Sex discrimination and all the other unlawful discriminations to become lawful

[Tadpolesinponds]

...if Reform wins the next general election.
Politics latest: Reform would scrap Equality Act, says Braverman | Politics News | Sky News

But broadly, the way the equality act works is you can't really legally lower standards and accept an underqualified woman above a well qualified man. That would be discrimination. You can advertise that you encourage women applicants and, if two candidates are otherwise equally matched you could hire the woman/man. Ironically getting rid of the equalities act, as Garage wants to do, would hypothetically allow me to discriminate against men in my hypothetical business.

It's actually different to America in that and that's why talk of "DEI" (an American term) is a bit of a red flag if it's applied to a UK context.

I think standards for uni reduced as more people went to uni. I actually disagree with you about the push to get more working class/state school pupils into Oxbridge reducing standards. Even if you assume pupils who go to Eton are 3 times more clever on average than pupils going to a state school it doesn't get anywhere close to explaining the discrepancy in admissions. Especially when you compare how well state school/public school students do when actually at those universities.

It's ironic though, because it's employment legislation (not the equalities act in this case but legislation associated with workers rights) that allowed him to bring that case and to win it.
If you got rid of the "red tape" hamstringing employers and moved towards a fire at will system as in the US anyone can fire anyone for wrong think.

It's part of the reason this became such an embedded problem in the US IMO and why the UK was "TERF Island" for a bit. Because the UK actually had laws protecting people (even if Stonewall et al did try to get "ahead of the law" aka broke it).

I didn't mention anything about Oxbridge.

Though ,as an aside my daughter teaches in a school in a deprived city ward ( I also used to teach) and in recent years it has been targeted by Oxbridge's outreach programme. They now send about 4 or 5 pupils each year to Oxbridge, and interestingly most of those pupils are Asian or Arabic. The school is in a traditionally very white and working class area of the city....though it remains Asian, Arabic or Chinese pupils who do best.

So you basically dismiss the possibility that there could be anything untoward going on. I mean, that's your prerogative, but I don't think people are as stupid as you do about what they see around them. People don't come to the conclusion pressure on housing or medical services is exacerbated because right wing activists tell them so, they believe it because they see it happening around them.

And no, people were not "misinterpreting" in that thread. Certainly lack of funding is a problem, but it is in fact possible for that to be true, and it also to be true that directing services based on race is inherently a problem, and in fact racist. And in fact pretty much every person on that thread who understood why the funding model meant that was happening admitted that it was about race based funding streams, even those who thought that was ok and normal.

They just didn't seem to understand that to a lot of people, that is immoral. Not because it's against "white people" but because they think making funding and services race based is immoral in all, or all but a very few, cases.

directing services based on race is inherently a problem

How about directing services based on sex?

Not really! Sex as a characteristic is profoundly of more significance than skin colour, and cuts across all categories: race, religion, disability etc

Here is the thing - family life is actually really important for any nation. In some nations they have tried to educate kids to understand about limiting family size and spacing children, because people having too many kids or too quickly have not been good for the nation overall. Very fast population decline is also a stress for a country and healthy families are important to a stable society. And most people would like to have a family and they should think about that as carefully as they think about their career. Why would those topics not be addressed to young people explicitly?

It's in usually women who choose in the end when they have kids, and actually have them, so of course it is going to more directly affect them. Though the kinds of taxes he is talking would also affect men. When he had kids is immaterial, it has zero to do with what policies are good for society. Maybe he'd have liked to have kids earlier, that's quite common. And not something I hear the mainstream parties talking about really.

You pretty much seem to be saying here that it doesn't matter what policies they suggest, or whether they are sensible, their reasons for having them are bad.

It depends on the service, obviously.

Can't get a gynaecologist if you are a man? Can't get an appointment for a prostate exae because you are a woman? Oh well.

Can't get a therapist when you are suicidal because you are the wrong sex? Yeah, that's sexism.

