When was the Equal Opportunities Commission established in the UK?

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In 1812 a young man called James Barry finished his studies in medicine at Edinburgh University. After graduating he moved to London where he studied surgery at Guy’s Hospital. After that the popular young doctor joined the army and over the next forty years had a brilliant career as an army medical officer, working in many far-off countries and fighting successfully for improved conditions in hospitals. It was a remarkable career - made even more remarkable by the discovery upon his death that he was in fact a she, James Barry was a woman.

No one was more surprised at this discovery than her many friends and colleagues. It was true that throughout her life people had remarked upon her small size, slight build and smooth pale face. One officer had even objected to her appointment as a medical assistant because he could not believe that Barry was old enough to have graduated in medicine. But no one had ever seriously suggested that Barry was anything other than a man.

By all accounts Barry was a pleasant and good-humoured person with high cheekbones, reddish hair, a long nose and large eyes. She was well-liked by her patients and had a reputation for great speed in surgery – an important quality at a time when operations were performed without anaesthetic. She was also quick tempered. When she was working in army hospitals and prisons overseas, the terrible conditions often made her very angry. She fought hard against injustice and cruelty and her temper sometimes got her into trouble with the authority. After a long career overseas, she returned to London where she died in 1865. While the undertaker’s assistant was preparing her body for burial, she discovered that James Barry was a woman.

So why did James Barry deceive people for so long? At that time a woman could not study medicine, work as a doctor or join the army. Perhaps Barry had always wanted to do these things and pretending to be a man was the only way to make it possible. Perhaps she was going to tell the truth one day, but didn’t because she was enjoying her life as a man too much. Whatever the reason, Barry's deception was successful. By the time it was discovered that she had been the first woman in Britain to qualify as a doctor, it was too late for the authorities to do anything about it.

What is the main idea of the passage?

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The issue of equality for women in British society first attracted national attention in the early 20th century, when the suffragettes won for women the right to vote. In the 1960s, feminism - the belief that women and men are equal in abilities and should have equal rights and opportunities - became the subject of intense debate when the women's lib movement encouraged women to reject their traditional supporting role and to demand equal status and equal rights with men in areas such as employment and pay.

Since then, the gender gap between the sexes has been reduced. The Equal Pay Act of 1970, for instance, made it illegal for women to be paid less than men for doing the same work, and in 1975 the Sex Discrimination Act aimed to prevent either sex having an unfair advantage when applying for jobs. In the same year the Equal Opportunities Commission was set up to help people claim their rights to equal treatment and to publish research and statistics to show where improvements in opportunities for women need to be made. Women now have much better employment opportunities than formerly, though they still tend to get less well-paid jobs than men, and very few are appointed to top jobs in industry.

Many people believe that there is still a long way to go before women are treated as equals in employment. In education, however, girl's and women's opportunities have improved rapidly and in public employment there are policies to increase the proportion of women employed, which is still very low at senior levels.

According to the passage, what happened when British women won the right to vote for the first time?

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Promoting decent work and income for women and men in conditions of freedom, equity, security and human dignity, is one of the key priorities of the ILO's Decent Work Agenda. Integrating gender concerns into employment promotion and creation contributes to more effective boosting of productivity and economic growth; human resources development; sustainable development; and reduce poverty. Worldwide progress has been made over the last few decades in increasing women's labour force participation and narrowing gender income gaps, but more efforts are needed to make gender equality in the world of work a reality.

In Vietnam, just like in the developing world in general, women continue to form a large majority of the working poor, earn less income, and are more often affected by under and unemployment and precarious working conditions than men. Women in Vietnam are principally found in lower paid occupational sectors or in vulnerable employment. The majority of women work as unpaid family workers, and in largely "invisible" areas of informal employment as migrant domestic workers, homeworkers, street vendors and in the entertainment industry.

Women's position in the labour market is largely affected by socio-economic disadvantages caused by gender-based discrimination. Vietnamese women often have less access to productive resources, education, and skills development and labour market opportunities than men. In great part, this is because society assigns both a lower status and most of the unpaid care work to Vietnamese women, and expects them to engage in productive work in subsistence agriculture and the market economy.

The ILO and Vietnamese constituents have long cooperated on promoting gender equality among male and female workers in the country. Current joint efforts are geared at increasing women's opportunities to enterprise development; preventing labour exploitation of (migrant) children and women; and strengthening the equality dimension in labour legislation such as prohibiting direct and indirect discrimination, and promoting equal pay for work of equal value, action against sexual harassment and equalizing the retirement ages for women and men.

It can be inferred from the passage that ILO stands for ____.