Quick Answer:
How you deal with gender discrimination depends on where you are standing. If it is happening to you, write down what occurred with dates before you do anything else, then use your organisation’s reporting route, and know that the Fair Work Act and the Sex Discrimination Act both protect you. If someone reports it to you as a manager, your first job is to listen and record rather than to resolve. If you are the employer, the obligation is preventative: the positive duty requires reasonable and proportionate measures to be in place before anyone complains, and the Australian Human Rights Commission can enforce it.
In this guide
- What counts as gender discrimination at work
- What the law protects
- If gender discrimination is happening to you
- If someone reports gender discrimination to you
- If you are the employer: preventing gender discrimination
- How to investigate a report properly
- Training, culture and leading by example
- Monitoring pay and promotion gaps
- 6 mistakes that make gender discrimination worse
- How to deal with gender discrimination: bringing it together
- Frequently asked questions
Gender discrimination at work is a serious issue with real consequences for the people affected and for the organisation.
Whether you are an employee, a manager or an employer, the useful question is not only how to recognise it but what to actually do next.
This guide is organised around that. How you deal with gender discrimination differs depending on where you are standing, so it covers what the law protects and then the practical steps from three positions: the person experiencing it, the person receiving the report, and the organisation responsible for preventing it.
This guide is general information about Australian workplace obligations. It is not legal advice, and it does not replace advice about your own situation. If you are affected personally, the Australian Human Rights Commission and the Fair Work Ombudsman both provide free information and complaint services.
What Counts As Gender Discrimination At Work
Gender discrimination happens when someone is treated less favourably because of their sex or gender, or when a rule that looks neutral disadvantages one group without good reason.
It shows up in ordinary decisions far more often than in obvious hostility.
| Where it appears | What it can look like |
|---|---|
| Recruitment | Assumptions about who will fit a role, or questions about family plans |
| Pay | Different rates for comparable work, or discretionary payments that skew one way |
| Promotion | Being passed over repeatedly, or opportunities offered informally to some and not others |
| Everyday conduct | Sexist remarks, jokes and comments treated as banter |
| Allocation of work | The visible, career-building work going one way and the office housekeeping the other |
| Parental and carer’s status | Treating someone differently after they take leave or request flexibility |
| Sexual harassment | Related but distinct, and often present alongside discrimination |
The definition itself is covered separately in what gender discrimination in the workplace is, and the conduct that often sits alongside it in examples of gender harassment. This guide stays on what to do about it.
Discrimination and harassment are not the same thing
Discrimination is unfavourable treatment because of a protected attribute. Sexual harassment is unwelcome conduct of a sexual nature. They frequently occur together and they are dealt with under overlapping but different provisions, so a report can be one, the other, or both. The employer liability side of harassment is set out in the 11 types of workplace harassment.
What The Law Protects
Two federal regimes matter most, and they work differently. Knowing which one applies changes what you can do and where you go.
| Fair Work Act | Sex Discrimination Act 1984 | |
|---|---|---|
| What it prohibits | Adverse action taken for a discriminatory reason | Discrimination on the basis of sex, and sexual harassment |
| Who it covers | Employees and prospective employees | Broader, including some non-employment settings |
| The employer duty | Not to take adverse action because of a protected attribute | A positive duty to take reasonable and proportionate measures to eliminate discrimination and harassment |
| Where a complaint goes | Fair Work Ombudsman and the Fair Work Commission | Australian Human Rights Commission |
The Fair Work Ombudsman lists the protected attributes under the Fair Work Act. Several are directly relevant here: sex, sexual orientation, gender identity, intersex status, marital status, pregnancy, breastfeeding, and family or carer’s responsibilities.
What adverse action actually means
It is broader than dismissal. The Fair Work Ombudsman describes it as including firing someone, injuring them in their employment such as by withholding pay or leave, changing their job to their disadvantage, treating them differently from others, not hiring someone, or threatening or organising any of these. A great deal of gender discrimination sits in that middle band rather than at the dismissal end.
The positive duty is the part most employers have not adjusted to.
It requires measures to be in place before anyone complains, and the Australian Human Rights Commission can enforce compliance.
