Equalities in Great Britain, 1946-2006
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Equalities in Great Britain, 1946-2006 Pat Thane, Tanya Evans, Liza Filby, Nick Kimber, Helen McCarthy, Simon Millar, Mel Porter, Becky Taylor Centre for Contemporary British History, Institute of Historical Research, University of London March 2007 History &Policy A Research Project and Report Commissioned by the Equalities Review The views expressed in this report are those of the authors, not necessarily those of the Equalities Review © Crown Copyright 2007 Product Code 06 LD 04440/i This publication is one of a series of reports web-published on the Equalities Review website, www.theequalitiesreview.org.uk. To enquire about alternative formats, please contact [email protected], or telephone 0870 1226 236. The Equalities Review’s Final Report, Fairness and Freedom, is available at www.theequalitiesreview.org.uk (including EasyRead and large print versions). To request copies of Fairness and Freedom: the Final Report of the Equalities Review, please contact: Communities and Local Government publications PO Box 236 Wetherby West Yorkshire LS23 7NB Tel: 0870 1226 236 Fax: 0870 1226 237 Textphone: 0870 120 7405 E-mail: [email protected] Copyright in the typographical arrangement rests with the Crown. This publication, excluding logos, may be reproduced free of charge in any format or medium for research, private study or for internal circulation within an organisation. This is subject to it being reproduced accurately and not used in a misleading context. The material must be acknowledged as Crown copyright and the title of the publication specified. Any other use of the contents of this publication would require a copyright licence. Please apply for a Click-Use Licence for core material at www.opsi.gov.uk/click-use/system/online/pLogin.asp or by writing to the Office of Public Sector Information, Information Policy Team, St Clements House, 2-16 Colegate, Norwich NR3 1BQ. Fax: 01603 723000 or e-mail: [email protected]. CONTENTS Executive Summary 1 Pat Thane Introduction 4 Pat Thane Chapter 1: Age and Equality 7 Pat Thane Chapter 2: Race and Equality 27 Nick Kimber Chapter 3: Religion and Belief 48 Liza Filby Chapter 4: Gypsies and Travellers 66 Mel Porter and Becky Taylor Chapter 5: Gender Equality 96 Helen McCarthy Chapter 6: Gender Identity and Sexual Orientation 114 Mel Porter Chapter 7: Disability 152 Simon Millar Conclusion 179 Pat Thane Annex A: Equalities in Great Britain, 1946-2006, 181 Composite Timeline Executive Summary EQUALITIES IN GREAT BRITAIN, 1946-2006: THEN AND NOW Pat Thane Over the past 60 years or so there have been greater changes than at any time in British history in relation to equalities. In 1945, most forms of inequality – relating to age, race, religion, gender, sexual orientation or disability – were deep-rooted, taken-for-granted facts of British culture, rarely openly discussed, still less openly challenged by most of those who experienced inequality. Since then, there has been a remarkable growth in recognition of the dimensions of most of these inequalities, and some social groups have acquired legal rights, entitlements, social respect and cultural recognition to a degree unimaginable at the end of the Second World War. But not all groups have gained equally: 1. In 1945 older people were recognized as victims of poverty and were beginning to speak up against it. It was hardly at all recognized that they were treated inequitably in the workplace, the health care system and other services, and unjustly undervalued in society in general. Only in very recent years, as the numbers of articulate older people has grown and they have demanded equal treatment, and as their importance to the economy has become more obvious with declining numbers of younger workers, have they begun to gain some legal protection against unequal treatment in the workplace and elsewhere. Nevertheless age discrimination remains embedded in British culture and is only recently and slowly beginning to shift. 2. After the Second World War awareness of the persecution of the Jews in Europe increased public sensitivity to open expressions of anti-Semitic racism, but did not eliminate prejudice against Jews as a race and Judaism as a religion. At that time there were no legal barriers to discriminatory language or treatment concerning any racial or religious group, apart from the century old Blasphemy Act, which protected Christianity against abuse. With increasing immigration of people from a steadily widening range of cultures from the late 1940s, inequalities were increasingly pervasive and damaging to social cohesion and economic success. Inequalities that were initially identified with race were seen also to apply to religious groups, very openly following the experiences of Muslims after 9/11 but in reality for long before. A combination of pressure from representatives of those experiencing inequality, with support from sympathetic others and goodwill from governments (more from some than others), by 2006 had led to a situation where everyone, in principle, has the right to legal protection against abuse and unequal treatment based on race or religion. Legal change has probably moved faster than cultural change, in this as in other dimensions of inequality, but now, in contrast to 1945, legal rights exist to be invoked by those who experience inequality. 