Asking a woman why she wants to work is ‘inherently sexist', tribunal rules

Telegraph

01-04-2025

Asking a woman why she wants to work is sex harassment, a tribunal has ruled.
Employment Judge Kate Annand said the query was based on the 'outdated idea' that men were the 'main breadwinners'.
An employer would 'not even have thought' to ask a male employee the same question, she concluded.
The ruling came after John Wellington, an antiques dealer, was sued for making the remark to female sales assistant Audrey Pereira.
The jewellery specialist, who runs a shop in Windsor, has been ordered to pay his former employee more than £55,000 in compensation after she successfully took him to an employment tribunal.
'Degrading environment'
Judge Annand said the questions were 'inherently sexist' as it made Ms Pereira feel she needed to 'justify her need and desire to work'.
She said: 'The tribunal concluded that this did amount to 'unwanted conduct' in that [Ms Pereira] found the questions to be intrusive and inappropriate.'
She added the tribunal found it was 'unlikely' Mr Wellington would have asked a male who was seeking a role 'why they needed to work, why they needed to earn money, or questions about their wife'.
'The questions were inappropriate because they are based on an outdated idea that men are the main breadwinners in a house.
'The tribunal found that these questions were related to sex in that they were motivated by [Ms Pereira's] sex, and [Mr Wellington] would not even have thought to ask these questions of a male who wanted to work in the Antiques store.'
She added that the questions 'created a degrading environment' and 'violated her dignity'.
The Reading tribunal heard that Ms Pereira, of South Asian heritage, began working at Wellington Antiques in Windsor in October 2021.
The shop advertises itself as a 'a family-run antique shop'. It sells items such as furniture, dolls, coins and the 'most exquisite antique jewellery.
In November, Ms Pereira met with 40-year-old Mr Wellington to discuss her bank details. During the conversation, Mr Wellington began asking her 'personal and intrusive' questions. This included questions about her faith and her husband.
He stated that she could 'trust him' because he was Catholic.
'Dirt on his shoe'
In December, Mr Wellington and Ms Pereira discussed what the latter described as ''skeleton terms of employment'.
Ms Pereira told the tribunal she 'opened up' to him about how difficult she found finding work given her age and ethnicity.
The shop owner said that 'blacks and gays have it worse', which the sales assistant felt 'invalidated' her experience.
Ms Pereira had not yet been paid, and that would continue until March 2022, the hearing was told.
Even after she received her first payment of £1,300 in cash, less than what she was owed, she continued to be paid 'sporadically' throughout her employment.
She was also denied a £2,000 commission promised by Mr Wellington if she hit her sales targets, the tribunal heard.
During a 'heated' discussion in July, Ms Pereira raised the issue of the unpaid bonus.
Mr Wellington accused her of claiming other people's sales and shouted that she could leave if she did not want the job 'on his terms'.
Two weeks after the meeting, Ms Pereira texted her boss to say she did her 'very best' for the shop and was treated like the 'dirt on his shoe'.
In October, after she had not been paid for three months, Mr Wellington's father, who also worked in the antique shop, advised her to get a solicitor and said he had done 'all he could' to try and get her paid.
When Ms Pereira raised an official grievance Mr Wellington said he was 'grossly offended' by the accusation of race discrimination.
In January 2023, she was put on paid gardening leave, but by the beginning of March, she came to the conclusion she had been effectively dismissed.
The tribunal concluded that Mr Wellington's questions about her motivations and family life were 'unwanted conduct'.
However, on the 'blacks and gays' comment, Judge Annand said it was 'not intended' to be a negative remark.
'[Ms Pereira] found [Mr Wellington's] response to be dismissive of her and devalued her experience,' she said.
'The tribunal found the phrase was ill-judged but intended to express his view that the job market is more challenging for people who are black or homosexual and was not intended to be a negative comment about people who are black or homosexual.
'The tribunal also did not find the comment was, or was intended to be, dismissive of [Ms Pereira] or her experience as someone of South Asian ethnicity.'
Ms Pereira was awarded £56,022.34 in compensation for sex harassment, unpaid wages, wrongful dismissal, and two complaints of victimisation for being put on garden leave and not being reinstated.
She lost her claims for unfair dismissal, race discrimination and sex discrimination.