Women’s rights have gone ‘too far’, say majority of Gen Z and millennials, study shows

There is new management so although the targets are there, they are no longer strictly enforced.

I am all for outreach and encouraging applicants, but I disagree with quotas and targets.

In our surgery our female GPs with young children all work part time. In our primary school teachers with young children work part time. I worked 25 hours a week 9-3 . But I gave good value made lots of money for employers.

Employers demanding full time are missing a trick imo

Yes, your company also set a stupid target as well as insisting you take illegal steps to hire people. This is all completely the wrong approach to addressing issues of imbalance.

Has your company improved at all in its business practices, or do they still give you unrealistic targets and instruct you to take illegal actions?

The problem with that is that unless you get 50/50 at university level, then setting such a target is just unfair. There is not an equal pool of qualified male/female economists as many more men have economic degrees.

In the example I cited, we took a chance on the less well-performing female candidate and several years later she is still struggling in the job. And I say that as a female economist.

I do not want to reject good performers from my team simply because of their sex. I really do not see how this - however well intentioned - results in a good outcome.

This is very different from outreach activities which encourage applicants from as wide backgrounds as possible but active sex discrimination is not good.

Hiring a weaker-performing candidate because of their protected characteristics is illegal in the UK. You can use a protected characteristic as a tie-breaker between equally-performing candidates where that group is under represented.

If your company wanted to increase the number of women it hires, a less illegal approach would be to look at ways to increase the number of women applicants by identifying any barriers that prevent suitably qualified candidates from applying. In the longer term, the company could also look to address the imbalance in women taking the necessary qualifications by doing outreach work or by sponsoring organisations that do so already etc etc.

Being told by your HR to take illegal actions is a crass knee jerk response to being told to address the gender imbalance.

As only 10-20% of applicants were women, we engaged in active sex discrimination, rejecting higher performing male candidates in favour of weaker women to meet the target.

You see, I'm actually okay with this to a large extent. Although I'd like to see this sort of approach done throughout an organisation because then, fairly quickly, you'll see an equal number of equally qualified candidates applying for the higher jobs.

Many women are perfectly capable, they just haven't had the same opportunities. So identifying women with the potential is half the battle.

I'd also say that considering for thousands of years men who were LESS qualified were getting the jobs because they were men, it seems a bit ridiculous to now complain that very occasionally, a less qualified woman gets a job because she's a woman.

When last did you hear a man's comments referred to as "hysteria".

Honestly, all the "cool women" rhetoric from women who either don't care or don't see the ways in which women have consistently been (and continue to be) discriminated against is exhausting.

The job sector was economics. We needed people with at least 5 years work experience for the role. Historically, it has had one of the worst male/female ratios at university.

In that recruitment round, the male candidate was better because they could explain economics better, did better in the written tests and had more relevant experience. The female candidate needed more prompting in interview, performed weaker in the written tests and had less relevant experience. Because of our gender targets we took a chance and hired her. She has since struggled in the job.

’Women only’ 🥱

If you'd bothered to read my post, instead of resorting to cheap women-only insults "hysteria", you'd have seen that's exactly what I said. Your post appeared to suggest that women working was the problem. Perhaps I misunderstood that. I pointed out that the problems that come with women working are part of a much bigger problem regarding cost of living, work expectations etc.

@justasking111
some ideas that governments could work on to help us toward an equality that is more levelled on differences between men and women:

• complete overhaul of CMS so no mothers are left unsupported
• better childcare funding and provision so to work is easier for mothers
• much much better compulsory maternity leave and payment so you do not lose out financially when you have a baby. Almost everyone does. Why does society put no value on having a baby??? There is value to everyone in carrying on our society into the future and particularly where the birth rate is so dire.
• some type of better value placed on child rearing - a benefit or better tax credits or some type of good and worthwhile recompense so that mothers (and all parents) have an actual choice between working or raising their children that doesn’t remove their ability to put food on the table. I suspect this would boost the birth rate substantially actually.
• Better education for women around the legal implications of getting married. What protection this can offer (or not) and what it means if there are children involved.

• better parental leave for fathers both around birth and during childhood
• more flexible working rights for parents that are actually used and enforceable; particularly for fathers at work to encourage ‘stepping up’ into family life.
• tax credits or similar for fathers who use flexible working to encourage take up.
• better prenatal support for fathers so they are more involved from the start; I think something like preparatory classes for dads would be a great advantage and encourage participation from early on.

I hope one day there will be some good change. I feel we’ve been sold a big fat lie about having it all and it’s bollocks. Just means we work work work work. Even with a nice loving supportive DH. Xx

Lumber jacking perhaps

Context?

As only 10-20% of applicants were women, we engaged in active sex discrimination, rejecting higher performing male candidates in favour of weaker women to meet the target
Can I ask why that 10-20% of women were weaker than their male counterparts? And in what ways were the males higher performing?

Re the 'having it all'/run ragged issue, I mostly goodness corpore greed and capitalism. 50 years ago, my family would have had à similar standard of living with either one of us (both professionals in decent jobs) working. Now, we both need to work. Everything is priced on having a dual income.

