Is it legal to preferentially hire men instead of women because women can get pregnant? Let's say Alice &amp; Bob apply for a job, and both of them are equally good. The company they're applying to decides they'll hire Bob because Alice can potentially get pregnant, which means they'll have to pay for maternity leave (or if maternity leave is unpaid, have to cover for the downtime). Is this legal? The laws on gender discrimination I've seen generally say that it's not discrimination if there are physical reasons to prefer one sex to the other - for example if the job involves lifting heavy loads, it's not discrimination to preferentially hire men instead of women. But if we accept that, then pregnancy becomes a physical reason to prefer men to women regardless of the job ... which sounds drastic (if it's legal). If the country matters, assume the EU. We can also assume that Alice is relatively young: if she's post menopause and therefore can no longer get pregnant, the company doesn't discriminate.
No The argument is vacuous in any event because AFAIK all jurisdictions that enforce sex discrimination laws have parental leave (paid or unpaid), not maternity leave so a man is just as likely to need it as a woman. This, of course, raises the issue of discrimination by marital status (on the basis that unmarried people are arguably less likely to have children) or age (on the basis that people outside 'childbearing' age are less likely to have children; fortunately these types of discrimination are also illegal. Notwithstanding, the loopholess you think there are in the laws are simply not there. For example s14 "Discrimination in employment or in superannuation" of australia Sex Discrimination Act 1984 starts with: (1) It is unlawful for an employer to discriminate against a person on the ground of the person's sex, sexual orientation, gender identity, intersex status, marital or relationship status, pregnancy or potential pregnancy, breastfeeding or family responsibilities: Later in s30 "Certain discrimination on ground of sex not unlawful" it says: (2) (a) the duties of the position can be performed only by a person having particular physical attributes (other than attributes of strength or stamina) that are not possessed by persons of a different sex from the relevant sex; If the job requires excessive strength or stamina, then you test your recruits for the level of strength or stamina the job requires.
The legal answer is that it depends on where in the world you are. In the US, &quot;sexual harassment&quot; is legally subsumed under laws against illegal discrimination, which can exist at the federal level and the state level. You cannot discriminate on the basis of race for employment, housing, public accomodations and so on. You cannot discriminate on the basis of sex in employment. However, you are not employing anyone, so that law does not apply to you. In general, being a customer or potential customer, or a person in possession of a phone, is not a federally-regulated activity. The First Amendment to the US Constitution protects your right to expression, regardless of whether they may be found to be offensive. It is legal in the US to be rude.
canada Guidance from the Government of Canada Yes. The Government of Canada's guide on legislative drafting has a section on gender-neutral language. It emphasizes that &quot;gender-specific language should not be used in legislation.&quot; The first-listed alternative strategy (alongside others) is to &quot;use the singular 'they' and its other grammatical forms... to refer to indefinite pronouns and singular nouns.&quot; It acknowledges that &quot;[i]n the past, the masculine pronoun was commonly used in the English language to signify the non-specific 'he or she'&quot; but that &quot;[i]t is now generally well-accepted that gender-specific language should only be used for references to persons of one gender or the other.&quot; One example from the guide: Every taxpayer shall file their tax return no later than April 30 of the year following the year in which they earned the income on which they are paying taxes. Guidance from the British Columbia Law Institute In the guide, Gender Diversity in Legal Writing, the institute explains: Canadian lawyers no longer write law, or write about the law, as if it only applies to men of European descent who own real property. ... Language and the law continue to evolve, moving towards even more inclusive language in legal writing. ... The highest levels of our profession have recognized that gender inclusivity is a matter of justice and professionalism. The British Columbia courts require all counsel to identify themselves and their pronouns. ... We have adopted gender-inclusive ways of referring to people, in particular the use of “they” as a singular pronoun. The guide says: They/them is also used as a gender non-specific singular pronoun when a writer does not know a person’s pronouns. Just like the pronoun “you,” they/them can be used in singular or plural forms. One example it provides: Minister Williams said they misspoke when they said their budget was “balanced to the last penny.” French text It is slightly more complex to render French legal writing to be gender-inclusive, given that adjectives and third-person plural pronouns are gendered, but the Government of Canada's Translation Bureau shares several resources, including guidance from the Commission de la construction du Québec, and an article from the Canadian Bar Review.
Does the said law (or any other law or treaty) prohibit Indians to get the pre-natal gender screening test done outside India (in any country where this is legal)? YES, in theory but I cannot find any relevant case law where this has been considered by the court. Section 23(3) of the Pre-Conception and Pre-natal Diagnostic Techniques (Prohibition of Sex Selection) Act 1994 (PCPNDT) creates the offence for non-medical practitioners etc: Any person who seeks the aid of any [medical practioner etc] or any other person for sex selection or for conducting pre-natal diagnostic techniques on any pregnant women for the purposes other than those specified in sub-section (2) of section 4, he shall, be punishable with imprisonment for a term which may extend to three years and with fine which may extend to fifty thousand rupees for the first offence and for any subsequent offence with imprisonment which may extend to five years and with fine which may extend to one lakh rupees. And section 4(1) of the Indian Penal Code (IPC) provides for extra-territorial jurisdiction for any offences committed by: any citizen of India in any place without and beyond India... Normally, criminal justice action would only be considered once the parties returned to India, but note that section 299 of the Code of Criminal Procedure 1973 allows for trials in absentia. However I cannot find any relevant case law to say whether this has actually happened in this type of scenario.
