Parenting and caring is not a protected characteristic, but you may be able to rely on sex, pregnancy and maternity or disability discrimination.

See our article on discrimination against parents and carers in the workplace for an overview of common forms of discrimination against parents and carers.

If you are an employee, you are protected from discrimination at all stages of employment, including:

• In recruitment: e.g., in relation to how positions are advertised and how interviews are conducted
• During employment: e.g, in relation to your terms of employment, working conditions opportunities for promotion and transfer or pay
• After employment has finished: e.g., in relation to dismissal appeals, references

Yes, you are protected by the Equality Act if you work part time, but working part time is not a protected characteristic.

There are special rules that protect you if you are treated less favourably because you work part time.

Yes – if you are not an employee, you still may be protected by the Equality Act if you are self-employed or a worker. If you are self-employed or a worker, see our guide to your rights for more details.

Not all difference in treatment amounts to discrimination. To succeed in a claim for direct discrimination, you must show that you have been treated ‘less favourably’ than a real or hypothetical person in a situation that is not significantly different to your own. In law, this is known as a ‘comparator’.

For instance, if you are claiming sex discrimination as a woman, an appropriate comparator would be a male colleague in a similar position to you. If you do not have any male colleagues, the tribunal will consider how a hypothetical male colleague in a similar situation would have been treated.

The phrase ‘less favourable treatment’ means treatment that puts you in at a ‘clear disadvantage’ compared with others. Examples of less favourable treatment can include dismissal, demotion, or disciplinary action. It can also involve being denied a choice or excluded from an opportunity, such as a promotion or training opportunity.

To claim discrimination, it is not necessary for you to experience actual disadvantage – it is that you would have preferred not to have been treated differently.

It is still discrimination if you are treated less favourably because you are thought to have protected characteristic (with the exception of marriage and civil partnership discrimination).

Even though you do not actually have that protected characteristic, you can still experience discrimination. For instance, if you are heterosexual but your manager thinks you’re homosexual and refuses to invite you to your team’s Christmas party because of your sexual orientation.

To succeed in a claim for indirect discrimination, you must prove that your employer’s policy or practice disadvantages those with a protected characteristic, you have this protected characteristic (or that you suffer substantially the same disadvantage as those with the protected characteristic), and you are also disadvantaged by the policy or practice.

Your employer can justify the policy or practice by showing that it is a ‘proportionate means of achieving a legitimate aim’. In other words, that the policy or practice corresponds to a real business need, and the employer could not achieve the objective by less discriminatory means. This is a balancing exercise, and depends on the facts of each case.

For more information on discrimination against parents and carers in the work place, see here

You don’t need to have objected to something for it to be unwanted. The person harassing you does not need to be aware that their behaviour is unwanted. It can still be harassment even if no-one actually meant to offend you.

There is no need for there to be a pattern of harassment. A one-off incident, such as a joke, can amount to harassment.

Your employer may be responsible for the actions of employees who discriminate, harass or victimise their colleagues in the course of their employment.

Even when the harassment comes from third parties such as customers or clients, your employer may be liable for their actions in response or failure to challenge the behaviour response (e.g., not preventing or stopping the third party), if their action or inaction was because of the relevant protected characteristic.

You do not need to have a relevant protected characteristic to suffer harassment. You are also protected against harassment where unwanted comments are directed towards you and are related to:

• someone else’s protected characteristic (associative harassment); or
• the perception that you have a protected characteristic.

For example, if a colleague makes unwanted jokes towards you, because they think you have a disability (even though you do not) or because someone else, like a family member, has a disability then you may have a claim for harassment related to disability.

Protected acts include:

• bringing a claim under the Equality Act
• giving evidence or information in connection with a claim under the Equality Act
• doing any other thing for the purposes or in connection with the Equality Act
• alleging that another person has violated the Equality Act

Speak to your employer in the first instance and try to resolve things informally. Try to keep communications friendly if you can. It can sometimes be more effective if you focus on solutions and the way forward, rather than the things you are unhappy about.

Often, employers can become defensive if accused of discrimination, but you can say if think you are being treated unfairly because of a protected characteristic. 

If the discussions with your employer don’t resolve the issue, or you think your employer has treated you very unfairly and the relationship is breaking down, you can consider raising a grievance.  You can find more information in our article on grievances.

Raising a grievance is important if you think you might later raise a claim in the Employment Tribunal because failure to follow internal resolution methods can disadvantage your claim. 

