We use cookies to improve your experience of our website. You can find out more or opt-out from some cookies. Sex discrimination is when you are treated unfairly either because you are a man or because you are a woman. If sex discrimination takes place in any of the following situations it is illegal and you may be able to take action about it:.
Sex discrimination can be direct or indirect. It can also take the form of victimisation or harassment. Sex discrimination does not need to be deliberate. Someone may be discriminating against you without realising it or meaning to, but this might still count as discrimination.
The law against sex discrimination does not allow positive discrimination in favour of one sex. For example, an employer is not allowed to insist on only recruiting or promoting women to a particular job because women have previously been discriminated against when applying for that role. Positive discrimination is not the same as positive action , which is allowed. As well as protecting you from sex discrimination against men and women, the law also protects you from:.
See also Pregnancy and maternity discrimination. For more information about discrimination because of your sexual orientation, see Sexual orientation discrimination. It is direct sex discrimination to treat someone less favourably because of their sex than someone of the other sex would be treated in the same circumstances. To prove direct sex discrimination, it will help if you can give an example of someone of a different sex who, in similar circumstances, has been, or would have been, treated more favourably than you.
For more information about direct discrimination, see Direct discrimination. It is indirect sex discrimination to have a rule, policy or practice which someone of a particular sex is less likely to be able to meet than and this places them at a disadvantage to the opposite sex.
