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Equality and Diversity

July 23rd, 2012

The week that was…

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Estimated reading time: 5 minutes

Equality and Diversity

July 23rd, 2012

The week that was…

0 comments

Estimated reading time: 5 minutes

Equality and Diversity highlights from last week:  the lack of women on the ‘testosterone fuelled’ BBC is worrying, Channel 4 launches its mental health season ‘4 Goes Mad’, and ‘to-let’ adverts specifying race, religion or gender may be discriminatory.

The BBC has been branded ‘testosterone fuelled’ after the survey for the magazine Broadcast revealed that the BBC’s main evening news bulletin featured nine times as many male experts than women. Channel 4 News performed best, with one woman for every three men on screen. Miriam O’Reilly, the former Countryfile presenter who won a landmark age discrimination case against the BBC, said that there is an ingrained attitude at the BBC that a man will “deliver more than a woman”, the BBC gives the false impression that “there aren’t women in this country with something valuable to say.”

More good news about Channel 4 – Channel 4 has become the first broadcaster in England to sign the Time to Change pledge to show their commitment to tackling mental health discrimination. Time to Change is England’s leading anti-discrimination programme run by the mental health charities Mind and Rethink Mental Illness. Diane Herbert, Channel 4’s Director of Human Resources, launched ‘4 Goes Mad’, the channel’s mental health season.

Recently, attention has been drawn to ‘to-let’ advertisements that specify a particular race or religion. Advertisements such as ‘Double bedroom available, Asians only’ may be discriminatory and in breach of the Equality Act 2010. An Equality and Human Rights Commission (EHRC) spokesperson says it has written to lettings agents in the past to explain that “usually they cannot specify that a prospective tenant is British, Asian or otherwise.” Such notices were found to be very common in London, easily visible in corner shops.

Write to us at Equality.and.Diversity@lse.ac.uk.

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Equality and Diversity

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