Adams offers a FREE Business Audit, to all new clients and a similar length initial consultation on all new cases. Find out more about the Adams Law Free Business Audit
Home / Update and Advice/ Can gender specific dress codes be discriminatory?
Can gender specific dress codes be discriminatory?
Written by: Jonathon Finebaum
One of the purposes of the Sex Discrimination Act 1975 is to ensure that employees of one gender are not treated less favourably as a direct or indirect result of their sex. This is applied to all aspects of employment including subtle aspects of employment like dress and hair regulations.
In the recent case of Dansie v The Commissioner of Police for the Metropolis, a police trainee was given the seemingly ‘no brainer’ option of either cutting his shoulder length hair or facing disciplinary action. He instigated Employment Tribunal (“the ET”) proceedings on the grounds that he had been discriminated against on the basis of his sex. He alleged that his female colleagues would not have been ordered to keep their below-the-shoulder length.
The ET ruled against the claimant, holding that the Dress Code Policy was gender neutral. The employer succeeded because it was able to demonstrate a non-discriminatory reason for the difference in treatment – i.e. because the role of a police officer is a public facing one and due to the force’s need to give a favourable impression of the service along with its intention to discipline both male and female officers that were in contravention of the code.
Likewise earlier case law had stated that a dress code ‘can be considered as a whole and can be gender specific as well as gender neutral provided it is fair-handed between the sexes and fits with the conventions of society and the needs of the profession in question’. This essentially gives employers some scope as to what is specified in their dress codes.
Adams advises it’s employer clients to regularly update and review their dress code policies. The ET may have reached a very different decision had the employer’s office not been such a public facing one. .
If you would like help reviewing your employment policies please contact our Employment Law specialist, Jon Finebaum on 020 7790 2000 or email him at jfinebaum@adamslaw.co.uk.
