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'this article is about discrimination in the social science sense. For the act of distinguishing/discriminating between things, see distinction, difference, comparison or differentiation. The word discrimination comes from the Latin "discriminare", which means to "distinguish between". To discriminate socially is to make a distinction between people on the basis of class or category without regard to individual merit. Examples of social discrimination include racial, religious, sexual, sexual orientation, disability, ethnic, height-related, and age-related discrimination. Whether a given example of discrimination is positive or negative is a subjective judgement (i.e., in the eye of the beholder). Distinctions between people which are based just on individual merit (such as personal achievement, skill or ability) are generally not considered socially discriminatory. Consequently, prohibitions against such discrimination generally will not prevent a government from acting in a legitimate and justifiable way based upon the merit of an individual person. Social theories such as Egalitarianism claim that social equality should prevail. In some societies, such as the U.S.A., each individual's civil rights include the right to be free from government sponsored social discrimination.• In contrast, conservative writer and law professor Matthias Storme has claimed that the freedom of discrimination in human societies is a fundamental human right, or more precisely: the basis of all fundamental freedoms and therefore the most fundamental freedom. Author Hans-Hermann Hoppe, in an essay• about his book , asserts that a natural social order is characterized by increased discrimination.
Racial discrimination Racial discrimination differentiates between individuals on the basis of real or perceived racial categories, and has been official government policy in several countries, such as South Africa in the apartheid era. In the United States, racial profiling of minorities by law enforcement officials has been called racial discrimination. • In the UK the inquiry following the murder of Stephen Lawrence accused the police of institutional racism. Age discrimination Age discrimination is discrimination against a person or group on the grounds of age. Although theoretically the word can refer to the discrimination against any age group, age discrimination usually comes in one of two forms: discrimination against youth, and discrimination against the elderly. In many countries, companies more or less openly refuse to hire people above a certain age despite the increasing lifespans and average age of the population. The reasons for this range from vague feelings that younger people are more "dynamic" and create a positive image for the company, to more concrete concerns about regulations granting older employees higher salaries or other benefits without these expenses being fully justified by an older employees' greater experience. Some underage teenagers consider that they're victims of age discrimination on the grounds that they should be treated more respectfully by adults and not as second-class citizens. Some complain that social stratification in age groups causes outsiders to incorrectly stereotype and generalize the group, for instance that all adolescents are equally immature, violent or rebellious, listen to rock or rap music and do drugs. Some have organized groups against age discrimination. Gender discrimination Illegal gender discrimination is any action that grants or denies opportunities, privileges, or rewards to a person just on the basis of their sex when such gender discrimination is not a requirement of the future situation. Title VII of the CRA of '64 allows a BFOQ for gender (contact prison guards, washroom attendents) but such premission is extremely limited. The United Nations had concluded that women often experience a "glass ceiling" and that there are no societies in which women enjoy the same opportunities as men. The term 'glass ceiling' describes the process by which women are barred from promotion by means of an invisible barrier. In the United States, the Glass Ceiling Commission has stated that between 95 and 97 percent of senior managers in the country's biggest corporations are men.* Also transgendered individuals, both male to female and female to male, often experience discrimination because of their gender identity. This may lead to dismissals, underachievement or dire difficulty in finding a job. Socially, sexual differences have been used to justify societies in which one sex or the other has been restricted to significantly inferior and secondary roles. While there are non-physical differences between men and women, there is little agreement as to what those differences are. Legislation to promote gender equality is generally complex and varied, with a wide divergence between different countries. The principal legislation in the UK is found in the Equal Pay Act of 1970 (which provides for equal pay for comparable work) and the Sex Discrimination Act of 1975, which makes discrimination against women or men (including discrimination on the grounds of marital status) illegal in the working situation that favor male power in a traditional social structure. Reverse discrimination Reverse discrimination is a term used to describe perceived discriminatory policies or acts that benefit a historically sociopolitically nondominant group (typically women and minorities), at the expense of a historically sociopolitically dominant group (typically men and majority races). Bibliography See also | ||||||||
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