We aren't getting the benefits of being able to share work. In an ideal world, both parents could work 2-3 days a week, and share the childcare, and not be exhausted. OR, double the family income to have more luxuries, but at a cost to free time. Now, it's having to work more for proportionally less.

I have a husband who truly mucks in (at least) equally, we both work (albeit me PT) and have 2 small kids. We are both exhausted. I'm glad that I am able to work, etc, but I'm annoyed that between us we do not hours of work/chores/childcare now, than we should have in the past. For men that don't pull their weight, it must be even more disheartening.

@sjxoxo I totally agree. In my workplace, there is a lot of talk about female empowerment but not enough about how to actually allow women to manage having a career with motherhood. A solution with both parents working full-time with young kids is exhausting for the parents and not good for the children. Sharing the burden equally also means that both parents are run ragged and neither probably do very well in their careers. I would find it much better if we focused on how there could be career breaks and returners for parents, so that it would be possible to spend the years when the kids are young focusing on them, and then being able to work on career again when they are older.

Where some things can get my back up is that I have been in workplaces which have targets for % of women in particular areas - often 50% regardless of whether the applicant pool is 50% or not. In one workplace I was told that we had to get to 40-50% women, and that no excuses would be tolerated. As only 10-20% of applicants were women, we engaged in active sex discrimination, rejecting higher performing male candidates in favour of weaker women to meet the target.

What a complete load of bullshit.

a lot of this debate always talks about ‘men stepping up’… I don’t personally think that will really happen as it’s too conceptual and doesn’t really mean anything.

I agree! ‘Men stepping up’ and ‘men holding other men to account’ is kind of the ‘Brexit means Brexit’ of the feminism argument here. What does that mean? Who should be holding them to account, individuals? If so, does your son/husband regularly take other men to task? If not, why not? Are they bad?

This idea that as women we should just passively sit back and let men control our lives and each other because ‘it shouldn’t be our responsibility’ is laughable - it’s shouting into the void and once again playing into men’s hands. If we want something, we should make it happen, not ‘wait for men to have an epiphany’ because how likely is that 🙄

Frankly I think it’s a school of thought for the slogan-loving, not-very-bright types.

So many ‘great ideas’ that we thought would help women have utterly backfired, and we’re too ideological to see it 🤷🏼‍♀️

SAHM once both of mine were at school was so boring. I did some retraining at college computer wise and did a degree course in marketing. Then went looking for work. My terms were 9-3 Monday to Friday. I did get a job which I loved, some evenings expected for events. School holidays had a nanny some of the time, friend daughter. That swallowed up my salary. I coped well. If I'd had to work full time I wouldn't have. OH was in seasonal business so summers manic, but off season he did school runs, washing, cooking etc.

OK. I don't disagree at all that equality in the home is much harder to achieve, and that this can impact on progress outside the home. I'm not sure I understand what you're proposing as a solution, though. What does "seeking equality based on our differences" actually mean in practice?

Completely agree with this. May I also add that my young son is now getting the message that masculinity is “bad”. I’m so fed up with this blue/pink/green haired mob shouting about their perceived grievances. Women and men are NOT the same and there will be differences.

No not atall- my personal experience is that equality at work is far easier to obtain than equality in the home sphere and wider society because in the world of work we have a lot of regulation and legislation already existing. The reason many women struggle at work for equality is not down to their performance at work or their qualifications but actually the burden of the lifestyle that comes from being a working mother- what I am saying is that we need equality in wider society and that includes at home which is where all inequality begins and where it’s much much much harder to tackle. I know that life ‘stuck’ at home wasn’t idyllic and I’m not saying that at all- quite the opposite. I’m saying that equality in general life is more important as a priority because it’s not regulated like the workplace and is harder to reach for want of a better term. X

so what are you saying? That women choosing to work is the problem?

I didn’t even bother reading your post much after this because when a response starts with such reductionist hysteria you know the poster is basically impossible to have any kind of nuanced debate with.

Women, in many cases (not ALL just for the hard of analytical thinking skills) are not CHOOSING to work. They have to.

Agreed. Great post.

Well firstly working class women have always worked, and secondly I agree that women should have the option to do real, interesting, difference- making jobs (like men get to) because we don't all WANT to stay home. I recognised by age 18 that the world was set up unfairly and that if men won't pull their weight domestically then women get the burden of the double shift. The problem is that we still don't have real choices in the same way men do. My friend is a real high flyer, had kids late, and really struggled afterwards, whereas the men in her office all had kids and...didn't. Because they had wives.
I guess the 30 something's saying feminism has gone too far are simply knackered mums of young children who have given up on the idea of having it all, and I get that because at that stage of life your focus is more on nurturing maybe.
Also, I do notice that in my work there is an army of 20 something women with fast progressing careers and I imagine they feel unstoppable, so the reality of being 52 or whatever in their career won't have kicked in yet ( all the top brass are men .)
I'm Gen X and my husband is fully behind me doing really well at work so he can work less and stay home doing the hoovering! 😂