The practical consequence is that an absence of complaints is not evidence that you are meeting it.
If Gender Discrimination Is Happening To You
Nothing here is a substitute for advice about your own situation, and you are entitled to get that advice for free.
What follows is the sequence that tends to protect people best when they deal with gender discrimination directed at them.
| Step | Why it matters |
|---|---|
| 1. Write it down now | Dates, times, what was said or done, who was present, and how it affected your work. Contemporaneous notes carry far more weight than a reconstruction months later |
| 2. Keep copies outside work systems | Emails, messages and rosters relevant to what happened. Access to work systems can end quickly |
| 3. Check your organisation’s policy | It should name who to report to and what happens next. If you cannot find it, that is itself worth noting |
| 4. Decide who to tell | A manager, human resources, or a designated contact. If the person involved is your manager, you are entitled to go elsewhere |
| 5. Put it in writing | Even a short email after a verbal conversation creates a record of when you raised it |
| 6. Get free advice if you need it | The Fair Work Ombudsman and the Australian Human Rights Commission both provide information and complaint processes at no cost |
On taking your time
Time limits apply to some complaints, and they differ depending on the path. That is a reason to get advice early rather than to rush a decision. Writing things down protects your position while you decide what you want to do, and it commits you to nothing.
If Someone Reports Gender Discrimination To You
Managers routinely get this wrong with good intentions. Asked to deal with gender discrimination raised by someone in their team, the instinct is to resolve it immediately and informally. That instinct is what causes most of the damage.
| Do | Do not |
|---|---|
| Listen without interrupting, and take notes | Investigate on the spot or ask leading questions |
| Thank them and acknowledge it took something to raise it | Question why they did not report it sooner |
| Ask what they want to happen next | Promise an outcome you cannot control |
| Explain what will happen and by when | Promise confidentiality you cannot deliver |
| Escalate to human resources promptly | Handle it quietly to protect the person’s privacy |
| Keep the record factual and contemporaneous | Add your own assessment of credibility |
The confidentiality trap
You can promise discretion. You cannot promise confidentiality, because acting on a report usually requires telling someone. Say so plainly at the start. A promise you have to break costs more trust than an honest limit stated up front.
What a supervisor is actually responsible for, and where that responsibility ends, is set out in what supervisors and managers must consider.
If You Are The Employer: Preventing Gender Discrimination
An employer does not deal with gender discrimination only when a report arrives.
The obligation is preventative, so most of the work happens beforehand. These are the measures that recur in guidance and that an organisation can actually evidence.
| Measure | What good looks like |
|---|---|
| A policy that names the behaviour | Specific about sex, gender identity and carer’s responsibilities, not a general respect statement |
| Reporting routes people will use | More than one, including a route that bypasses the person’s own manager |
| Training with completion records | Delivered and recorded against named people, with managers completing before or with their teams |
| A response process that is written down | So the answer to “what happens next” is the same whoever is asked |
| Consistent enforcement | Applied to senior and high-performing people. One exception undoes the framework |
| Data you actually look at | Pay, promotion and exit data reviewed for patterns rather than filed |
Encourage reporting, and mean it
Encouraging people to report is only useful if reporting is safe and something visibly happens. If the last person who raised something is now managed out or quietly sidelined, no policy will fix your reporting rate, and everybody in the team already knows.
There is a second obligation most employers miss.
Discrimination and the conditions around it are psychosocial hazards under work health and safety law, managed with the same framework and hierarchy of control as physical hazards.
That puts this in the risk register, not only in a policy, as covered in psychosocial hazards at work.
How To Investigate A Report Properly
An investigation that is done badly can cause more harm than the original conduct, and it usually creates a second problem on top of the first.
| Stage | What it requires |
|---|---|
| Decide who investigates | Someone impartial, with no reporting line to either party. External if the matter is serious or involves a senior person |
| Set the scope | What specifically is being examined, agreed before starting |
| Interview everyone involved | The person who raised it, the person it concerns, and any witnesses. Each told what the process is |
| Give a fair chance to respond | The person whose conduct is in question needs to know the allegations and be able to answer them |
| Gather what exists | Rosters, emails, messages, records. Not only recollections |
| Document findings against evidence | What was found, on what basis, and what remains unresolved |
| Act on the outcome | Including where the finding is inconclusive, which still requires a decision about what happens next |
Support both people through it
Being investigated is stressful even where the finding is that nothing occurred, and so is raising something. Both parties should be told what support is available. This is not neutrality theatre. It is what keeps the process defensible and keeps two people functioning at work afterwards.
