To ask your opinion on gender quotas

[eatabagofdicks]

After speaking with men who believe that many men are being pushed out of positions they deserve because of gender quotas. What are your opinions? Interested in women's point of view after being in a room full of men all night.

Positive discrimination is a load of shite.

I want a job because I've worked hard and earned for it, not because someone has decided they have to put a woman in it to meet a quota. It's patronising.

earned it*

Boo hoo. I can't imagine any men have ever got a job over a suitably qualified female due to possessing a penis eh.

The research is becoming increasingly clear that theeaffect of single-sex short lists and other forms of positive discrimination is that it pushes up the overall quality, because mediocre men who don't do a very good job are squeezed out in favour of more competent, experienced and talented women who otherwise wouldn't get the job due to unconscious (or sometimes conscious) bias.

It's stupid to be against it because you should earn your position. The whole point of such lists is that the current system rewards people who are not fairly earning their position.

To put it bluntly. Whoever deserves it, gets it. I'm not a supporter of pos discrimination. I don't think it's required in this day and age.

Totally agree with it. Working hard alone isn't enough unfortunately.
When there are as many mediocre women at the top as mediocre men there will be equality.
Norway has quotas and also great subsided childcare, shared parental leave (that men actually use) and family friendly. I don't think that's a coincidence. If companies had to promote more women they'd want the best and try harder to be attractive employers.

On one hand, I don't think it's fair.

But given that many, many under qualified men have been given jobs ahead of more able and better qualified women, by virtue of having a penis, I can't get too worked up about it.

When there are as many mediocre women in top jobs as there are mediocre men; we'll have equality.

Currently boardrooms are predominantly full of white men. Now there's no boardroom advantage to being white or male, so we can probably infer from this that we don't have the optimal set up as we would expect the ratios to be roughly in line with either national proportions or perhaps within the line of work. The men who deserve to be there should still get there.

Unless you believe that women are worse than men at all most of the prestigious and/or highly paid positions that exist, and I don't, there's already a quota system. One that favours men. To the detriment of all.

Compare countries with more equal parliamentary systems with ones without. I'll wait. The ones at the bottom tend to have pretty awful human rights records, lots of violence towards women (looking at you Papua New Guinea), or are suffering major issues (Haiti).

If we don't have quotas, the people at the top, white men, select the people to join them, white men. Because naturally they think that someone like them is perfect for the role they do.

If not quotas, then what?

They sound like the people who failed their driving test because the driving instructors had already passed their maximum quota that day.

Apparently if you want to pass you need to take your test first thing in the morning.

tell them to get a grip. once boardrooms are 51% female they can come and have a moan. it seeing as it's way, way lower than that they'll be retired before it's a problem for them.

My favourite quote from the American election was (and I'm poorly paraphrasing), "if you ever needed proof of sexism, the most qualified women to ever stand was beaten by the least qualified man ever to stand".

If it was a level playing field I would agree with him. However, it isn't. Positive discrimination isn't about giving women an advantage, its about overcome a disadvantage.

Its the same with the publication of pay gap data. Research has shown that women are looked on less favourably for asking for a pay rise than men. So again, it is not a level playing field.

I did get phone by a recruiter the other day looking to fill some roles at a bank where they are apparently actively hiring women right now to "address the imbalance and the corporate culture it has created" could all be recruiter bs but fine by me if it's true. many corporate workplace es are toxic and of hiring more women helps that, good. They'd have to actively do it for about 10 years before it made any dent in the field I'm in (in this country)

My favourite quote from the American election was (and I'm poorly paraphrasing), "if you ever needed proof of sexism, the most qualified women to ever stand was beaten by the least qualified man ever to stand".

Hillary Clinton was an utterly abysmal candidate and watching her and Donald fucking Trump battle it out was depressing. Depressing and terrifying in equal measure. Say what you like about Trump but lets not pretend that some tragic miscarriage of justice happened here, neither of them should be anywhere near the White House.

Women only shortlists in the Labour Party has let to some fairly dismal Labour women MPs IMO

If it was a level playing field I would agree with him. However, it isn't. Positive discrimination isn't about giving women an advantage, its about overcome a disadvantage.

Agree with this^

However as men can identify as women, the question is kind of moot.

I'm not going to get into Clinton's fitness as a candidate. I'm not talking about politics. I'm talking about the fact that she was experienced. She could find North Korea on a map, knows how the judicial process works, has a basic understanding of the political system in the US, all of which Trump lacked.

You might not want this particular plumber to work on your drains but you shouldn't hire a dentist.

Senior board positions aren't normally application based in most industries. You are invited to apply or get put on shortlists, headhunted, or recruited via a talent pool. There is no possible way that sexism and racism isn't happening at that level - in many banks for example the positions the board recruit internally for have a majority of female managers.

Would you support male only quotas in female dominated industries?

There was outrage when there was male only scholarships to encourage more men into primary school with calls of sexism yet the female only grants for stem subjects is perfectly acceptable

So by that logic there should be more female or even majority female boards - but there aren't, which suggests men are being preferred.

Men who complain about this always remind me of quite a few white South Africans I met after apartheid ended. "Its not fair , we want our automatic privilege back." They were never the sorts that thought any black person could do anything better than they could anyway- except maybe clean house.

@worridmum - Men don't need male only scholarships because they have male privelege. Similarly white people by virtue of their race cannot technically experience racism anywhere in the world as they come from a place of privilege.

Nuttynoo My favourite study is one which showed that genderless job applications led to a much higher level of men hired as opposed to women.

Quotas make me sad. I would never want to be hired based on my race, sex or whatever other 'class' can describe me. Women who do want it are weak and seem to me to be admitting that they can't compete on a level playing field.

There are two possible conclusions from men holding the majority of FTSE 500 board positions. Either the world is stacked against women or they aren't as good in these roles. What data do you have to suggest the former?

There has also been outrage at men being encouraged onto veterinary courses worridmum.

Would you support male only quotas in female dominated industries?

I've noticed three things in female-dominated workplaces. First, there is almost always a disproportionate number of men in management and more highly paid positions compared to the shitwork roles. Second, wages go up when men start to work in the industry. Three, it isn't money putting women off roles in the better paid jobs, it's discrimination and sexism. If money is putting men off, that's not the same. The positions should ALL be better paid and naturally men would do more of them.

So I would support a proportionate number of men in the shitwork roles because that would likely push wages up. Women should still be promoted. Let's see how many men want to do poorly paid care work with little hope of promotion...