Equality and diversity: a new approach to gender equality policy in the UK

In 2007 the UK established a new single equalities body, to bring together the existing equality Commissions dealing with gender, disability, and race and ethnicity into a Commission for Equality and Human Rights. The promotion and enforcement of ‘equality and diversity’ is one of the three duties of the new body. This paper briefly explores diversity in relation to the theory of gender equality and also examines developments in policy at the EU level, which has provided much of the impetus for change. Our focus is on the policy approach and the tensions that the policy documents reveal about the emphasis on equality and diversity approach, in particular the extent to which attention to gender issues may get lost in the diversity bundle, and the extent to which a focus on the individual may be strengthened over the group.