Socially, the discrimination consists in distinguishing a group from people of the others, and applying a specific treatment to him, without objective bond with the criterion which is used to distinguish the group.

Discrimination was initially identified like an arbitrary reduction of the rights, opposite to the equality in right, and inducing a devalorization of certain groups of human.

But once a “negative” discrimination objectively observed, it is sometimes proposed the need for an action of rebalancing in the form of a Positive discrimination.

The discrimination is the action which consists in differentiating the elements from a whole by means of one or several criteria in order to be able to apply a treatment specific to each subset thus made up.

In economic theory, discrimination indicates the action of an agent which modulates its Offre (of work, of good) according to the known or supposed characteristics other agents. The case more the current is that of the Discrimination by the prices.

Definition

Discrimination: Discrimination is negative when one treats in a lower position or that one removes privileges with a person or a group different from the person who discriminates. (see discriminatory Criteria and fields of discrimination )

Discrimination supposes two elements:

• a preferential treatment;
• an absence of justification of this particular treatment.

Thus, it seems quite clear that for example the maternity leave constitute a particular treatment, but that these advantages are not discriminatory because they are adapted to the situation.

But the social consensus is only one indicator, with insufficient reliability. What, here and today, is conceived only like one normal distinction, will be able in another time or another place to constitute an unbearable discrimination; however any company is built by and for the identification of typical locations, concerned with suitable treatments: supposed tax incentives to compensate for a constraint or a handicap, supposed social constraints to compensate for an advantage, sanction of a behavior considered to be guilty, etc

The age is an good example of useful and practical criterion, sometimes consensual (minimum age to take part in the public life, for example), sometimes lived like discriminatory (for example the age which can become a reason for rejection by the employers, notwithstanding the objective elements of the C.V.).

Discriminatory criteria and fields of discrimination

The possible criteria to distinguish from the people are infinite: physics, physiological, social, religious, vestimentary, practical sexual, opinions, language, sex, origins family or geographical, etc

The fields concerned can also be infinite: social activities (entry in an establishment of leisures, etc), economic activities (reserved, prohibited or obligatory professions), political activities (right to vote or not), at the school or the university against the foreign students, etc

According to the criterion used, and sometimes according to the field, discrimination bears a specific name.

The International Pact of the Civil laws and Politique of UNO condemn discrimination, in particular in its article 26 which specifies:

“All the people are equal in front of the law and have law without discrimination to an equal protection of the law. In this respect, the law must prohibit any discrimination and guarantee to all the people an equal and effective protection against any discrimination, in particular of race, color, sex, language, religion, political opinion and any other opinion, national or social origin, fortune, birth or any other situation. ”

Principal discriminations

Without being able to sort discrimination precisely phobic behavior (one concerning the law, the other of psychiatry), one list shovel-mixes:

1. discriminations related to the physique of an individual

2. * the Sexism (see also the sexual discriminations);
3. * the age. Discriminations relating to the age are particularly repressed with the the United States, in particular as regards recruiting. In addition, the age constitutes a social criterion determining in public life (right to vote, access to the elective functions, conscription, retirement, etc), however seldom regarded as discriminatory;
4. * the simple physical aspect of the people causes discriminating reactions in the life in society and the professional framework, as in the cases of the Handicap (one speaks sometimes about Handiphobie or Validisme), of the Obésité (one speaks then about Grossophobie) and sometimes even of the Calvitie;
5. * the Racism and the rejections related on the color of the skin, like manners, culture, language of the Ethnos group or the Nation confined to bed considered;
6. discriminations related to behavior with the
7. lifestyle * the Hétérosexisme as well as the Homophobie, the Lesbophobie, the Biphobie and the Transphobie, the Hétérophobie are the discriminations based on the Sexual orientation or the Identité of kind of the ones and others;
8. * lifestyle, like discriminations against the nonsedentary populations in the sedentary companies;
9. dependant discriminations instead of dwelling.
10. * the Xenophobia, a discrimination according to the Nation, and all its alternatives geographical, according to the , place of residence state, City, district, etc; example: Parisianisme
11. Discrimations related on the opinions, the social classes and the professions.
12. * discriminations related to the religious opinions : these discriminations are not always indicated by precise terms. New terms, like the Islamophobie, emerged recently to qualify these discriminations. They still seek a clear definition and are fought by those which see there a step of stigmatization of the Anticléricalisme. It should be noted that so of the older terms like Judéophobie or Antisémitisme are more consensual, they describe less a rejection of the religion Jew than the hatred of the Jews as people;
13. * discriminations resulting from the systems aiming to distinguish and categorize. certain disciplines such as graphology or astrology can create new discriminations according to their eccentric criteria;
14. * discriminations related on the Richness or the Poverty.
15. * discriminations related to the culture of the individual. For example: discriminations related on the style, the listened music, for example: there are great tensions between certain protest movements for example the Rap with the Punk, the Gothic or the metal, RAC, the RIF.
16. * discriminations related to the membership of a social class or a socioprofessional category.

