40 - you really become a non-person then -
By the way I am neither single nor unemployed anymore!

[Barry Shnikov]

A few years ago a friend of mine had a shop he needed an assistant as his had left
The job entailed dealing with stock ie heavy boxes, securing the shop at night with large metal window screens etc
He interviewed 10 people and chose one
When he called her she said you do know i am 6 months pregnant dont you
She had not told him this at interview stage
He said well i am really sorry but i now dont think your suitable for the job as you cant do the work it entails until after you have had your baby
She took him to court and won on sexual discrimination
He ended up having to close down his business as he couldnt aford to run it once he had paid her compensation
Turns out a few years later her mother worked with barbs (my wife) and she was boasting how her daughter had done this deliberately to get the money to bring up her baby

There are various societies and laws to protect everyone else but none to protect me or my working male friends

He should have kept his mouth shut, taken her on and then dismissed her. Don't even need to give a reason - he could have said he just found her impossible to get on with. You aren't entitled to employment protection for the first 12 months in a new job, but you are entitled to protection from the various discriminations. Your friend should not have been running his business without making himself familiar with the employment laws in this country. He could just as easily have had to shut his company down because he didn't know about contract law, or the Occupier's Liability Act, if he doesn't know what the rules are.

That's apart from the question of why he offered a job requiring the ability to move heavy boxes all the time, to a woman.

When we advertised for delivery persons to work for our company supplying office furniture, we took all candidates out into the warehouse where we had an old, 5' double pedestal desk sitting upside down on another desk. The candidates had to get one end and one of us would get the other; we taught them how to cross the arms so that after picking the desk up you could turn it over and lower it onto its feet without having to change your grip, and then we would get them to lift and turn it. The women couldn't do it and so we didn't have to consider them any further. (The skinny people and the really fat people and the really weak people couldn't do it either, and of course they would have been no good for the job.)

[martingold]

He should have kept his mouth shut, taken her on and then dismissed her. .

all very easy to say in hindsight but being a generally nice person he thought he was doing her a favour by not employing her in the first place
he didnt know she was playing him
ok he may have been naive he isnt after all a lawyer and we all make mistakes about people dont we

[Maxine]

Everyone no matter how liberal they think they are has some form of prejudice against others because it is human nature and to do with preconceived ideas. This does not mean that we all go around espousing our prejudice views and imposing them on other but rather that it is a thought process

In my lifetime I have felt discrimination for my religion, my sex and even where I live. These have been in various degrees and hopefully some of my arguments have persuaded other to think differently.

I think women still do not get full equality in the workplace and as you go higher up in any company I think you will see that the number of women in these jobs gets less. There has been a vast improvement in my working lifetime though.

[Barry Shnikov]

all very easy to say in hindsight but being a generally nice person he thought he was doing her a favour by not employing her in the first place
he didnt know she was playing him
ok he may have been naive he isnt after all a lawyer and we all make mistakes about people dont we

People need to get out of this situation where they think that it's only lawyers who need to know the law. If you run a business, then doing so without informing yourself of the laws that might affect you is pretty stupid - sorry, but there it is. There are plenty of reasonably cheap books on law for small businesses; you can join local business groups who will share information and may even arrange talks, etc. etc. There's no whingeing if someone gets caught out because he/she didn't take steps to protect themself.

What happened was that your friend was taken to the cleaners by someone who knew the law better than he did. That's not very smart, is it? (I don't mean to insult your friend, by the way; I'm just thinking generally. Half the disputes in court and employment tribunals will go away if people just take a little time to think about things first.)

[martingold]

What happened was that your friend was taken to the cleaners by someone who knew the law better than he did. That's not very smart, is it? (I don't mean to insult your friend, by the way; I'm just thinking generally. Half the disputes in court and employment tribunals will go away if people just take a little time to think about things first.)

I know what you mean but personally i hate this litigation society we now find ourselves in due to greedy lawyers
If the lawyers and especially the ambulance chasers were outlawed i think this world would be a much better place

[Andy McGregor]

all very easy to say in hindsight but being a generally nice person he thought he was doing her a favour by not employing her in the first place
he didnt know she was playing him
ok he may have been naive he isnt after all a lawyer and we all make mistakes about people dont we

I think this mistake was a no-brainer. How many employers are ignorant of the fact that, for most jobs, you can not discriminate against employees on the basis of sex or pregnancy?

As an employer you have legal responsibilities and you need to know what they are. For instance, you must have insurance. At the time I was an employer it was one of only two compulsory insurances - the other being third-party car insurance.

When I was an employer this was a minefield and I regularly took professional advice regarding employment law.

Had I been in your friends position I'd not know what to do when the woman said she was pregnant after she'd been offered the job. But I would have known not to do what he did. I would have asked a professional for their advice. Hopefully that advice would have been the same as Barry's.

[Jivejunkie]

There has just been a change in the sex descrimination law, which means that, amongst other changes, you can claim it even if you are a third party or visitor to a company. It even applies now if you are descriminated against because of your sexual orientation, or if someone jokes that you might have other inclinations and it upsets you.

