UK: Failing to treat women more favourably is not sex discrimination, Employment Appeal Tribunal rules

Submitted by anthony on Wed, 2008-09-10 15:21

Article here. Excerpt:

'Failing to treat a woman more favourably than a man is not sex discrimination, the Employment Appeal Tribunal has ruled.

Commander Dawn Kenney, awarded an OBE for active service in Iraq, claimed the Ministry of Defence discriminated against her by rejecting her for the post of captain and medical director in the Royal Naval Reserve (RNR) and giving the job to a man.
...
“Second, and in any event, the fact that in certain very exceptional circumstances it is open to an employer to give preference to one gender rather than to another does not demonstrate that it is even prima facie unlawful discrimination if that opportunity is not taken and all candidates are treated equally,” he said. “It is not discriminating against a woman to fail to treat her more favourably than a man.”'

Like0 Dislike0

Comments

...have we created wherein women have to be told by a JUDGE that it's not discrimination against them whenever there isn't discrimination in their favor? Have I fallen through a black hole into a parallel dimension where logic simply does not exist? Oh, wait, this was a courtroom we were talking about. No further explanation needed!

Like0 Dislike0
Submitted by RandomMan on Thu, 2008-09-11 16:42

"Failing to treat a woman more favourably than a man is not sex discrimination"

It's like they're admitting that there exists sexism, but failure to carry it out is not sexism.

Anyone in the judicial system who comes up with a doozie like that, might next say, "but it is unfair not to treat men less favorably.

-ax

P.S. RandomMan, hopefully you'll stick around for a while this time..we sorely missed your input, and in case you didn't notice a lot of the old-timers have disappeared (hopefully moved on to other boards or activities..God forbid any of them got married and wussed out).

Like0 Dislike0
Submitted by axolotl on Fri, 2008-09-12 06:59

RM,

Thundercloud stuck his head in 3 or 4 months ago, for a short while, then disappeared again. That guy is one mysterious dude. Apparently he got in some sort of motorcycle accident.

-ax

Like0 Dislike0
Submitted by axolotl on Fri, 2008-09-12 07:02

"It's like they're admitting that there exists sexism, but failure to carry it out is not sexism"

The way I interpret this, the goal is to protect incompetant sexists from being sued. Am I missing something?

-ax

Like0 Dislike0
Submitted by axolotl on Fri, 2008-09-12 07:39

They should have worded it "failure to treat someone more favourably simply for having a vagina is not discrimination." Of course conversely, doing so is discrimination. Funny how they don't dare make that statement.

Evan AKA X-TRNL
Real Men Don't Take Abuse!

Like0 Dislike0
Submitted by xtrnl on Mon, 2008-09-15 21:00