Religious Reasons fr photography

Deadlie

I recently applied for a job as a photographer at a photo studio/training centre. I got a reply back saying they were only looking for female photographers. Now, I don't know what female photographers can do that males cant, so I suggested them on twitter that they should be just hire photographers. I didn't mention that hiring on grounds of gender is pretty much frowned up. Anyway, the event passed and I didn't rewlly care much after a while, but today they replied on Twitter stating:

"We needed a female as some of our customers require a female photographer due to religion."

Now, I'm not to bothered by this, but does this sound like BS, or do some religions have biases towards male photographers?

Penn

Deadlie wrote: »

I recently applied for a job as a photographer at a photo studio/training centre. I got a reply back saying they were only looking for female photographers. Now, I don't know what female photographers can do that males cant, so I suggested them on twitter that they should be just hire photographers. I didn't mention that hiring on grounds of gender is pretty much frowned up. Anyway, the event passed and I didn't rewlly care much after a while, but today they replied on Twitter stating:

"We needed a female as some of our customers require a female photographer due to religion."

Now, I'm not to bothered by this, but does this sound like BS, or do some religions have biases towards male photographers?

The only thing I could think would be Muslim women who might want a female photographer should they wish to remove/adjust their hijab or something. That's the first thing that springs to mind anyway.

recedite

There are lots of jobs where the customers are mostly women, and where the customers feel more comfortable having a woman doing the particular job. Also there are also jobs where the clientele is male, and they prefer women to do the job. And vice versa.Hence, you are right not to be too bothered by it. Also I think you are right that this is a BS response.
They are unsure where they stand legally, so they play the religion card. Its becoming more common nowadays, as pleading "religion" is increasingly seen as the one way to practice discrimination and still get away with it. Its a great catch-all.

Peregrinus

In general, of course, it’s illegal to base a hiring decision on gender. But there are exceptions.

The main exception is set out in s. 25 of the Employment Equality Act 1998. Under that section you can base a hiring decision on gender where gender is “a genuine and determining occupational requirement for the post”. The objective of hiring a worker of a particular gender has to be “legitimate” and “proportionate” to the needs of the case.

This covers obvious cases like where you need an actress to play a female part, or where the job involves say, toiletting the disabled, and the clients are more comfortable with a carer of their own sex. But there can be less obvious cases that still come within the exemption.

In this case the photographic studio is saying that they have at least some customers who will only be photographed by a woman, and therefore they need to hire a woman photographer or lose this business. A couple of thoughts on this.

1. It doesn’t matter whether the customers’ demand for a woman photographer is religiously-based or not. The customers are under no non-discrimination obligations in relation to their decision to patronise this photographer, or that one, or none at all. All that matters from the studio’s point of view is that they need to have a female photographer on staff in order to serve this sector of the market.

2. I seriously doubt that any demand for a woman photographer is religiously-based. It might be culturally-based, if there are customers from cultures in which women ordinarily cover their faces in public. But it could equally be quite the opposite; the studio may be providing professional quality, ahem, glamour shots to women who may give them to their romantic partners, but who don’t care to pose for a male photographer.

3. So any reference to religion here is a big red herring. The question is whether being female is “a genuine and determining occupational requirement for the post”, and to establish that the studio has to show that there is, in fact, a service which they can sell if they have a female photographer but not a male photographer, and that this happens on such as scale that, if they can’t cater to that sector of the market, then it is not viable to employ the extra photographer.

Hotblack Desiato

If I'd rather get a bed bath from a nurse of the opposite gender, I should be able to specify that too. In the interests of fairness and equality like.

Zillah

I'm going to guess hijab, too. I don't care whether it is personal or religious, they have a right to request a photographer of a particular sex if they are uncomfortable otherwise, and the studio have the right to hire based on that.

Peregrinus

ninja900 wrote: »

If I'd rather get a bed bath from a nurse of the opposite gender, I should be able to specify that too. In the interests of fairness and equality like.

You can specify that; what's to stop you? And a care-providing agency that wants your business will provide a carer acceptable to you.

(Of course, if you ask with a sufficient amount of leering and winking the care agency may decide that they don't want your business after all.)