Training, Culture And Leading By Example
Training and culture are usually discussed as soft measures.
Under a preventative duty they are closer to controls, they are among the few things you can actually evidence, and they are how most organisations deal with gender discrimination before it becomes a matter.
- Train regularly, not once: Cover what discrimination is, how to raise it and what happens next, with content specific to gender rather than a general respect module
- Train managers separately and first: They receive the reports, and the most common pattern is high completion among workers and low completion among managers
- Record completion against named people, because a policy nobody was trained on is evidence that reasonable steps were not taken
- Lead by example: What leadership tolerates in a meeting sets the standard far more than the policy does, particularly when the person involved is senior or performing well
- Build an environment people want to stay in: Inclusion work, employee networks and visible support matter, and they are not a substitute for the process above
How to make training count rather than tick a box is covered in the five components of workplace compliance training.
Monitoring Pay And Promotion Gaps
Gender discrimination shows up in aggregate long before it shows up in a complaint.
Pay and promotion data is the earliest signal most organisations already hold and rarely examine.
| What to look at | The question it answers |
|---|---|
| Pay by role and level, split by gender | Are people doing comparable work paid comparably? |
| Discretionary payments and bonuses | Does discretion consistently favour one group? |
| Promotion rates and time in level | Is progression slower for one group without an explanation? |
| Who gets the visible projects | Career-building work is allocated informally, which is where bias operates most easily |
| Return-to-work outcomes after parental leave | Does role, level or pay change after leave? |
| Exit data and reasons | Patterns in who leaves, and what they say on the way out |
The Workplace Gender Equality Agency publishes data and guidance on measuring and closing gender pay gaps in Australia, which is the reference point for how to do this properly.
Look before you are asked
The organisations that handle this best find their own patterns and can explain what they did about them. The ones that struggle discover the pattern at the same time as everybody else. The data already exists in your payroll and HR systems either way.
6 Mistakes That Make Gender Discrimination Worse
- Handling it quietly to protect everyone: Informal resolution without a record leaves the person unprotected and the organisation unable to show it acted.
- Asking why they did not report it sooner: It reads as disbelief, and there are many ordinary reasons people wait.
- Promising confidentiality: Acting on a report almost always requires telling someone. Promise discretion instead, and say where the limit is.
- Treating an inconclusive finding as nothing happened: It means the evidence did not settle it. There is still a decision to make about working arrangements and monitoring.
- Letting the person who raised it carry the consequence: Moving them, changing their duties or excluding them from work is the pattern that turns one problem into a second, larger one.
- Waiting for a complaint: The positive duty requires measures in advance. A quiet organisation is not necessarily a compliant one.
How To Deal With Gender Discrimination: Bringing It Together
How to deal with gender discrimination depends on where you stand, and the three positions need different things.
If it is happening to you, write it down first, keep copies outside work systems, use the reporting route, and get free advice early.
If a report comes to you, listen and record rather than resolve, be honest about confidentiality, and escalate promptly.
If you are the employer, the duty is preventative, so the measures have to exist before anyone raises anything.
Gender discrimination is not acceptable, and addressing it properly is a shared job across employees, managers and employers.
If you do one thing as an organisation, look at your pay and promotion data by gender.
It is the earliest signal available, you already hold it, and finding a pattern yourself is a considerably better position than having it found for you.
Be able to show what you did
Sentrient keeps policies, acknowledgements, training completions, reports and investigation records in one place, so an organisation can show the measures it had in place and what happened when something was raised.
