Differences based on for example gender, race, or disability continue to underpin inequality and discrimination. Yet, in addressing inequality and discrimination, law and policy makers face a difficult choice. Both ignoring and recognising differences, such as gender, race, or disability, risk perpetuating inequalities. On the one hand, ignoring differences through neutral law and policies can sideline the particular needs of certain groups, and thereby reproduce inequality. Recognising differences as a basis for special treatment, on the other hand, can lead to stigma and reinforce ideas of difference, such as in the use of quotas. Moreover, in allocating certain rights and privileges based on categories of identity, the state needs to define those categories and generate criteria of who belongs and who does not, potentially disregarding minorities within minorities and the fluidity and intersectionality of identities.

The panel will engage these questions to consider how we regulate equality and difference, including innovative approaches to law and policy reform.

The panel will commence with a keynote presentation by Professor Davina Cooper, King’s College London who led the Future of Legal Gender Project in the United Kingdom. The research project controversially addressed the value, viability, and implications of abolishing legal sex and gender status (decertification).

Interested members of the public from Sydney and surrounding areas are warmly invited join and to share their perspectives. This panel will be followed by a catered reception. All are welcome to join.

Public Panel: Regulating Equality and Difference