It is advisable to try and resolve things amicably, as formal processes can damage your relationship with your employer. For some legal insight into grievances and tips on how to engage with your employer before it reaches this point, see our article on grievances do more harm than good.

Your employer should not ignore your grievance, fail to hear it within a reasonable time or reject it out of hand (as doing so could amount to a breach of your employment contract). However, your employer is not obliged to uphold your complaint.

If you are unhappy with the outcome of your grievance, you should normally be able to appeal it; the procedure will be set out in your employer’s grievance policy. If you are unhappy with the outcome of the appeal process, you can contact us for advice.

If the above steps do not resolve the matter you could bring a claim in the employment tribunal.

Proving discrimination claims can be difficult: the discrimination is rarely made explicit. Most employers will not actually say: ‘the reason why I’m dismissing you is because of your protected characteristic’. So it is necessary to produce evidence to prove the real reason for the treatment so that the Tribunal can infer from the facts what really happened.

The Tribunal will follow a two stage ‘burden of proof’ test. Firstly, they decide whether you have provided sufficient proof that an act of unlawful discrimination has taken place. Then, the burden of proof will shift to your employer to provide a non-discriminatory explanation for their actions.

See our section on starting a claim for further information and beware of time limits. You must contact ACAS to start early conciliation within three months less a day of the act of discrimination.

Tribunal claims can be expensive and long, and there is no guarantee of success, so this step should be considered cautiously. It is often best to try to resolve the issue with your employer.

If you are considering bringing a claim, you can contact us for advice.

Unless your job requires certain physical attributes and capabilities (which would be unusual), comments about your weight are not appropriate.

Assuming your weight is irrelevant to your job, you are receiving unwanted conduct as a consequence of your pregnancy and as a result this has created a degrading and humiliating environment for you or you may feel that your dignity has been violated.

While pregnancy is not a protected characteristic for the purpose of harassment claims, you can bring a claim for harassment relating to sex against your line manager and/or your employer.

In this case, the manager has engaged in conduct that is unwanted which has created an offensive environment. This may amount to harassment.

Claims cannot be made for harassment on the basis of pregnancy. However, this may constitute harassment on the basis of sex.

Additionally, if your employer treats you less favourably based on your pregnancy, this could constitute direct discrimination.

The patting of your stomach by the customer is clearly unwanted behaviour and has created an offensive environment for you. While a claim for harassment cannot be brought for pregnancy, this could constitute harassment on the basis of sex.

As your employer knows about the harassment and has not taken reasonable steps to prevent it, they may be liable for the harassment by the customer. You must show that their failure to prevent the harassment relates to a protected characteristic such as your sex.

In this case it may be arguable that your employer’s failure to take action stems from the perception that you are female and are therefore oversensitive. In this case it may be arguable that your employer’s failure to take action stems from the perception that you are female and are therefore oversensitive.

Your employer’s comments constitute unwanted conduct as a consequence of your intention to take Shared Parental Leave and as a result this seems to have created an intimidating and humiliating environment for you.

While paternity is not protected characteristic, you can bring a claim for harassment relating to sex against your employer.

Your line manager’s comments constitute unwanted conduct as a consequence of your intended pregnancy and this seems to have created an intimidating and hostile environment.

While pregnancy is not a protected characteristic for the purpose of harassment claims, you can bring a claim for harassment relating to sex against your line manager and/or your employer or you may be able to bring a claim related to sexual orientation.

Employees are protected against harassment based on someone else’s protected characteristic (associative harassment). This means that as the senior staff member is behaving in a way that is unwanted seemingly towards you which is causing an offensive environment for you, you are the victim of harassment related to disability (the disability of your son). As a result you can bring a claim for harassment related to disability against just your employer or the employer and staff member.

As not working flexibly appears to be a policy applied to everyone, male or female, this is unlikely to constitute harassment based on the grounds of sex. However, if it is the case that this policy disproportionately disadvantages women in comparison to men, then this may be an instance of indirect discrimination relating to sex.

Currently the burden of childcare falls more on women than men in society, so the policy of not allowing flexible working is going to disadvantage women more than men. This is therefore indirect discrimination unless your employer can demonstrate a good business reason for not allowing flexible working.

Your employer may also be violating the statutory right to request flexible working, if they do not properly consider flexible working requests.

Your employer’s comments constitute unwanted conduct which relates to your intention to adopt children and as a result this seems to have created an offensive environment for you. Adoption leave, like maternity leave, is not a protected characteristic but you may be able to bring a claim for harassment relating to sex against your employer if the comments are based on a stereotypical assumption that you will not return to work because of your gender.