Foot in mouth on Womans Hour

[Ramblingnamechanger]

Did anybody else hear Nuala in a discussion about protected characteristics , actually declare that women were not a protected minority? She quickly corrected herself to say, rather unnecessarily, that women are not a minority. But it seemed like she spoke what she thinks, that women really shouldn’t be protected…

Are women a minority? I thought gender, sex, maternity & pregnancy are protected, which covers anyone being discriminated against due to sex or pregnancy. I’m not sure she was wrong?

Yeah men are as protected from discrimination as women are. Since there are slightly less men than women I guess men are the protected minority. But really our system is based around characteristics not groups. If there are more examples of the EA being used to counteract discrimination against women than against men it's because women are still more likely to be discriminated on the basis of their sex than men. Not that they are specifically more protected (though I guess the pregnancy bit does only apply to women by default).