As for the above posting about dismissing someone because it emerged after the job offer that they were unsuitable for the job (for pregnancy or whatever)
Nearly every job has a 3-month trial so that both sides can assess suitability, and it is sufficient to say in hat time that the applicant was not suitable, or the job was not suitable on the applicants side, without too much clarification. I would imagine that if the reason for dismissal was directly given as 'pregnancy' you are opening a can of worms. If the reason was just that the heavy lifting would cause a problem, then nothing more would've been said. As someone said earlier, you are not governed by employment law, specifically unfair dismissal, until you have been in employment for 12 months, and doing the maths wouldn't it be clear during that time that the applicant was pregnant, so lifting would be a problem.

Also wouldn't the duties (lifting) be mentioned in the interview? If the applicant said it would not be problem, and it was subsequently found that it was, it would then be lying in the interview, which could automatically result in dismissal!

[Barry Shnikov]

I know what you mean but personally i hate this litigation society we now find ourselves in due to greedy lawyers

Could you explain how it is lawyers who are to blame for 'this litigation society'?

Also, on what statistics do you base your opinion that our society is in some way more litigious now than it used to be?

[Barry Shnikov]

If the reason was just that the heavy lifting would cause a problem, then nothing more would've been said.

No, that would be dangerous, because it would leave the employer open to a claim of indirect discrimination. Employer/employee ARE governed by employment law from the moment the job begins; it is just that for the first 12 months there is no protection from unreasonable dismissal.

Uninformed and ill-advised employers will often assert 'redundancy', for fear of running into problems with a dismissal; then they take on somebody else and get stung if the terminated employee finds out and says 'hey, that wasn't a redundancy - I'm entitled to have my job back because you replaced me within 6 months'.

As I posted, the best option is to say - 'look, this isn't working, I don't find you easy to get along with - I'm sorry but you're fired'. The employee has no rights not to be fired unreasonably (as in - 'I don't like you' is an unreasonable justification for termination) until he/she has been there for 12 months. So pick a reason which is HOPELESSLY unreasonable but cannot possibly be discriminatory.

[Trouble]

it is just that for the first 12 months there is no protection from unreasonable dismissal.

.

Your right, currently in the law there it nothing protecting staff for the first 12 months but we have been advised that we should treat even newbies to the disiplinery process as the law is llikely to change in the next three years and these people dismissed without disciplinery procedures could come back and claim unfair dismissal.!!!

Female discrimination is still rife, im even guilty of it myself. I am a great believer that there are just some jobs females can not do as well as males. Physically i mean. Also there are safety issues to look at with regards lone working etc etc etc.

I know i will probably get shot down for this but as an employer unfortunately these issue do come up and have to be looked at.

[stewart38]

No, that would be dangerous, because it would leave the employer open to a claim of indirect discrimination. Employer/employee ARE governed by employment law from the moment the job begins; it is just that for the first 12 months there is no protection from unreasonable dismissal.

You have mention this twice re 12 months

There is no time frame for a number of offences and one would include sexual discrimination

I guess a 6 month pregnant lady falls into that

Employment Law Solicitors, Manchester, Cheshire, Liverpool, UK - Sex Discrimination Claims

----------------------------
Unlike in unfair dismissal claims, employees do not have to have had at least 1 years continuous service with the employer to be entitled to bring the claim
------------------------

My point would be why employ someone for heavy lifting who is 6 months pregnant even if she didnt look it why employ a women ?

Interesting point does 1 year continous service INCLUDE your contractual notice period ( I need to know that )

[ant]

Female discrimination is still rife

Trouble in what ways is female discrimination still rife.

[MarkW]

...


Interesting point does 1 year continous service INCLUDE your contractual notice period ( I need to know that )

I had to consider this myself about six years ago. At that time the rule about notice period being included or not was unclear.

I've found this on the web:
"Unfair Dismissal - One-Year Rule

For unfair dismissal claims, an employee must have one year's continuous service.
If an employee is dismissed after 51 weeks service without notice, and in circumstances which do not permit summary termination for gross misconduct, the Tribunal can add the one week statutory notice, giving the minimum one year's service for an unfair dismissal claim. The last day of employment would then be the date when proper statutory notice would have expired."

But you need an expert opinion really where the lawyer can ask you detailed questions on the specifics.

[Double Trouble]

Trouble in what ways is female discrimination still rife.

ant, if you don't mind me saying, you're being very naive with this comment.

You hear it all the time in my office. I work in a very male dominated office. In fact, I'm the only woman on my team. When my bosses interview people for new jobs that come up, I've frequently heard them say things like "Nah, she looked shaggable, but probably gonna pop out a few sprogs in the next few years...that's a right drag, won't be emplying her".

or "Nah, she'll prbably do what Sam done and ask to go part time 'cos of the kids. Not interested in all that boIIoxs".

The sad thing is....they're not even trying to be ironic.

What's even sadder...I can kinda see where they are coming from. In a small business you don't want to spend money on resources and training just for them to bugger off in a year on maternity leave. In fact, the laws inforced on businesses actually hinders women as employers as so terrified of womens "Rights", they just avoid empoying them.

