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.

Thatsomecatch, to be discriminated against on the first rungs of the carpet layer career ladder you first have to enter the carpet layer career, which very few women do. Often probably because of fears they would not fit in or be welcomed in a very male environment.

I do actually know of a few women who have gone into male professions and worked on trawlers or as builders, but the fact that everybody said how brave they were suggests that people did not expect it to be easy in this environment.

I myself used to work in a manual job and what was very noticeable was that unless you performed on the level of the best male workers, there would be mutterings about women not being up to the work. A man otoh could be absolutely crap at his job without any similar comments about men.

Mary My point is that clearly there are some industries where gender quotas or positive discrimination was introduced 25-30 years ago before it became an identified term or they just promoted appropriately. Why is that other industries have been so slow to follow?

Interestingly, two of these companies are very large indeed - one a multi-national - but possibly in industries you would have expected to be male heavy, certainly historically.

That's a lovely example of Not All Men/Companies, Shatner.

I think Shatner's post was more an example of how those who want to succeed (and are good enough) can and will succeed. Those who aren't will complain on the internet.

Companies like to make money. That's why they exist. If you add more value than your colleagues you will get ahead. Learn how to add value and learn how to demonstrate that you can add value. Or take the skills you have and start your own business. There is nothing stopping you unless you have already made choices which prevent you from putting the work in or you aren't capable of it. In which case its not society's fault that you aren't succeeding.

Quotas always have the unintended consequence of diminishing the credibility and power of people appointed to those positions (who may well deserve that position entirely on merit). They actually provide ammunition to the bigots who are able to say or imply through their behavior "I wonder if you'd be in that position were it not for the quota"

Mary I would also happily add that in every case, the women were bloody brilliant at their jobs, hugely respected and also well liked. The most useless of my managers was the man. Give me a female boss any day.

I never said ALL companies were like this, there is no need to be so sneeringly condescending. I note you didn't attempt to answer why if, in my experience, several big companies haven't had a problem promoting women for the best part of 30 years, what's the issue in other industries?

Somerford, how can you add value to a company if you never get offered any tasks that will enable you to do so? If between you and your equally competent male colleague, those jobs are always given to him and not to you?

Yes, you can start your own business if your specific trade allows it. But there will be plenty of men who don't have to start their own business to be given opportunities.

I quite agree that a few exceptional individuals will probably make it to the top under any circumstances. But after that, a number of mediocre men will get rewarded and very few mediocre women. This is what people are complaining of: that the bar is set differently.

A number of mediocre men will get rewarded and very few mediocre women. This is what people are complaining of: that the bar is set differently.

And quotas do the same. I have seen CVs being put forward for NED roles that would receive snorts of derision if the candidate had been male. You see blatant positive discrimination at the top of the HR function in particular - businesses seeing it as the key area where there is a decent gender balance from the outset, so they see it as the only way of getting a woman on an ExCo. This has led to some woefully inexperienced appointments all in the name of political correctness.

You either have to be led by merit OR by representation. One of these has to come first. I don't think it can be anything other than binary.

I would also happily add that in every case, the women were bloody brilliant at their jobs, hugely respected and also well liked

I'm sure they were. If they hadn't been rewarded for those traits their employer would have lost that talent to a competitor and been forced to replace them, via a costly recruitment process, with an inferior new recruit whilst their competitor reaps the benefits. Of course the competitor is getting a bargain as well because you can pay women 70% of the salary you'd pay a man for the exact same work. The competitor then has a highly capable and relatively cheap team of staff so they can provide a better product at a cheaper rate than everyone else and they go on to dominate the industry. Capitalism is perfectly capable of rewarding employers with good practices and punishing employers with bad practices. If good and bad practices, in the context of this discussion, aren't impacting the respective bottom lines of the companies concerned, something is amiss and our assumptions are wrong. If the respective bottom lines of those companies ARE being affected, they will reap what they sow and the market will correct itself accordingly. Government intervention in that process will hinder rather than help and everyone will have less opportunities as a result.

Somerford And - shock horror - most of them were mothers, too. And only one had a nanny.

Somerford, how can you add value to a company if you never get offered any tasks that will enable you to do so?

We part ways immediately here I'm afraid. You wouldn't have a job if there were no tasks for you to do, if there is enough work for two people then there will be two jobs. A company isn't going to leave one of the employees running white hot and producing work of lower quality as a result whilst the other sits twiddling their thumbs. The idea that you will never get the chance to demonstrate your ability doesn't bear up to the merest of scrunity.

Yes, you can start your own business if your specific trade allows it

Then get a new skill. Adapt. Innovate. That's how companies come into existence, they don't just appear out of the clear blue sky. Somebody else applied their skills, or acquired new ones, and built the company. If they want to keep it they will need talented people within their industry to work for them rather than working for competitors or starting competing businesses of their own. If you meddle in that process you might see a short term solution to whichever imbalance you are looking to correct but longer term you are actively preventing capitalism from doing the one thing that it really must be able to do in order to benefit society. If you don't like capitalism I am more than happy to debate the merits of various economic models (on another thread perhaps so as not to derail this one) but a watered down and corrupted version of capitalism is what we've got right now. We can water it down further by all means but everyone will be worse off as a result.

Were all those jobs in the same industry Shatner ? Which one? Was the situation similar at other companies in the same sector? I've worked in various sectors and seen vast differences between sectors and companies within a sector.

cheminotte The two biggies were financial services - one banking and one insurance (both household names, although one of them has since merged with another). The third was public relations where women outnumbered men by 2/3rds.