1 Equalities in Great Britain, 1946-2006 3. But all racial and religious groups still do not have equal life chances. Gypsies and Travellers fare worst of all on most key indicators, including health, educational attainment and employment, and they experience much overt prejudice. They have found it hardest of all to gain recognition of the inequalities they experience, partly because their migratory culture and relatively small numbers have made it difficult for them to connect with potential supporters in the wider community and to make their case known. Only very recently have their inequalities been clearly officially acknowledged, though they are far from being resolved. 4. Women are not a small minority but a majority of the population, many of them well connected to the wider community and to political groupings. After more than 100 years of campaigning, by 1945 women had the vote and improved access to public life, the law, education and the workplace, though massive gender inequalities remained in all spheres of life. By 2006, continued campaigning combined with gradual cultural shifts had brought changes in the law granting women legal protection against unequal treatment in most spheres and greater acceptance of the principle of gender equality. But substantial inequalities in opportunities and outcomes between males and females remain among all social and economic groups in all spheres, including the workplace, though in some otherwise particularly disadvantaged groups, such as Pakistani and Bangladeshi communities, women are closer than men to the educational attainment of the rest of the population. 5. If inequalities of race and gender were at least publicly acknowledged in 1945, ‘homosexuals’ were social outcasts, deemed to deserve punishment rather than equal rights. Theirs was indeed ‘the love that dares not speak its name’. The notion that they might be regarded as Good As You, as activists began to propose in the 1970s, was unimaginable to most people twenty-five years earlier. Despite continuing instances of homophobia, the shift towards cultural acceptance and legal equality – from imprisonment to civil partnerships – since the 1960s when Lesbians and Gay men began to come-out and demand equality, has been dramatic. 6. As, in a quieter way, has been the transformed experience of the smaller number of Transsexual and Transgender people. Their situation was hardly at all acknowledged, or probably even known about, by most people in 1945. They now have at least formal legal rights to live equally with people of their lived gender, though these have been very recently acquired and serious problems of implementation remain. Again, these changes have been achieved as a result of pressure by articulate, highly educated Trans people on politicians in Britain and the European Union and in the law courts. The potential for change has been assisted by changes in medicine, and gradual changes in attitude in the medical profession, enabling those who wish and need it to receive appropriate treatment. 2 Equalities in Great Britain, 1946-2006 7. By contrast, many forms of physical and mental disability have been publicly well-known for centuries. Some have always been more sympathetically treated than others, generally, physical disabilities, such as being blind, deaf or dumb, more so than mental disabilities. For centuries there have been efforts, within the limitation of available resources, to enable physically disabled people to live their lives as fully as possible in the community, whilst large-scale institutionalization even of the seriously mentally ill, dates only from the 18th century. Nevertheless, in 1945 there were low expectations of what most disabled people could achieve. Since then, scientific change in various forms has changed the definitions and experience of disability. The range of conditions defined as ‘disabilities’ has grown, largely driven by developments in medical treatment and diagnosis. For example Depression and Attention Deficit Disorder were long regarded as essentially ‘social’ conditions: people ‘feeling a bit low’, children ‘being naughty’. Now they can be medically defined