It's a mans world. Always has been, always will be. NEXT....!

[Jivejunkie]

My point would be why employ someone for heavy lifting who is 6 months pregnant even if she didnt look it why employ a women ?

Interesting point does 1 year continous service INCLUDE your contractual notice period ( I need to know that )

You normally do not get a contract of employment until you have completed the probationary period, hence 12 months continuous employment would not include that. I know that if you work via an agency for a period then are offered a job full-time, your probationary period does not start until the agency contract has expired. Thus you could have been working for 6 months before you are an official employee if the original agency contract was 3 months

No, that would be dangerous, because it would leave the employer open to a claim of indirect discrimination. Employer/employee ARE governed by employment law from the moment the job begins; it is just that for the first 12 months there is no protection from unreasonable dismissal.


As I posted, the best option is to say - 'look, this isn't working, I don't find you easy to get along with - I'm sorry but you're fired'. The employee has no rights not to be fired unreasonably (as in - 'I don't like you' is an unreasonable justification for termination) until he/she has been there for 12 months. So pick a reason which is HOPELESSLY unreasonable but cannot possibly be discriminatory.

If it was in the original job description and made it clear at the interview that the job involved heavy lifting (Which has happened during my million and one interviews) then it is clear that the employer wants an applicant who would be able to do that.
Also as a side point, if you failed to mention on the companies medical form that you have a medical condition, including a bad back and it becomes apperent later, it can be construed as fraud! and you can be instantly dismissed.

You hear it all the time in my office. I work in a very male dominated office. In fact, I'm the only woman on my team. When my bosses interview people for new jobs that come up, I've frequently heard them say things like "Nah, she looked shaggable, but probably gonna pop out a few sprogs in the next few years...that's a right drag, won't be emplying her".

or "Nah, she'll prbably do what Sam done and ask to go part time 'cos of the kids. Not interested in all that boIIoxs".

The sad thing is....they're not even trying to be ironic.

What's even sadder...I can kinda see where they are coming from. In a small business you don't want to spend money on resources and training just for them to bugger off in a year on maternity leave. In fact, the laws inforced on businesses actually hinders women as employers as so terrified of womens "Rights", they just avoid empoying them.

It's a mans world. Always has been, always will be. NEXT....!

You mean women don't pass derogatory comments aboul male interviewees? OK the subject matter is specifically female in your case, but I am almost certain (couldn't possibly prove it! not on here anyway!) that women employ men on similar attributes.

It's a man's world.....................not anymore it isn't. Us blokes don't stand a chance in a female-dominated world

[Genevieve]

There will always be some form of discrimination against any party....whether they be male, female, disabled, abled, wilderbeast, lion etc
...........it's all down to which side your looking at it from.

The two sides of the coin have been thrown up in just a few responses to the thread already.

Female discrimination is still rife, im even guilty of it myself. I am a great believer that there are just some jobs females can not do as well as males. Physically i mean. Also there are safety issues to look at with regards lone working etc etc etc.

You and me both Trouble..........but perhaps for different reasons. I work as a technical manager in construction and am perfectly capable of lifting and mucking in with the guys on site and in turn would expect any female employee of mine to do the same (which currently they do). But on the other hand, I wouldnt even consider employing someone who I thought would be on maternity leave within the next 6 months. Why the hell would I want to waste my vaulable time and resources, investing and training, just for them to p*ss off, leaving me to do it all over again.

In some lines of work continuity is key.

What's even sadder...I can kinda see where they are coming from. In a small business you don't want to spend money on resources and training just for them to bugger off in a year on maternity leave. In fact, the laws inforced on businesses actually hinders women as employers as so terrified of womens "Rights", they just avoid empoying them.

It's a mans world. Always has been, always will be. NEXT....!

echo.........all apart from the last bit

You mean women don't pass derogatory comments aboul male interviewees? OK the subject matter is specifically female in your case, but I am almost certain (couldn't possibly prove it! not on here anyway!) that women employ men on similar attributes.

No thats just how you men like to think

...........unless it's the new gardener of course

[stewart38]

You normally do not get a contract of employment until you have completed the probationary period, hence 12 months continuous employment would not include that.

My friends 'contract of employment' started when he signed the contact of employment (which can be weeks before he started his work) and his 'commencement of employment' started when he turned up

The terms within the contract re the 'probation' period which can be from a week , usually 3 months or 6 months as per my friends, will 'spell out' what can happen in that probation period. Its usually short notice re getting rid off and more limited rights (no Bupa etc)

Continuous employment would run from when he turns up for work (I think that would apply for all contracts)

My friend probation period was fine at 6 months. At 7 months the company decided to extend it by 2 months but after 3 weeks of that 2 months extension decided it was fine again. At 9 month review fine . At 10 month review threaten with redundancy (put on one month gardening leave) with a fictitious redundancy report.

The contractual obligations of the company will run his 'continuous employment to 1.25 yrs. I don't know if the continuous employment will 'cease' when the 'redundancy period' kicks in which would be at 50 weeks continuous employment

My friend needs a expert advise