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Gender Sensitive H&S Promoted By TUC
The TUC's Gender and Occupational Safety and Health (G&OSH) Working Party have produced a checklist to help safety reps and others check whether their workplace health and safety policies and practices are gender sensitive.
 Everyone has an equal right to protection from harm at work but that doesn't mean treating everyone as if they were all the same!
- Recent research has shown that both sex (biological differences between women and men) and gender (socially determined differences) affect workers' health and safety in many ways. These differences are too often ignored or misunderstood, leading to failures in prevention.
- Gender stereotyping (e.g. 'women's work is light work' or 'stress is for wimps' ) or stereotyping in relation to different categories or work (eg manual and white-collar jobs) can also lead to false assumptions about who is or is not at risk in the workplace. Important opportunities for prevention can be missed as a result.
The TUC recommends a gender-sensitive approach to health and safety as a way of improving prevention for both women and men and making sure that everyone is equally protected.
You can use this checklist to help you:
- Identify gaps in workplace agreements, policies and procedures
- Highlight ways to improve investigation, risk assessment and training
- Improve the information gathered about men's and women's experiences of work and any ill effects
- Review and improve health and safety monitoring and data collection / information gathering
- Improve recognition and understanding of the issues and risks facing women and men in your workplace
- Address neglected issues (e.g. women's health at work, men's and women's reproductive health)
- Involve more women in health and safety consultation and decisions
- Ensure that all health and safety agreements policies and practices are gender sensitive.
- Make work fit for all workers.
Source: TUC
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