There is a good answer at the Skeptics StackExchange here. Its three most relevant references are: 42 U.S.C. Chapter 21, especially Subchapter VI (applies only to employers with fifteen or more employees every day in at least 20 calendar weeks in a year) An example case, Wilson v. Southwest Airlines Co. 517 F. Supp. 292 (N.D. Tex. 1981) Katie Manley, The BFOQ Defense: Title VII’s Concession to Gender Discrimination, 16 Duke Journal of Gender Law &amp; Policy 169-210 (2009) Wilson v Southwest held that being attractive and female is not a Bona Fide Occupational Qualification (BFOQ) for being a flight attendant, even when the company marketed themselves using female sexuality: sex does not become a BFOQ merely because an employer chooses to exploit female sexuality as a marketing tool or to better ensure profitability Most scholars believe that the BFOQ exception would not apply to Hooters servers for the same reason. The job is serving food, and the sexualized nature of the service is just the manner in which they do the job, not a requirement of the primary job itself. Hooters has never had a discrimination suit go to trial, however has been sued and settled out of court multiple times. Employment discrimination based on gender has been allowed only in cases where the primary product being sold (not merely the manner of delivery of the primary product) requires a particular gender. One example would be sexual entertainment. This would include strip clubs, modelling agencies, Nevada brothels, etc. I'll say it one other way. Simply offering attractive female service as part of a business strategy is not enough to trigger a BFOQ exception. To allow a BFOQ defence based on an employer's desired manner or means of achieving its primary business purpose would render the statute inoperative, and the BFOQ exception would &quot;swallow the rule&quot; Phillips v. Martin Marietta 400 U.S. 542 (1971). (This paragraph taken from here.)
Women can get pregnant, so men can be held to stricter rules: From https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ages_of_consent_in_the_United_States Although legislation tends to reflect general societal attitudes regarding male versus female ages of consent, Richard Posner notes in his Guide to America's Sex Laws: The U.S. Supreme Court has held that stricter rules for males do not violate the equal protection clause of the Constitution, on the theory that men lack the disincentives (associated with pregnancy) that women have, to engage in sexual activity, and the law may thus provide men with those disincentives in the form of criminal sanctions. Posner, Richard (1996). A Guide to America's Sex Laws. The University of Chicago Press. p. 45. ISBN 0-226-67564-5. The case cited is Michael M. v. Superior Court, 450 U.S. 464 (1981). However, to modern sensibilities, this doesn't justify the states that have age of consent lower for women. [The pregnancy argument would mean states could punish an adult male for sex with a minor female, to protect the woman. Whereas a minor male of that same age doesn't necessarily need the same protection, at least for that concern.] Law in those states seems to be an attempt to mirror the historical tendency for men to be slightly older than women when marry - but re goal of discouraging sexual predation, those states have it backwards. I'd have to agree with the answers that speculate this is a patriarchal holdover that eventually will change or be overturned. [But US Supreme Court - having ruled it isn't inherently an Equal Protection violation - seems inclined to leave these laws alone regardless of which age is slightly lower; leaving it to the states to decide the non-symmetric circumstances of the sexes.] More detail from the case itself: (a) Gender-based classifications are not "inherently suspect" so as to be subject to so-called "strict scrutiny," but will be upheld if they bear a "fair and substantial relationship" to legitimate state ends. Reed v. Reed, 404 U. S. 71. Because the Equal Protection Clause does not "demand that a statute necessarily apply equally to all persons" or require "things which are different in fact . . . to be treated in law as though they were the same," Rinaldi v. Yeager, 384 U. S. 305, 384 U. S. 309, a statute will be upheld where the gender classification is not invidious, but rather realistically reflects the fact that the sexes are not similarly situated in certain circumstances. Pp. 450 U. S. 468-469.
In the US, the question of gender and facility-assignment depends on whose prison it is – federal, vs. a specific state. There may be a specific policy adopted by a particular prison system, but there is no specific statute that generally requires segregation of prisoners based on gender. Policies will exist which protect a prisoner's 8th amendment right to be free from cruel and unusual punishment: subjecting a person to repeated violence would be a kind of cruel and unusual punishment. At the federal level, the Prison Rape Elimination Act was designed to eliminate rape in prisons (which was already illegal). The act mandates a zero-tolerance policy, and enables studies of the problem – it does not further distinguish gender categories and/or parameters of sexual orientation. Specific policies are highly variable between states and the federal system. In theory, a state could mandate separate prisons according to birth gender, current gender and sexual preference (or, wings within a facility). I don't know of any system that specially segregates bisexual inmates from mono-sexual ones (etc.). There federal policy on transgender prisoners is explained here. The main policy of relevance is that prisoners are assigned based on their biological sex. Prior policy applied to Transgender individuals, defined as the state of one’s gender identity not matching one’s biological sex. For the purposes of this policy, a transgender inmate is one who has met with a Bureau of Prisonspsychologist and signed the form indicating consent to be identified within the agency as transgender. This step allows for accommodations to be considered That version did not say what "biological sex" is. Under current policy, the facility shall decid[e] the facility assignment for a transgender or intersex inmate, the TEC [Transgender Executive Council] should make the following assessments on a case-by-case basis: followed by, first: use biological sex as the initial determination for designation. Nothing addresses the former Intersex category, and I can find no explicit statements about what rules they use. This article makes some recommendations about this matter (suggesting making an official rule), but that's a desideratum and not the law, and it does not suggest that there is a known policy pursued by the purported TEC (whose actual existence is very hard to verify).
UK: For all I know you cannot be fired unless you are hired. They must hire you. Once a job offer is made and accepted, they must hire you. If they don't, call a lawyer. I personally know someone who got hired, and when he arrived for his first day's work at the new company, he found that the whole department that he was supposed to join had been laid of. The company had to hire him. PS. "Financial difficulties" means you call a lawyer urgently. Once they are bankrupt your chances of extracting money are not good.