The bleep test does not account for “innate biological differences” between men and women, an employment tribunal has ruled.
Koren Brown, who was a Ministry of Defence Police officer, has successfully argued she was the victim of unlawful discrimination after she was sacked for failing to meet the required standards in the fitness exam.
Her solicitor, Jillian Merchant, said the ruling should serve as a warning to employers who test the fitness of staff and that “biological and physiological differences between men and women” must be considered.
Which side will the woke and progressive take here?
One side would be don’t be ridiculous. It’s an objective standard and any woman that can meet it – like any man, trans or don’t know – gets the job. Or, more accurately, those who can’t don’t. In this particular instance that’s also my side.
But, OK, the courts have said that that#s not OK. Objective tests are sex discriminatory, beccause the sexes are objectively different. OK.
So our progressives can celebrate another vitory in which all are equal and sespecially women. Shrug.
But this insistence on these sex basd biological differences. They do rather inform our views and even legal position on trans in womens sports, don’t they? These differences are so great that they extend to hiring policemen? So, err, bicycle races? Middle distance running? Scrums?
Lots of men agree with the court here, the test for fit women is totally different.
Well yes Hallowed Be. Of course it depends on what you want them to be fit for.
I think it depends on the cut of their uniforms.
Well wearing a skirt clearly makes them relatively fitter as they are then have a lower target, but really there is more to it than the cut of their uniforms.
I’m amazed. I remember laughing with a friend of mine, a 6 foot 8 retired copper, at a picture of a 28 stone copper in the Met.
She had been given one chance to try it as a familiarisation exercise but when she struggled to balance she wasn’t encouraged to persevere, or given any guidance.
Unless you bend over backwards to make sure women can pass, your test is sexist and therefore illegal because we live in a joke country.
‘ We are all equal so demand equality’ (except when it suits US to not have equality).
Lots of stories lately regarding the number of women suffering ACL injuries when playing football. Almost as if they are somehow more at risk of injury when doing similar things to men. Is it more prevalent in the womens game (lots more with blokes obviously, but per capita)?
When I briefly worked for the MoD, one of the regular sights was seeing the otherwise sedentary middle aged Sgts and WOs having to engage in a months worth of intensive exercise so that they could pass their annual fitness tests.
I then went to Portsmouth and would stare open mouthed at all the utterly gorgeous Wrens, but being an impoverished student stood no chance against the Marines
Otto – Yarp, it’s surprising how fast fat blokes can move when their job depends on it.
Aren’t MoD cops armed?
So, why would she need to run?
Otto – my daughter went to uni in Exeter.
The freshers week introduction included a warning to the girls – “beware of the Royal Marines. “
. . . “biological and physiological differences between men and women” must be considered.
Well, yes, I’m sure enemy combatants will target the weakest link.
There are certain occupations and professions where a minimum standard of fitness is required. There are also occasions where people in those professions need that minimum standard of fitness. I’m the Army, it often affected the types of postings, or even promotions. A medical heading of FE (Forward Everywhere) meant anywhere in the world; LE (Limited Everywhere) meant not being considered for certain posts, and so the gradings continued. Very few wanted to spend their whole Army service as a Regimental Policeman in Aldershot (HO – Home Only), so regular fitness training was the norm. If an MoD Police officer is required to be armed, it follows that a certain level of fitness is also required. Terrorists don’t care if you’re a male or female. Fail that fitness test and you can’t do your job. Simple.
You are so obviously right Penseivat!!
Other non military fields as well.
Example – offshore N Sea.
Although there are some fat & unfit gits somehow passing the survival, the requirement is managing to successfully evacuate an upside down helicopter cabin under water then haul your carcass into a liferaft unaided.
Used to be much stricter, but at least there is a girth restriction, you have to be able to get through a helicopter window opening.
When I first saw this I did wonder what a bleep test had to do with a MoD Plod being able to do their job properly and I see they’ve had a rethink:
Those seem more reasonable and if you can’t pass those you’re a danger to your colleagues and the general public so no reason to have different standards.
BinD: Exactly, the tests should be objectively task-related, such as Private Godfrey dragging an unconscious Captain Mainwaring out of a smoke-filled hut.
@BiND: “if you can’t pass those you’re a danger to your colleagues and the general public ”
That doesn’t matter. All that matters is ‘equity’. The progression is (for example, firefighters):
No women. Men only.
Excluding women isn’t fair!
OK, women can be firefighters if they can pass the physical tests.
Still not fair! Very few women can pass these tests! (Most men can’t pass them either.)
Alright, we’ll have easier tests for women.
Failing men complain. That is a double standard!
Then easier tests for everybody! To hell with the actual requirements!
Then people die because firefighters are no longer strong enough to carry them out of burning buildings.
Yesterday I, along with my wife and her sister, was at the Doncaster Dome at the Britain’s Strongest Woman contest. Among other events, some of these girls carried four times their body weight down a twenty metre track, and lifted four weights of 120, 130, 130 and 150 kilograms up a short flight of stairs. Women can be fit and strong. If they want to do a job that requires that maybe they should hit the gym.
What will happen is that the requirements standards will be lowered. See W M Briggs:
https://www.wmbriggs.com/post/44820/
Isn’t it the case that, for any moderately fit person, these kinds of tests are fairly easy? I read a story on another blog about a test that involved recruits, in their late teens and early twenties, having to run 3k in fifteen minutes. I could do that in about twelve minutes when I was sixty.
@ Stonyground
Well, yes – that is the point: to distinguish those moderately fit people who can still lift up a gun and point it in the right direction after running a few yards from those who cannot and might shoot an innocent bystander or their own foot.
And BiND and jgh have noted, there is more to the story than the bit Tim has quoted. Specifically, that there were other tests available, and that the bleep test wasn’t actually considered all that useful compared to some of the others. So it’s not a case of “test is harder for women”, it’s a case of “insistence on using a test that’s known to be harder for women and which is known not to be all that representative of actual ability to do the job”. The fact that they’ve since switched tests to something more representative rather supports that distinction.
The only analogy I can think of would be to have a test of “how high up the wall can you reach” which for most blokes is fairly easy given we have a “hose” to point with. Naturally that’s a lot harder for women without a hose. If the requirement is simply that you can pee “on demand” (e.g. for a situation where it’s difficult to go later when all togged up in PPE, and hence quite useful to be able to empty your bladder beforehand) then how high up the wall you can pee is irrelevant and would exclude women for no valid reason.