The Sex Discrimination Act 1975: The End of a Decade

Abstract

It is now more than ten years since the Sex Discrimination Act 1975 came into force. Five years ago the Equal Opportunities Commission (EOC), the quango established to monitor, enforce and advise on the working of the Act, recommended changes to the legislation (EOC, 1981). As this article is written, the government is steering through Parliament a Sex Discrimination Bill to modify some aspects of the 1975 Act. But that Bill bears little relationship to the EOC recommendations. Critics have pointed out that three of its provisions those relating to discrimination by small employers and in domestic employment, to discrimination in collective bargaining and to raising the female retirement age have been forced upon the UK by decisions of the European Court. They suggest that the Bill's last provision, repealing much of the health, safety and welfare legislation passed to protect women at work, owes more to the government's White Paper 'Lifting the Burden' than to a commitment to equality (Lockwood, 1986). In any event, such a measure equalizes down, that is subjects women to the disadvantages experienced by men, rather than giving men the protections enjoyed by women. The present Bill has exposed the weaknesses apparent in the 1975 Act and the European law which overrides it. The definition of equality is one which has been used as much, and some commentators (EOC, 198L; Hakim, 1979; Hutton, 1984; McIntosh, 1980; Snell, 1979; Snell, Glucklich and Povall, 1981) would say more, to the advantage of men than to women (see also O'Donovan, 1985: 160-80). The European Court has forced changes in the Equal Pay Act and the Sex Discrimination Act, but the resultant changes may turn out to be changes in form only, making no difference at all in practice. All this suggests that it is now time for reassessment. This article gives a brief overview of the workings of the Act, analyses its future potential to arrest the slide towards greater inequality, and asks what changes need to be made. The history of the Sex Discrimination Act 1975 is now well documented, and any reader interested in its origins, the hopes and