Gender Equalities at Work: an Interdisciplinary History of 50 Years of Legislation

该项目将为英国四个国家的《1970年同工同酬法》和《1975年性别歧视法》（现已纳入《2010年平等法》）的制定、发展轨迹、影响和实际经验提供第一部综合性跨学科历史。从理论上讲，这项具有里程碑意义的立法将性别平等原则作为一项法定要求引入工作场所，颁布至今已近50年。从那时起，它在实践上的不足就吸引了几乎不断的评价和评论，导致了进一步的改变或调整（通常是通过“软”法而不是成文法）。英国制定的法律也受到欧洲法律制度和框架的影响，并反过来影响了欧洲法律制度和框架。然而，职场性别平等法的发展方向——为什么、有什么意义，更重要的是，法律是由谁来实施的——至今仍未成文。此外，（在社会政策和法律研究等学科中）倾向于关注法律（当前）的局限性，这意味着对变革过程本身的回顾性分析很少：理解辩论的条件是如何转变的，个人（和集体）的技能、创造力和精力是如何转变的，以及用于实现这一目标的工具是如何转变的。除了研究1)同工同酬和2)性别歧视的轨迹外，该项目还将首次研究对工作场所性骚扰（在1986年被判定为一种歧视）的反应历史，直到并包括#MeToo（我也是）运动。该项目将研究从1964年（同工同酬首次被纳入政党宣言承诺）到2020年（脱离欧盟）的这段时间，并首次利用具有历史意义的方法和资料（并在性别史和法律史中广泛使用）。它将从广泛的英国资料库收集档案资料，并对40名“关键人物”（包括律师、诉讼人、活动家、工会会员和平等专员）进行口述历史采访，以检索法律在行动中的历史，作为机构和个人经验。它还旨在开发一个跨学科的工具包，通过借鉴女权主义政治学和工业关系的概念和框架，将变化理解为一个动态的过程。我们将构建与性别平等立法相关的架构、行动者和话语的多维时间轴，识别并随后分析变化的关键节点或时刻，以了解它们是如何产生的以及产生了什么影响。在关注性别的同时，该项目将研究其与构成工作场所不平等的其他类别的交集，特别是种族/民族、宗教和生命周期。该项目将是历史上第一个研究与英国工作场所性别平等有关的交叉性对法律思想和运动的影响，以及在赋予交叉性法律形式方面所经历的困难的项目。该项目将产生一系列学术文章，这些文章可能会引起法律史、妇女和性别史、劳工史和性别研究学者的兴趣。一个面向公众的网站将提供广泛的资源和材料，供教师、学生、活动人士和倡导团体使用。在探索变化是如何以及以何种方式发生的过程中，它将强调活动家以前使用的成功工具和策略（以及失败的原因），并从那些核心参与者的角度提供个人见解，作为“历史教训”。我们亦会策划一个流动展览，为现时参与政府、政策制定和运动的人士提供讲座/活动，以提高他们对过去50年变化本质的历史认识。

This project will produce the first comprehensive interdisciplinary history of the creation, trajectories, legacies and lived experiences of the Equal Pay Act 1970 and Sex Discrimination Act 1975 (now integrated for GB in the Equality Act 2010) across the four nations of the UK.It is approaching 50 years since the enactment of this landmark legislation which, in theory, introduced the principle of gender equality into the workplace as a statutory requirement. Its practical inadequacies have attracted almost constant evaluation and commentary ever since, leading to further changes or adaptations (often through 'soft' law rather than statute). UK-made law has also been shaped by - and, in turn, has influenced - European legal institutions and frameworks. Yet, the full story of the directions that workplace gender equality law has taken across time - of why, with what significance and, importantly, by and for whom the law has been used - remains unwritten. Moreover a tendency (within disciplines such as social policy and legal studies) to focus on the law's (current) limitations, has meant that there has been little retrospective analysis of the process of change itself: of understanding how the terms of debate have been shifted, of the personal (and collective) skill, creativity and energy this has entailed, and of the tools that have been used to do this. Alongside its examination of the trajectories of i) equal pay and ii) sex discrimination, this project will be the first to examine the history of responses to iii) workplace sexual harassment (judged to be a form of discrimination in 1986) up to and including #MeToo. The project will examine the period from 1964 (when equal pay was first included as a party manifesto commitment) until 2020 (departure from the European Union), drawing in the first instance on methods and sources that are historical (and used widely in gender history and legal history). It will collect archival sources from a wide range of UK repositories and undertake oral history interviews with 40 'key actors' (including lawyers, litigants, campaigners, trade unionists, and equality commissioners) to retrieve the history of the law in action, as agency, and as personal experience. It also aims to develop an interdisciplinary toolkit for understanding change as a dynamic process by drawing on concepts and frameworks from feminist political science and industrial relations. We will construct a multi-dimensional timeline of the architectures, actors and discourses associated with gender equality legislation, identifying and, subsequently, analysing key junctures or moments of change to understand how they came about and with what effects. Whilst focusing on gender, the project will examine its intersection with other categories that are constitutive of workplace inequality, particularly race/ethnicity, religion and life-cycle. The project will be the first history to examine the influence of intersectionality on legal thinking and campaigning in relation to UK workplace gender equality as well as the difficulties experienced in giving intersectionality legal form.The project will result in a set of academic articles that are likely to be of interest to scholars of legal history, women's and gender history, labour history, and gender studies. A public-facing website hosting a wide range of resources and materials will be designed for use by teachers, students, campaigners and advocacy groups. In exploring how and in what ways change has come about, it will highlight successful tools and strategies that have been used previously by campaigners (as well as reasons for failure), and offer personal insights from the perspective of those centrally involved as 'lessons from history'. We will also curate a mobile exhibition to support talks/events for those involved in government, policy-making and campaigning now, enhancing historical awareness of the nature of change over the last 50 years.