Are sexism and racism meant to be treated with equal importance in the workplace?

[Nappiessmellbad]

This is something I've been wondering about recently. I feel that often in the workplace any hint of racism would be dealt with extremely strongly. Whilst sexism is also dealt with strongly, the more insidious sexism isn't noticed as much. I wondered if anyone knew from a legal perspective whether these have equal weight?

They should be given equal treatment but the issue may be to do with levels of perception. I'm white and female and may well be oblivious to incidents of everyday racism. However I frequently don't agree with the majority view on incidents of everyday sexism which often seem to me to be determined to find a problem where there isn't one.

"Isms ""can clash and occasionally the courts have to decide which has priority. For example a Muslim taxi driver was held to have breached disability discrimination legislation in refusing to take a blind passenger with a guide dog because it was against his faith.

I suspect racism and sexism in the workplace manifest differently though. Many people would not feel comfortable with expressing outright racist views at work (although they may do in private), but think it's fine to make reference to sexist stereotypes or make sexist jokes. I'm sure racism is still a big problem, but I don't think it's seen as acceptable in the way that many people still feel sexism is acceptable.

Yes, I'm totally aware (as a white woman) that I need to check my privilege and there are probably a lot of subtle racist incidents I could / would miss.

There were some comments made and if you had replaced the word 'woman' with a word to describe a person of colour it would have been treated very differently. However, I have looked at the post by Buffy and feel a bit ashamed though as it's clear I have no idea about the issues faced by women (and people) of colour and I feel my OP is phrased badly.

The example I'm facing is more the type described by Poofus and I really wanted a legal answer about whether they do have equal weight really.

Don't worry Buffy, I'm a bit more robust than that, it was just a good reminder. :)

Your example is exactly the kind of thing I mean (except without going into detail, the thing I'm dealing with is unfortunately more toxic).