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Feminism: Sex and gender discussions

Feminist Pub 16: where the Bluestockings develop armoured stockings to deal with the thousand paper cuts

992 replies

FibonacciSeries · 14/01/2015 12:39

Carry on.

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UptoapointLordCopper · 27/01/2015 17:24

These days I'll settle for people saying the right thing ...

LonnyVonnyWilsonFrickett · 27/01/2015 17:07

YY Pet and Fib one of their inclusion team said to me 'firms have been kidding themselves for years that they are true meritocracies, when they have skewed the conditions so that white men always win. That's not a meritocracy. If we want the best people in place we need to go out and recruit them now, and make sure they have the opportunity to do well here.'

I paraphrase of course (and yep, he's the inclusion guy so he would say that) but it was immensely cheering.

AnnieLobeseder · 27/01/2015 15:51

Pardon me just popping in to whine..... There's a company at which I had previous applied for a job before Christmas, and got to interview and was told afterwards that my interview was excellent, and even though I didn't get the job (more experienced person got it - story of my life!) I have just the skill-set they need and please keep applying cos they really do want me to work there.

So I recently applied for another job, same department, slightly more junior than previous job, and have not even got an interview this time... blah blah blah high volume of applications blah blah blah very high standard blah blah blah!

I am finding myself surprisingly upset about it.

FibonacciSeries · 27/01/2015 15:14

Petula, no good news yet but looking promising!

At least in investment banking, given the horrible bias against women, I'm not sure the diversity push is about the economic benefit. I bet they don't even believe the research Sad. But whatever the reason for it is, I welcome it. After 15 years of being discriminated against, I will take some positive discrimination, thankyouverymuch.

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UptoapointLordCopper · 27/01/2015 15:09

There is only one reason for boasting, and that's to get more money. Wink

BuffytheReasonableFeminist · 27/01/2015 14:57

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UptoapointLordCopper · 27/01/2015 14:55

Buffy writes, Puffin signs. What's not to like?

Grin
UptoapointLordCopper · 27/01/2015 14:55

I have just written 4 pages boasting about my achievements. I'm exhausted. Grin Do I want to swim or should I bunk off?

BuffytheReasonableFeminist · 27/01/2015 14:51

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kickassangel · 27/01/2015 14:46

buffy - go on, complain. Then you can make a complaint about how the complaint wasn't upheld properly. Or if it is, you can re-complain about the sexist comment claiming that the difference in response is evidence that the company is more sexist than disablist. I'm sure that there will be further complaints to make after that.

OK - I have written 'complain' too much now and it has become weird. Smile

(Can you tell that I'm sitting in on an exam and bored?)

PetulaGordino · 27/01/2015 13:51

how can they get away with it puffins? it's just shocking

PenguinsandtheTantrumofDoom · 27/01/2015 13:24

Bah Puffins. How frustrating

BuffytheReasonableFeminist · 27/01/2015 13:24

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BuffytheReasonableFeminist · 27/01/2015 13:24

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PenguinsandtheTantrumofDoom · 27/01/2015 13:24

Buffy- I would have found it refreshing. I hate all that 'you, no you first, no you first' bullshit but feel I have to play along.

PetulaGordino · 27/01/2015 13:10

ugh sounds soul-destroying puffins Sad

buffy i would find the straight-forwardness refreshing. the problem with social niceties is that you can end up with both people being inconvenienced through trying not to inconvenience the other Wink

PetulaGordino · 27/01/2015 13:08

re shareholders, i tell you what would be interesting (and bear in mind that i have next to no real knowledge about the finance sector so this may already exist, or there may be very good reasons why it doesn't), would be if like you have "ethical" investments/pension schemes etc, you could have an "equalities" investment/pension scheme, where investments are only made into companies that have demonstrated diversity of the workforce and/or are transparent about their payscales etc

as you say ebear a huge amount of decision-making in some sectors and companies will come down to pleasing shareholders

i have no idea how workable this is, and presumably it would need a sort of critical mass of shareholders or for one massive investment group to take on that policy, so it's probably not realistic at all

PuffinsAreFictitious · 27/01/2015 13:08

Sorry, whining.

And I meant I'm not even going to bother.....

PuffinsAreFictitious · 27/01/2015 13:06

Don't worry about it Buffy. Being the odd parent is fine, comfortable in fact. I revelled in it.

Today I am mostly stuck in a training module I've already done before trying to think of ways not to bite the trainer who has been especially chosen for his monotone speaking voice and lack of anything approaching a sense of humour. Diversity is also low down the priorities, given that he's just spent 20 minutes telling us that it's easier to not hire people with LDs by implying that they will be unable to do the job or will masturbate on the shop floor. I'm. It even going to complain, the last sexist prick I complained about (be careful of takin on women of breeding age, they'll just get pregnant and be off sick all the time) I was told he was just joking and I needed to lighten up.

I can't wait to be able to shake the dust from my sandals.

EBearhug · 27/01/2015 12:59

I think there's a mix of things - as I may have mentioned a mere 3456321 times (although that includes in other places online and at work and in person,) I was at a BBC Women in Tech event on Friday - they have about 150 vacancies to fill by next year, and they said they're struggling to fill them - the skills they want just aren't out there in enough numbers. They are particularly targetting women, because it's harder to get women to apply - all the stuff about women only applying if they match 80% of the spec and so on. They've also seen that different job titles on the same job spec make a difference to the number of women which apply.

I think also there is a bit of an increase in tech vacancies anyway, plus we do have a general issue with the skills requirements in tech - a lot of roles do need specific skills, which means that someone somewhere needs to offer training, but recruiting companies usually hope it's someone else doing it, unless it's a graduate scheme or similar.

But as well as all that, diversity is very much flavour of the month, and unconscious bias in particular, from what I see. The risk of future C-suite quotas is probably only a small factor; I think with my employers, it's responding to reports that more diverse workforces is generally positively reflected in profits - and in the end, shareholder value is what they care about. I'm under no illusion that if some research proved white male-dominated companies perform better, all the inclusive policies would be out the window.

(Have to say in my tech role, enquiries from recruitment agents are fairly steady, but development roles tend to be more prone to the economic climate - you have to keep existing hardware running, but you can hold off development of software updates for a while.)

BuffytheReasonableFeminist · 27/01/2015 12:49

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PetulaGordino · 27/01/2015 10:46

V interesting fib, and good news I hope?

I have talked about this before, but a Swedish oncologist I spoke to a few years ago said that when quotas came in for them it meant they made sure their pipeline was filled with talented women precisely because they didn't want the quality to drop - the mentorship and development that had been predominantly and routinely doled out to men became more consciously available to women because of it. And they didn't find a shortage of talented women either, they just hadn't been looking before. A different industry obviously so a higher proportion of women working in it to start with

FibonacciSeries · 27/01/2015 10:21

Lonny, I don't know what's going on but recently diversity seems to be the name of the game out there. The last time I was chased so much as a woman in tech was in 2006 when the banks just couldn't hire people quickly enough. This time round, I don't think it's that they have that many jobs. Seems to me that they are worried a quota for the C suites might be put in place for, say, 2020, and they want to start populating the pipeline.

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talkingofmichaelangelo · 27/01/2015 09:42

Dragonlette, that is a pity! And piles on the pressure too - you must feel a little under scrutiny even as you plough through them all.

UptoapointLordCopper · 27/01/2015 09:32

One of my friends have just started teaching. The workload seems overwhelming and unreasonable. Sad Angry