Institutionalized racial discriminations

The segregation resulting from the slavery of the black people of Africa still prevails with the the United States, in spite of the abolition of the official laws. Positive discrimination is however often used to try to counterbalance this segregation.

See also: Rosa Parks.

The Apartheid belonged to the laws of South Africa during approximately a half-century.

In many Culture S of the world, discriminations racial and religious, if not are still institutionalized, at least very present in the custom and habits. A particular example is that of Maldives: this archipelago draws a good part of its resources from tourism, however the tourists - Westerners in particular - and Maldiviens are confined in islands separated with the minimum from possible contacts.

The fight against discriminations

The fight against a discrimination starts with its identification like such. It is relatively easy when discrimination explicit, is registered in the law and jurisprudence, and that its unjustified character is quite apparent. It is much more difficult when discrimination is a simple generalized social practice: it is not possible to live without making of discrimination, the problem becomes social when everyone or almost applies the same discriminatory behavior, which does not leave any more the least chance.

Legal treatment

In France, the remarks and discriminatory Insulte S constitute offense S and are punished by the Loi. That is not inevitably the case in some other countries where the remarks (but not acts) discriminatory can be legal, either because they are the local standard, or in the name of the Freedom of expression.

A “high authority of fight against discriminations and for the equality” was instituted in France by the Law n° 2004-1486 of November 30th, 2004.

Associations fighting against racism try to highlight discriminatory practices using the testing.

What says the law in France?

Article 225-1 of the Penal code:

• Constitutes a discrimination any distinction made between the natural persons because of their origin, their sex, their their health condition, their patronym, their physical appearance, family circumstances, of their handicap, their characteristics genetic, their manners, of their sexual orientation, of their age, their political opinions, their trade-union activities, of their membership or their not-membership, true or supposed, with an ethnos group, a nation, a race or a given religion.

The Penal code envisages the aggravation of the sorrows for certain punishable acts, like physical violences, when the mobile is racist or homophobe. The law of February 3rd, 2003 punishes an aggression more severely when it is racist. That of March 18th, 2003 punishes an aggression more severely when it is homophobe.

In addition, article 225-3 of the new Penal code punishes 3 years of imprisonment and of 45.000 € of fine does it:

• to subordinate the supply of a good or a service to a discriminatory condition (for example to exclude a person from a nightclub because of color of its skin);
• to subordinate an offer of employment to a discriminatory condition (for example: to ask trainees who are only “white”).

On the other hand, a discrimination based for example on the trade, the diploma, the place of residence, the type of work contract (CDD, TDCI, CPE, CNE, etc), the work place or the experiment seems legal.

In practice, information on its own health condition is in discriminating factor required by certain insurances, in particular in the case of a credit over several years.

See too

Related articles

• Âgisme

• Apartheid (in South Africa)
• Burakumin (in Japan)
• Discrimination the ethnic at the time of recruitment
• Discrimination
• Positive discrimination
• Scale of Allport
• social Exclusion
• Untouchable Gated communities
• S (in India)
• Phobia
• Selection
• Sexism
• Testing

External bonds

• High authority of fight against discriminations and for the equality

• All means of acting vis-a-vis discrimination
• What a policy against discriminations? by Patrick Simon

Simple: Discrimination