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Lots of us might agree it's satisfactory but the Equal Opportunities Commission and the courts might not. The EoC's website is very informative. Take a look for example at its page on what have become known as "genuine occupational qualifications" (GoQs), shorthand for the legal exceptions to the general prohibition against sex discrimination in employment, i.e. circumstances in which sex can be considered a genuine occupational qualification: http://www.eoc.org.uk/cseng/advice/guide.asp. Among other things, it recommends what we've all seen in discriminatory job ads before (e.g. for kissograms!), a statement by the employer in the ad like 'Section 7(2)(a) [or whichever section] of the Sex Discrimination Act 1975 applies to this post.' It looks as though sex discrimination in the recruitment of people to present science programmes on TV is most likely to be justifiable, if justifiable at all, under s.7(2)(a), though you may have a hard time arguing on these authenticity grounds. It's noteworthy that the EoC says GoQs cannot be used to achieve gender balance or satisfy customer preference. Chris -- Chris Stokes > At the end of the day, however, it does come down to the fact that we are > looking for a female science presenter (who will in any case be the brains > of the show and whose role is to show the boys up) to counter our male > presenter who, despite being a university educated actor, is not > fundamentally grounded in science. > > I hope you'll agree this is a satisfactory reason for actively looking for > a female presenter. ********************************************************************** 1. To suspend yourself from the list, whilst on leave, for example, send an email to [log in to unmask] with the following message: set psci-com nomail 2. To resume email from the list, send the following message: set psci-com mail 3. To leave psci-com, send an email to [log in to unmask] with the message: leave psci-com 4. Further information about the psci-com discussion list, including list archive, can be found at the list web site: http://www.jiscmail.ac.uk/lists/psci-com.html 5. The psci-com gateway to internet resources on science communication and science and society can be found at http://psci-com.org.uk **********************************************************************