Discrimination comes in manyforms, whether it be through race, age or beliefs, its rampant maturity withinmodern culture has further became problematic, especially in recent years. Discriminationthrough hate crime is one of the most relevant and citeable topic due to theproceedings of ‘Brexit’ in 2015 – a vote U.K. wide which saw the parting of theUnited Kingdom from the European Union, effective 2019. In the run up to Brexitand the aftermath, hate crime rates rose by a record amount of 100 per centacross England and Wales (Sharman and Jones, 2017) showing the severityof the issue of discrimination within the United Kingdom. With not onlystatistical evidence to back these claims of xenophobia and prejudice rising,from my own experience I’ve heard from customers I severed around the 2015period of Brexit voting the sheer magnitude and degree to which this haseffected citizens.
With one person saying, “all ‘they’ do is sit around andclaim benefits.” This statement particularly saddened and offended me of thestate of this nation we live in and these outlandish perceptions. Especiallyconsidering my own origins being in Ireland and Germany, and that I’m theresult of immigrants who came over to change their lives. If people are so insuch blind rage towards this topic, then how far do these extremes go? Arethese the people who believe that women should not work and instead be at home?It’s believe there is a coloration in perception, and that people who expressdistaste for immigrants are equally offensive and flippant towards women.To tarnish the 14.
1%of gender gap between women and men, the correct processes must be put intoplace, such as the Equal Pay Audits which was effective 5th April2017, to repeat yearly on the same date. This will allow for transparency andhonesty from companies meeting the threshold of 250 employees to prove they aredoing all they can to remove the gap that exists and combat the stigmasurrounding roles in which women participate within the workplace. However,this extends beyond legislative terms and further provokes a society awaking tothe need of equality for all in the work place. Discrimination is often seen astaboo all too often due to the complex and sensitive grounds in which itextends to. If we, as a society, are to move beyond this, it must beestablished that roles have no specific gender and that all people should bepaid equally for like-work. Whileequal pay has a rather short legislative history, the conception that womenshould collect equal pay for work of value equal to the work of the oppositesex has much earlier roots. One example is the ‘match girls’ of Bryant and May whoinsisted equal pay for equal value for work back in 1888, initiating an early instanceof strike action by female labour in the UK.
Additional female employees at theBryant and May factory had countered to the dismissing of their co-workers byrefusing to work under terms of employment that stated inferior pay than theirmale colleagues. While this industrial action was successful, and headed to thecreation of the Trades Unions Congress, passing a resolution in favour of the standardof equal pay for women, legislation in the UK that would inhibit such discriminatorypractices wouldn’t materialise until an entire century later. The first pieceof gender specific legislation related to employment was the Sex Disqualification(Removal) Act, enforced in 1919 which made it illegal for women to be deniedaccess to a congregation of occupations and professions on the foundations oftheir sex and marital status. Although this legislation was welcomed by equalrights advocates, its practical results were insignificant. It wasn’tuntil the post-war period that substantial procedures of rectification werediscussed, legislated and applied so that women’s place in the workplace wasstarted to become realised.