You can't think of a reason why an organisation may only offer therapeutic services to women? OK. Never thought I'd see that argument on FWR.

In some circumstances sex may be more significant. In some circumstances it may not be. Where providers have demonstrated, as they must, that directing services based on a particular PC is proportionate and justified, then they should be allowed to get on with it. Starting to say "Oh yes we think that sex is should be a grounds for lawful discrimination, but race (or indeed disability or sexuality) not so much" might look a lot like you don't really give a shit about other group's potential disadvantages.

I think there are a few things going on here.

One is that there are quite a few people on the left in the UK who are in fact OK with positive discrimination and argue for it, and often think it is legal like the US, and that muddies the waters. That might be fixed with just better education.

Another is that there are legitimate examples where you can have things like targeted programs. They need to show that this is proportional and legitimate, and it's important that can be done. So pregnancy related stuff might be an example that is obvious. But maybe another would be a local initiative to send out health info for women in a certain neighbourhood where there were a lot of women who did not have good English. Or funding a study on the educational experience of Traveller children.

However, I think people also feel that American style statistical bs is also being used, inappropriately, as a justification here. So - we see a gap in outcomes for this community, therefore it is legitimate to give them resources that we won't give to other people also in need. So, say rather than encouraging Traveller families to access a tutoring grant available to any poor family (or find out why they don't access such a grant) they have a grant only for Traveller families and other poor kids can't apply. This is a common type of initiative and justified on the grounds of special need, but quite a lot of people don't think it is really a correct use.

The thind issue is ino the most important, and it is also I think rather insidious. This is where being a protected group means that institutions feel a legal obligation to provide a service no matter what, and that ends up impacting others without the protected group status. So, for example, schools who go out of their way to keep kids with what is labelled a disability in the class, or give very large amounts of resource for things like rides to school. They do this because they know they can be in trouble if they don't support these kids who are from a protected group.

However, that can effectively end up with kids that are just "average" not getting supports they need. Like an orderly classroom. But there is no stick for the parents to pull up the school on this in the same way.

I think this problem is somewhat inherent in the practical effects of developing policy for protected groups. It shouldn't be, but it seems to leave a gap around others, I suppose maybe because the assumption is they get what support is needed. When there are limited resources to pass out, that isn't as simple.

Its just the usual smear n sneer tactics.

Shifted from 'funded by the Xtian right' to 'Reform voters'. With a lovely dollop of 'stupid women' to warm the hearts of misogynists everywhere.

No, that's not what I said. Which I think actually is pretty obvious.

Sometimes it can make sense for men's and women's services to be separate.

But necessary services need to be offered for both. Substitute "skin cancer" or "stroke" for suicide if you find it more straightforward.

Sex is one of the few examples where separate locations for access is fairly common. Maybe disability occasionally where specialist equipment could be necessary.

Sex and race are really not similar.

Except I wasn't specifically linking defenders of women's rights to Reform. I was, as I made clear, talking specifically about those women who had already expressed the intention to vote for Reform on the basis of the party 'knowing what a woman is'

What those women mean is they think that some policy or policies are better for women. Unlike, say, the Greens of Labour who do not have those policies because they seem unable to comprehend the idea that women are actually a real thing.

But as you've already said elsewhere, in order to be offering a targeted service the provider would have already have had to demonstrate it's necessity. Underfunding of CAMHS is a massive issue, it's not a problem caused by the EA or by targeted services.

There are protections for people against negative discrmination purely on the grounds of race.

I'm not sure what your point is?

I know you didn't. It what I was talking about when I mentioned top Universities. I think we were talking at cross purposes. I was talking about a push to open up the Oxbridge universitys (and particularly certain degrees) to more talented applicants from state schools. Whilst you were thinking about the more general push to get more students applying to higher education overall.
At the time (in the 2000s) when they were discussing ways to get more talented state school/working class students an opportunity to go to Oxbridge and the reasons they didn't there was huge push back from the same people who now claim working class representation in those areas are neglected.

