LEEDS OFFICE 
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HARROGATE OFFICE 
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Divorce
 
Sex Discrimination frequently occurs in today’s workplaces but is often considered as banter or a just a joke. Sex Discrimination occurs when you are treated poorly in the workplace because you are a man or a woman. 
 
The Equality Act 2010 states that you must not be discriminated against because 
 
1. You are (or are not) a particular sex. 
2. Someone thinks you are the opposite sex. Known as perception discrimination. 
3. You are connected to someone of a particular sex. Known as discrimination by association. 
 
In the Equality Act, sex can mean either male or female, or a group of people like men or boys, or women or girls. 
 
There are several types of discrimination that can occur in the workplace as follows: 
 
• Direct sex discrimination 
• Indirect sex discrimination 
• Harassment related to your sex 
• Sexual harassment 
• Victimisation 
 
Different kinds of Sex Discrimination 
 
1) An employer promotes an equally-qualified male colleague because of his sex rather than his skills and/or qualifications over a female employee – this could constitute direct sex discrimination 
 
2) An employer changes the shift patterns for staff so that they finish at 5 pm instead of 3pm. Female employees with caring responsibilities may be at a disadvantage if the new shift pattern means they cannot collect their children from school or childcare – this could constitute indirect sex discrimination 
 
3) An Employer makes a comment that he does not promote women because they “always go off to have babies”. Even though he doesn’t direct these comments at a specific female employee, if one of her colleagues is very upset by this and worries about her career. This could constitute sex-related harassment
 
4) If an employee put an indecent screen saver on his PC and another employee saw it and was offended. This could constitute sexual harassment 
 
5) A Manager shouts at an employee because he thinks that she intends to support another employee’s sexual harassment claim. This would be victimisation. 
 
If you feel you may need to make a sex discrimination claim, or to speak to a member of our Sex Discrimination Claims team for advice, please call us on 0113 2007480 or fill in our contact form and one of the team will call you back. Our experts can help you with any type of discrimination claim, including age, maternity or racial discrimination
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* Laura Stafford is the SFE accredited memberand a full member of STEP 
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