Unfinished Business: Equality Policy and the Changing Context of State Feminism in Great Britain

Abstract

The first women’s equality agency, the Women’s National Commission (WNC) was established in 1969. Since then sex equality policy in Britain developed from simple prohibitions on sex discrimination in certain narrowly defined fields, to policies based on wider concepts of equal treatment for women and men. It is now to become part of the framework for combined and interacting policies on equalities and human rights. The agendas and powers of the UK agencies are affected by the other equality agencies. The first British equality agency was the Race Relations Board, established in 1965, which was replaced by the Commission for Racial Equality in 1976. In 2000 The Disability Rights Commission was established. New sex equality agencies appeared from 1976, notably the Equal Opportunities Commission (EOC) in 1976, the Women’s Unit (WU) in 1997, replaced by the Women and Equality Unit (WEU) in 2001. At the time of writing, in 2006, the whole of the equality policy agency apparatus is on the point of being restructured. Legislation to bring together all the various equality agencies in the UK into a single body was enacted in 2006. A Commission for Equality and Human Rights (CEHR) that also includes the ‘new’ strands of equality and human rights is scheduled to open for business in 2007.1