Protected Characteristics 2010
The following are the characteristics that are protected from discrimination by the 2010 legislation.
Age
Disability
Gender Reassignment
Marriage/Civil Partnership
Pregnancy
Race
Religion
Sex
Sexual Orientation
This has turned out to be a very far reaching and significant piece of legislation and for many it has become a defining part of modern British values. However it is not clear how coherent or wise this lumping together of such diverse characteristics is. Some of these characteristics are in conflict with each as recent events has shown eg gender assignment verses sex, also a number of religions view gender assignment and sexual orientation as issues that have moral considerations. Furthermore age, disability and sex do have a real effect on physical capacities hence the reason for most high level sporting activities to make some sort of appropriate provision for these different characteristics. It would have been wiser to address each of these characteristics separately with bespoked legislation. Instead, by placing them together there seems to be an implicit assumption that they share a common attribute.
Interestingly, with the exception of age, the rest do according to ‘Critical Theory’ share a common legacy - a legacy of oppression. The 2010 legislation seems to reflect a ‘Critical Theory’ worldview in which men have oppressed women, disable people have been oppressed by able bodied people, transgender people have been oppressed by cisgender people, people of colour have been oppressed by white people, non-Christians have been oppressed by Christians[1] and homosexual people have been oppressed by heterosexual people. Therefore it is probable that some of the architects of the 2010 legislation, particularly the academics, were aware of this connection to ‘Critical Theory’. So whilst our current government may wish to restrict the teaching of CRT because of its extreme views it needs to be aware that the 2010 legislation has foundations that seem to come from the overarching philosophy that underpins CRT - which is ‘Critical Theory’[2]. As a consequence it seems reasonable to argue that the 2010 legislation should be repealed and replaced with bespoke legislation for each characteristic that takes into account the nuances of these characteristics and aims to build a social consensus that recognises a variety of views which in turn creates a genuinely tolerant society. What such legislation might look like is open to debate. However such a debate needs to be open and not prescribed by existing implicit and often explicit adherence to ‘Critical Theory’ narratives.
[1] In fairness this aspect is not an essential feature of ‘Critical Theory’, rather it is implied through concepts of Western hegemony being closely allied to Christianity and the Christian vision of the family can be seen as very patriarchal, especially as God is seen ‘our Father who is in Heaven’.
[2] Further evidence of the conscious and subconscious role of ‘Critical Theory’ in these debates can be seen in the well documented under reporting of certain situations that did not fit the prevailing ‘Critical Theory’ narrative. The following are some examples: ‘Fathers for Justice’ - a movement to improve access for Fathers to their children; the sexual abuse of white girls in British cities and towns; the significantly poor academic performance of white working class boys; the persecution of Christians - 264 million suffering severe persecution was the figure quoted in a recent government report - which went on to describe this situation as the greatest unreported story in the world today. All these under reported stories share the same feature; they involve discrimination, which using ‘Critical Theory’ terminology, goes against its worldview, because it involves people from an oppressed group oppressing those who people consider to come from an oppressing group.