The purpose of the researching diversity stream at the 32nd Association of Industrial Relations Academics of Australia and New Zealand (AIRAANZ) Conference, hosted by the Law School at the University of Adelaide, was to explore together the issues related to gender and other differences in contemporary workplaces. The papers selected each fit with the overall conference theme ‘Jobs and changes in uncertain times’. They explain the difficulties experienced by different groups due to their identity (Werth and Brownlow 2018, 2). Uncertain times for different groups may be created by changes in technology, the broadly disadvantaging attitudes of society or, more specifically, by the disadvantaging attitudes of others in workplaces. We can look at these issues from a forward-looking perspective or from an historical perspective. In particular, the aim was to gain a more nuanced understanding of the issues as experienced by individuals, who may or may not exhibit difference. Visible and invisible identities can provoke particular reactions from colleagues when they are disclosed. Individuals who exhibit difference, for example, in their health status, migrant or racial background, gender, age or sexuality, risk being stigmatized or stereotyped in the labour market. Goffman shows that individuals with stigmatizing attributes are ‘very careful to show that in spite of appearances they are very sane, very generous, very sober, very masculine [or feminine]… in short they are… nice persons like ourselves in spite of the reputation of their kind’ (1986, 110).