What is the UK Gender Duty and why is it linked to men's health?

Abstract

Emerging from contemporary UK equality policy, the Gender Duty is not ostensibly about health, although men's health groups are keen to use it to bring about improvements in the health of men. Nevertheless, the status of men's health as an inequality is contentious and any links to equality policy should not be left unquestioned. In this article, I try to develop a critical but supportive perspective regarding the potential of equality legislation for improving men's health by describing the Gender Duty and exploring the links between equality and human rights and men's health.

Keywords:

• Gender Duty
• Single Equality Act
• men's health
• masculinities
• equality policy

Acknowledgements

The author would like to thank Brendan Gough, Steve Robertson, Karl Witty, Gary Raine, Brid Featherstone, Judith Green and anonymous reviewers for feedback on earlier drafts of this article.

Notes

Note

1. As a protected category, the Single Equality Duty specifies that we must eliminate discrimination against those who are married or in a civil partnership, but excludes the obligations (relating to all other protected categories) to advance equality of opportunity and foster good relations for people sharing this characteristic.