Opinions on my conversation with DP please, re job quotas

I love you Buffy

BasilF read my posts. you're looking at them with your man bashing glasses on.

I have REPEATEDLY said that it is wrong for ANYONE to get a job purely on their gender.

maybe an exception is as a clothes model, or do you suggest that only women are employed to do that too?

I agree the long hours culture is miserable and I don't want to work those hours EITHER.

and Buffy, yes I'm perfectly happy to come in here and debate with you, even when you suggest illegal practices that are EXACTLY the same as the practices that brought about the problem in the first place, all be it from the other direction.

Ooops, refresh fail. YY Basil.

If by balanced you mean preserving the status quo at all costs

Sorry that was really long and wordy and boring. To put it more succinctly, when men who aren't feminist allies talk about equality, they mean women should be allowed to slot into a man-shaped hole and if they don't fit, then that's not because the hole has been designed to keep them out and ensure men fit through easily, but because they make mystifying choices that mean they don't fit through the whole.

"I HAVE entered into the discussion, its just that I take the absolutely ridiculous stance that folks should get jobs on merit, rather than gender......"

But you steadfastly refuse to address the point made many times now, that people get jobs on gender all the time when they are men.

When men with no knowledge of feminism say they're in favour of equality, what they usually mean is that they're in favour of women being allowed to enter space designed by men for men, from which women have been excluded for centuries and which barely tolerates them currently, but that that space should not be changed or adapted to suit the needs of women, but stay exactly the same in suiting the needs only of men and refusing to acknowledge that women's lives are different from men and true equality is to build the space according to the needs of both halves of the workforce, not just one.

Whereas feminists want public space including the workplace to be designed for men and women. That means ditching the long hours culture, embracing flexible working and encouraging men to stop dumping their caring and domestic responsibilities on women and then calling that equality.

I dunno.

y'see I'M NOT A WOMAN.

for the full history of Industrialisation, women have been under represented. that WAS certainly because of prejudice and unfair recruitment/promotion practice, and a section of the female workforce NOT applying for jobs because (then) there was no point as a bloke would get it.

NOW women apply for the jobs (rightly) and they are getting them. but it will take time for these women to ballance out the previous male dominated policies.

if you want to be taken seriously, campaign for EQUALITY and you have a chance. I for one will support you to my last breath, as I am committed to EQUALITY.

demand that you want special, made just for you, unfairly beneficial treatment on the grounds of gender, race, religion sexual preference etc etc etc will result in you being ridiculed.

as I've repeatedly stated.

Equality is good. discrimination is discrimination be it positive or negative.

Nobody here wants an imbalance we are all aiming for 50/50 ish.

Give Buffy's question a stab

I'm not supporting the imbalance.

I'm merely suggesting that to do the opposite is JUST AS BAD.

but then that's clearly a little too balanced for some folk round here!

martinedwards you asked on your deleted thread how you could have your opinions listened to on this board. ^^ this isn't how.

Many years ago when I worked for ICI I was indeed faced with the conundrum of two equally qualified candidates for a sales and marketing role, both of whom could have done the job well and both of whom I liked.

I chose the female . If I had been asked to justify it further, I would have said (truthfully) that the guy had been successful getting to where he was while enjoying excellent support from his manager (and I knew he would get the next similar job that came up within ICI as it was a company that was quite pro-active in developing its management trainees) where the girl had succeeded despite not because of her management and might not get another opportunity.

This is the only limited circumstance in which I think that positive discrimination should be applied.

I do however feel very strongly that the environment in which people work should be reviewed to ensure that there is no institutionalised discrimination. Things like ensuring easy access to childcare, flexible working - and even more importantly - no negativity about working "different" hours because that is more convenient for families. And not just children - caring responsibilities too for elderly relatives.

I wish more men would take up flexible parental leave: that way potential employers couldn't even subconsciously discount women because a man is could also take some time off when they start a family.

Could I be more eye-rolly?

how did I get there?

because I read the previous posts which say women should be given jobs because they are women over men with the same qualifications, because years ago men were given jobs because they weren't likely to have babies or PMS.

what's an Aunt Sally?

I HAVE entered into the discussion, its just that I take the absolutely ridiculous stance that folks should get jobs on merit, rather than gender......

I've posted several posts in this thread, repeatedly stating that I am not sexist, that I have worked for female bosses (and incidentally male ones too) and that I BELIEVE IN EQUALITY.

as to how I got here, I mistakenly believed the Mumsnet banner that this site was BY PARENTS for PARENTS, where actually it seems to be for militant feminists who cannot engage in a reasonable debate.

how on earth did you get there? Nonsense.

martinedwards why don't you actually engage in the discussion honestly instead of setting up aunt sallys?

It seems to me that you are actually pro prejudice, discrimination etc, because you benefit from it. In your case, you are actually the REAL beneficiary of all this "PRO" stuff, as opposed to the theoretical beneficiary in a terrible world where white men might not hang on to their automatic privilege.

so, let me get this straight.

you are PRO prejudice, PRO sexism, PRO racism, so long as it's all in your favour.

and this is different from your perception of the status quo in WHAT way exactly?

That's exactly it SS.

If you don't have a system to ensure that you don't reproduce what's already there, where there is equality of ability to do the job, the tendency will be to employ someone who will "fit in" with the team, the company, the values etc. - and that means someone I feel comfortable with, instantly at ease with, someone who looks and acts like me.

That means a white able-bodied male in most cases. It's subconscious positive discrimination in their favour and they can congratulate themselves that it's because they're better than all the other candidates and if not, it's just co-incidence that they happened to be chosen out of all the candidates who were capable of doing that job.

Because the sexism-deniers are determined to put all the data down to coincidence.

I don't KNOW how to separate two equal candidates

I suspect in comes down to the intangibles in the end.

Is s/he a good egg. Will s/he mix in well with the team. Is s/he one of us.
In a world where the gender binary divides us all, I guess the person's sex will come into play at a subtle 'likeability' level here. When it's mostly men who run the show, it's their answers to those questions that will be the subtle decider. In most cases it would be totally unconscious process, I imagine, but real enough to make a difference.