MOD indirect sex discrimination win

[Form1ess]

Interesting case. A woman has won a case because she couldn't pass a fitness test and wasn't given an alternative.

The tribunal said it seemed clear that women would find it more difficult than men to pass the test at the higher level because of "innate biological reasons."
It said there was a measure of agreement between two expert witnesses that those differences included lower average muscle mass, women having a higher percentage of body fat and smaller hearts and lungs.

www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-scotland-66950240

Good. It's a sensible decision and hopefully will help any tribunals looking at women in sport and scratching their heads over whether there is any difference between the sexes.

Totally agree Igmum, it's a sad state of affairs when we feel relieved to see the bleeding obvious stated in a tribunal case. I'm feeling goady so think I'll email my Green MSP to ask what she makes of this ;-)

It is a sensible decision insofar that it recognises the innate physical differences between women and men, but I don't agree with the outcome that minimum fitness requirements are discriminatory.

Obviously the minimum must be set appropriately for the role, but with this case, and a recent one with a firearms police officer, and things like firefighters, these are jobs where physical strength are a requirement of the role. If a woman can pass them, then awesome, but it isn't sexist purely because fewer women can pass it.

If a job requires people to be at a high level of physical fitness, this will look different for women and for men. So a man who can pass a fitness test at the level of a fit woman, but not at the level of a fit man, might not actually be physically fit enough to do the job.

I saw this and quietly cheered. Funny how they've suddenly stopped using the bleep test that got her fired.
MoD police firearms officers no longer needed to complete the bleep test and it had been replaced with fitness tests designed by the Institute of Naval Medicine.

The tribunal concluded the MDP "indirectly discriminated against Ms Brown on the grounds of her sex...by not providing the claimant with the opportunity of taking an alternative test…and having failed to provide her with the assistance recommended" by the College of Policing.

So the College of Policing also agrees there are biological differences. As in scientific 😮