Explore the workplace compliance system | Book a free demonstration
Frequently Asked Questions
1. How do you deal with gender discrimination in the workplace?
It depends on your position. If it is happening to you, document what occurred with dates, keep copies outside work systems, report through your organisation’s process in writing, and get free advice from the Fair Work Ombudsman or the Australian Human Rights Commission. If someone reports it to you, listen, record, be honest about the limits of confidentiality and escalate promptly. If you are the employer, put preventative measures in place before anyone complains, because that is what the positive duty requires.
2. What laws cover gender discrimination at work in Australia?
Two federal regimes matter most. The Fair Work Act prohibits adverse action taken because of a protected attribute, and those attributes include sex, sexual orientation, gender identity, intersex status, marital status, pregnancy, breastfeeding, and family or carer’s responsibilities. The Sex Discrimination Act 1984 prohibits discrimination on the basis of sex and sexual harassment, and carries the positive duty. State and territory anti-discrimination laws may also apply.
3. What is the positive duty and what does it mean for employers?
It requires employers and persons conducting a business or undertaking to take reasonable and proportionate measures to eliminate sex discrimination, sexual harassment and hostile workplace environments so far as possible. The Australian Human Rights Commission has power to enforce compliance. Because it is preventative, having received no complaints is not evidence that you are meeting it, and may be closer to the opposite if no measures are in place.
4. What should I do first if I am experiencing gender discrimination?
Write down what happened, with dates, times, what was said or done, who was present and how it affected your work. Contemporaneous notes carry considerably more weight than a reconstruction later, and writing them commits you to nothing. Keep copies of relevant emails or messages outside work systems, then check your organisation’s policy for the reporting route. Free advice is available from the Fair Work Ombudsman and the Australian Human Rights Commission.
5. Can I be punished for reporting discrimination?
Taking adverse action against someone because they exercised a workplace right is separately prohibited under the Fair Work Act. Adverse action is broader than dismissal and includes changing someone’s job to their disadvantage or treating them differently from others. If something changes for you after you raise a concern, that is worth recording and worth getting advice about.
6. What is the difference between gender discrimination and sexual harassment?
Discrimination is unfavourable treatment because of a protected attribute such as sex or gender identity. Sexual harassment is unwelcome conduct of a sexual nature. They often occur together and are dealt with under overlapping but different provisions, so a single report can involve one, the other, or both. The distinction matters mainly because it affects which process and which regulator applies.
7. How should a manager respond to a report of gender discrimination?
Listen without interrupting, take contemporaneous notes, thank the person, ask what they want to happen next, explain what will happen and by when, and escalate to human resources promptly. Avoid investigating on the spot, questioning why they did not report sooner, or promising confidentiality you cannot deliver. Promise discretion instead and say plainly where the limit is.
8. How can employers detect gender discrimination before a complaint?
Look at data you already hold. Pay by role and level split by gender, discretionary payments, promotion rates and time in level, who is allocated visible career-building work, return-to-work outcomes after parental leave, and exit reasons. Patterns appear in aggregate long before they appear in a complaint, and the Workplace Gender Equality Agency publishes guidance on measuring and closing gender pay gaps.
Sources
Fair Work Ombudsman – Protection from discrimination at work
Fair Work Ombudsman – Workplace sexual harassment
Australian Human Rights Commission – The positive duty in the Sex Discrimination Act
Australian Human Rights Commission – Positive duty: compliance and enforcement
Australian Human Rights Commission – Complaints
Workplace Gender Equality Agency – Workplace Gender Equality Agency
Safe Work Australia – Psychosocial hazards
Disclaimer: This article is general information, not legal advice. Discrimination law is complex, time limits apply to some complaints, and state and territory laws may also apply. If you are personally affected, free information and complaint services are available from the Fair Work Ombudsman and the Australian Human Rights Commission, and you may wish to seek independent legal advice.
Read More About Gender Discrimination:
- What Are Examples Of Gender Harassment In The Workplace
- What Is Gender Discrimination In The Workplace?
- What Are Examples Of Gender Discrimination In The Workplace?
- What Are Examples Of Personal Harassment In The Workplace
- How To Prevent Common Types Of Occupational Violence And Aggression In The Workplace
- 11 types of workplace harassment
- Psychosocial hazards at work
- The 5 components of workplace compliance training