"One is that there are quite a few people on the left in the UK who are in fact OK with positive discrimination and argue for it, and often think it is legal like the US, and that muddies the waters. That might be fixed with just better education."

It's not everyone on the left. I agree it is some (Stonewall, Good Law Project) but also sometimes people's positions are misrepresented.

However, while I completely agree better education would help... I am 100% certain that the solution is NOT actually making it legal like it is the US. Which is what abolishing legislation like the Equality Act would do.

It's absolute madness when you think about it "some people on the left think it's legal to discriminate based on sex/race etc. They are woke. Laws making it illegal to discriminate like that are also woke. Therefore we should get rid of the laws making it illegal"

I know that's not your position. It seems to be the logic behind Reform getting rid of the act.

Can't see a therapist paid for by a charitable trust that funds services women because you're a man...sexist?

Presumably “can’t become a candidate for a political party because they are imposing an All Women Shortlist and you’re a man…sexism”. All that unpleasantness in the Labour Party could have just been avoided**.

*of course many of the men who saw no problem with transwomen on AWS did resent the fact they existed, and this was a great way of undermining them.

Recent appointment which I mentioned earlier.
-Much talk the post should go to a woman. EQ Act - wrong.
-Appointment made which can be procedurally justified under EQ Act but still leaves a cloud of suspision over 'best person'.
Further info emerges
Dame Antonia Romeo told a civil servant to join a “gender non-conforming book club” as part of their performance review.
The new Cabinet Secretary set out plans for the former staff member to spend one day a week on inclusivity programmes when she was head of the Department for International Trade (DIT) from 2017 to 2021.
These included helping to raise “awareness and visibility of non-binary identities” and attending the book club, according to documents reviewed by The Telegraph.
The employee was told to spend up to 20 per cent of their time fulfilling inclusivity goals such as encouraging colleagues to display their preferred pronouns and “recruiting non-binary staff”.
This is not compliant with EQ Act.

Cockup or conspiracy?

Was there?

"At the time (in the 2000s) when they were discussing ways to get more talented state school/working class students an opportunity to go to Oxbridge and the reasons they didn't there was huge push back from the same people who now claim working class representation in those areas are neglected"

I think Reform has two very distinct groups of voters. One is the traditional, middle class, right wing Tory, big on Brexit etc, but the other is a more working class contingent....who feel very anti establishment, many of whom were radicalised by covid and the lockdown, and who feel they are being de-prioritised in favour of migrant/immigrant communities and seen as second class citizens compared to those of 'non white' ethnicities.

The first group may have been more behind the first part of your statement, but it is the second group that are more behind the second part.

What they most likly both have in common is the perception that some groups are being given more 'special' or protected status than others and that 'wokeism' is behind that.

'Wokeism': Politically correct nonsense that seeks to socially engineer and which censures people in pursuit of that goal.

I wanted to come back to this with more time. It's precisely because I don't subscribe to "it's all funded by the far right/you have to be right-wing to be sex realist/GC/whatever" narrative that I push back against Reform. I don't like Reform. I don't like what they stand for. I don't like their lowest common denominator policies. I also think that many of their policies will actively harm women. The repeal of the Equality Act being one of them. That's why when posters say they will vote for Reform on the grounds that "they know what a woman is" I, and others, may ask "but what about all the other things they say".

As has been said elsewhere, if your single issue is 'knowing what a woman is' (and that is generally taken as meaning oppose gender ideology in some way) then there are left wing parties that also 'know'. Why aren't they backing them? If people want to vote for very right-wing parties because they broadly support very right-wing polices then why can't they own that? Why pretend there are actually only one or two policies they agree with and they are ignoring everything else? Or that the parties don't really mean what they say, they won't really strip away employment rights, or deport Afghan women's rights activists, or whatever else they say they will do.

So no, it's not "smear and sneer". It's "you think people should back them, well how about how this impacts women", in much the same way as supporters of other parties are asked to explain more about how they can support a party that would, for example, enact self ID.