The workplace should be the driving force of gender equality in society

ARE Singapore's workplaces doing enough to address gender inequality?

On Mar 28, the government unveiled its long-awaited White Paper on Singapore Women's Development: a 25-point action plan, 18 months in the making. The first action on the list was to introduce new workplace fairness legislation - specifically, by enshrining the Tripartite Guidelines on Fair Employment Practices in law to ban discrimination on the basis of gender, age, ethnicity and other grounds.

This legislation, first raised by Prime Minister Lee Hsien Loong at last year's National Day Rally, has been met with widespread approval. Yet while the law will surely make for a strong deterrent and signal to society that discrimination is unacceptable, the White Paper also points out that "legislation is not a panacea". If so, what else will it take to bring the working world up to speed?