The Email That Should Make Legal Teams Pause

Somewhere in India right now, a corporate procurement team is drafting an email that reads something like this: “We are looking for a female self-defense instructor for our upcoming women’s safety workshop. Please confirm if you have a female trainer available.”

It sounds professional. It sounds considerate. And most people would read that email without a second thought.

But here is what that email actually does. It sets a gender-based criterion for a professional engagement. It tells a qualified service provider that their expertise, experience, credentials, and methodology are secondary to their biological sex. And it creates a documented record of a procurement decision based on gender.

For companies that pride themselves on fair procurement practices, transparent vendor selection, and compliance with anti-discrimination laws, this is a conversation worth having.

How Vendor Procurement and Anti-Discrimination Laws Intersect

Most large corporates have detailed procurement policies. These policies typically include provisions about fair evaluation, merit-based selection, transparency, and non-discrimination. Many of these policies explicitly state that vendors and service providers shall be selected based on competence, quality, cost-effectiveness, and track record, not on the personal characteristics of the individuals providing the service.

Now consider what happens when a company specifies that only a female instructor is acceptable for a self-defense workshop:

• A qualified male professional is excluded from consideration before his credentials are even reviewed.
• The selection criterion is not competence or methodology but gender.
• The procurement process now contains a gender-based filter that would likely violate the company’s own vendor selection guidelines.

Relevant Legal Provisions in India

• Article 14 of the Constitution guarantees equality before law. This principle extends to how entities, including private companies, engage with professionals and service providers.
• Article 15(1) prohibits discrimination on the ground of sex. Indian courts have progressively extended this principle beyond state action to include private sector practices.
• Article 16(1) and 16(2) guarantee equal opportunity and prohibit gender-based discrimination in matters of employment and engagement.
• The Equal Remuneration Act, 1976 (Section 5) prohibits discrimination in recruitment for the same work or work of a similar nature.
• The Code on Wages, 2019 (Section 3) reinforces the prohibition of gender discrimination, and while it specifically addresses wages, its philosophy of gender-neutral treatment extends to conditions of professional engagement.
• The Companies Act, 2013 and SEBI corporate governance guidelines require companies to uphold principles of fairness, transparency, and non-discrimination. Procurement practices that include gender-based filters could be inconsistent with these standards.

International Legal Standards

• ILO Convention No. 111, ratified by India, prohibits discrimination in employment and occupation based on sex.
• CEDAW, also ratified by India, specifically aims to eliminate gender stereotyping, which includes the assumption that certain professional services can only be delivered by a person of a particular gender.
• Title VII of the U.S. Civil Rights Act, 1964 prohibits sex-based discrimination in employment, with only extremely narrow BFOQ exceptions that do not apply to teaching or instruction.

The Paper Trail Problem

Here is something practical that legal and compliance teams should consider. When a company sends an email, issues a request for proposal, or communicates a vendor requirement that specifies gender, it creates a paper trail. That paper trail documents a gender-based procurement criterion.

In an era where companies are increasingly scrutinised for their diversity and inclusion practices, where ESG (Environmental, Social, and Governance) reporting is becoming standard, and where stakeholders expect consistency between stated values and actual behaviour, this kind of documented gender-based filtering can become a liability.

It does not matter that the intention was good. What matters, from a legal and governance perspective, is that a professional was excluded from a job opportunity based on gender. That is exactly the kind of practice that anti-discrimination frameworks, both domestic and international, were designed to prevent.

“Every email that says ‘we need a female instructor’ is a document that says ‘we exclude male professionals from this opportunity.’ Good intentions do not change what the words actually mean. And in a compliance audit, it is the words that matter.”

– Specialist Franklin Joseph

The Double Standard in Plain Sight

Let us try a simple thought experiment. Imagine a corporate sent out a procurement requirement that said: “We are looking for a male trainer for our leadership development workshop. Please confirm if you have a male facilitator.” Every HR team in the country would flag it. Every DEI committee would object. Every legal advisor would caution against it.

Now ask yourself: why is the reaction different when the specified gender is female? The legal principle is exactly the same. Discrimination based on gender does not become acceptable depending on which gender is being specified. That is not how equality works. Equality is, by definition, consistent.

If your company would not accept a “males only” requirement for any other professional service, it should not accept a “females only” requirement for self-defense instruction. The standard must be the same, or it is not a standard at all.

“Flip the gender in the requirement and see if it still feels acceptable. If it does not, then the original requirement was never acceptable either. Equality does not have a preferred direction. It applies to everyone, or it applies to no one.”

– Specialist Franklin Joseph

What Smart Procurement Looks Like

Companies that want to make genuinely good decisions about self-defense training should build their procurement criteria around what actually determines training quality:

• Expertise in crime psychology: Does the instructor understand how criminals think, operate, select targets, and exploit vulnerabilities?
• Comprehensive methodology: Does the training cover pre-crime awareness, during-crime response strategies, and post-crime recovery guidance?
• Psychological depth: Does the program address freeze responses, social conditioning, ingrained fear patterns, and the mental barriers that prevent effective self-defense?
• Real-world applicability: Is the training based on actual crime scenarios, or is it essentially a martial arts demonstration repackaged as self-defense?
• Track record: Can the instructor provide verifiable client testimonials, case studies, and evidence of behavioural change in participants?
• Professionalism: Does the instructor create a respectful, supportive, and psychologically safe learning environment for all participants?

These criteria are gender-neutral, legally sound, and directly focused on what actually matters: the safety and empowerment of your women employees. Apply these filters, and you will find the best instructor for the job, regardless of gender.

An Invitation, Not an Accusation

I want to be very clear about the spirit of this article. I am not accusing any company of intentional discrimination. I know that the request for a female instructor comes from a genuine desire to take care of women employees. That intention is admirable, and I have deep respect for companies that invest in the safety of their people.

But good intentions deserve to be supported by good processes. And a good process does not include gender-based exclusions that contradict your own procurement policies, your own DEI commitments, and the legal frameworks your company operates under.

The next time your team is drafting a requirement for a self-defense workshop, I would simply encourage you to ask: “Are we selecting based on competence, or based on gender?” If the answer is the latter, it might be worth pausing and reconsidering.

“The best procurement decisions are the ones that can withstand scrutiny from every angle, legal, ethical, and practical. If your vendor selection criterion is gender, it will not withstand scrutiny from any of those angles. Choose expertise. Choose methodology. Choose results. Those are criteria that stand up.”

– Specialist Franklin Joseph