Discrimination is defined as unfair or unequal treatment, based on prejudice, taken against a person or group of people because of:

• Race
• Colour
• Gender
• Religious belief
• Sexual orientation
• Nationality
• Culture
• Disability
• Age
• Class or trade union membership
• Political beliefs
• Dependants
• or other reasons

Discrimination occurs when a person is treated less favourably, on one of the above grounds, than others are or would be treated in the same or similar circumstances. This may be the result of conscious decision, policy or bias in a system or procedures. Indirect discrimination consists of applying a requirement or condition which although applied equally, has a disproportionately adverse effect on one group because the proportion of the group which can comply with it is much smaller that the proportion in the whole which can comply with it.

It seems that many people now-days go on about how they are discriminated against on the grounds of age, race and sex. There has been countless court cases where people have made claims that they were discriminated against, with most cases ruling in the discriminated persons favour.

The problem with these court cases is that they seem to be one sided. Most discrimination cases are where someone was:

• Against Women
  • Treating women differently to men
  • Not employing people because they are women
  • Making decisions that are against women
• Against the older generation of people
  • Stating that a potential employee must be young
  • Making decisions that are against older people
• Against a race that holds a minority
  • Not employing people because of their race
  • Making decisions that are against people of a different race

The problem with most of the court cases being for one of the above situations is that people do not realise some other types of discrimination. For example, if a qualified woman applied for a job in an all male company and was not employed, people would start claiming that there was discrimination. If a qualified man applied for a job at an all female workplace, people would think nothing of him not getting the job. What would you think?

Another example of where discrimination is overlooked is when it comes to age. If an older person applied for a job in a programming company where most of the workers are young, people would start claiming discrimination. If a highly qualified young person was not employed at a company where most of the employees where older, people would just think that the young person was just not experienced enough.

If anyone was to look at the prices of insurance they would have noticed that young males pay the most for car insurance. Is this not discrimination? Most people would just say "no" , this is not discrimination as it is a proven fact that young males have more expensive crashes than any other demographic, although this statement in itself is discriminating. If a company was to only employ men and had proven statistically that men were better in its industry, it would be called discrimination. What is the difference between only employing men since it was statistically found that they were better suited for the industry and charging young men more than others for insurance?

In my opinion both cases are discriminating.

The fact is that the world itself is so careful not to discriminate against the typical discriminated groups, that in some cases it now discriminates against everyone else.

Just ask yourself:

• Why are scholarships not evenly distributed between demographics
• Why does insurance cost more for some demographics
• Why should school children get to seen movies at a lower price, when they make the most noise in the cinemas?

If there was no discrimination, shouldn't everyone be paying the same price?