I also worked freelance for a while in PR for other financial services companies and I found most of them didn't seem to have a lack of women in managerial or directorial roles.

The charity I work for now is both heritage and arts.

Somerford, I'm getting a tone of "it's your own fault, Women, that you're not paid fairly or promoted fairly.

Your posts are showing extremely clearly how poorly you understand the issue here.

I very much agree with quotas, although I understand the arguments against them and agree that they pose problems too (e.g. in countries that have imposed board quotas on publicly listed companies and have then seen a reduction of publicly listed companies, with more investment via venture capital into private companies which don't have this requirement).

But I think that they offer a valuable incentive/push to actually make a change -- and without that, little seems to happen, and it's all very slow going. Also, if you're going to argue that you're recruiting on merit, if your stats are wildly out of sync, then you are clearly getting it wrong and need to fix it!

And yes, a lot of the problem is in the pipeline rather than in recruitment practices right at the top. And that needs to be fixed pretty urgently too. Quotas at least light a fire.

Your posts are showing extremely clearly how poorly you understand the issue here

I think I understand it perfectly well, if I didn't you'd be able to offer a coherent response to my arguments and you haven't so far. If I'm wrong I'd very much like to understand why so that I don't continue to be wrong on the issue. That's the purpose of a debate and it's especially important to me because I am drawing on my lived experiences, my choices and my achievements to date to tell you that the opportunities ARE there for anyone who is willing to seize them (and has the required skills and character traits). If I have grossly misunderstood my lived experiences and the consequences of my own decisions I'd love to know how and why that came about and how I've managed to attain the life I wanted in spite of this.

And if you think that having prior experience of a NED role is what really makes you supremely capable and all-knowing, you are so far wrong.

Why sneer at a CV that looks different from what you're used to? Why not look at the types of skills, abilities and know-how that you're lacking and see it as an opportunity to fill that ACTUAL gap -- rather than the same 'experienced NED' seat you've already piled ten lookalikes into, on top of each other?

I could very easily offer a coherent response to your arguments, but you're being completely disingenuous and, despite your protestations to the contrary, you're not in any way interested in understanding why you're wrong. So I'm not going to waste my time.

There are issues with quotas, yes. There are bigger issues without them.

So I'm not going to waste my time

You wouldn't be wasting your time though would you? I may not be persuaded but there are many people reading this thread who have read about a dozen lengthy posts of mine on an issue which is clearly important to you. They are open to be pursuaded.

In my industry discrimination lists are necessary. Only 11% are female and it needs addressing.

I recently moved companies and they specifically wanted a woman. Me.

When you recruit into a team you recruit to your weakness. Lack of females is this industry weakness.

Somerford

Maybe I have more faith in the ability and intelligence of the majority of the women reading here than you do.

As unless they are doggedly determined to maintain their belief that sexism in the workplace is absolutely not working against women as a class, if they possess even a hint of critical thinking ability, I'm sure that after reading each of your lengthy posts they will be rolling their eyes in resignation at your ignorance and disregard of the issues being discussed and the weaknesses of your "arguments", including the straw man ones. They won't need my help.

Maybe I have more faith in the ability and intelligence of the majority of the women reading here than you do.

Maybe. Or maybe you're trying to save face during your tactical retreat whilst simultaneously calling me disingenuous.

I recently moved companies and they specifically wanted a woman. Me

That's great jeaux90. Congratulations on getting the job. The employer stipulated their own criteria for applicants and filled the position with the person they needed, benefiting both employer and employee. Wonderful. The job may not have been there if the state had been meddling in their recruitment process prior to the vacancy coming up though. Who knows. What we do know is that businesses and markets react to the political climate. Intervention and intrusion at the behest of authoritarian leftists may mean that there are less vacancies for others in the future, and those people who would have applied for future vacancies may find it harder to innovate and start businesses of their own due to increased regulation which makes recruitment more expensive, more time consuming and more risky dependent on the wording of the legislation.

Leaving the economic argument aside, I'd be interested in hearing a reasonable moral argument for government regulation of recruitment. If you own a small company, you came up with the idea and the business plan. You made sacrifices to fund it and get it started. You put the work in to build it and you rely on it to pay your bills, it belongs to you. If you then create a job opportunity, what right does the state have to tell you that you can't give that job to your friend or to a family member if you want to? Whatever your reasons for giving them the job and whatever qualifications/experience they have. You have to pay their salary and you have to live with the consequences of that decision, bearing in mind that your ability to pay your bills will be directly impacted.

The state has no right to tell you how to decorate your living room or who you can and can't be friends with. That's nobody's business but your own. Similarly, the state has no moral or ethical right to tell you what you can or cannot do with the job which YOU created as a private citizen who owns a private company. You pay your corporation tax, you pay tax on your own salary plus tax on any dividend you are able to pay yourself. You pay employer's national insurance AND personal national insurance contributions on your salary and you contribute to pension schemes. Now you are creating job opportinities which benefits the community and provides yet more tax income for both local and national government. How much more does the government want from you? And how much more are potential small business owners able to take before they conclude that their are too many barriers to entry and decide not to do any of it?

Or maybe you're trying to save face during your tactical retreat whilst simultaneously calling me disingenuous.

You got me!

You think rather a lot of yourself, don't you.

Just calling it as I see it, SonicBoomBoom

I understand that I've approached the discussion with a bit more tenacity than one might ordinarily expect to encounter on this forum but it's an important issue. Let's say for a moment that we agree on the role that sexism and bias plays in the work place and the difficulties that this creates. It's dreadful for us, it makes everything much more difficult and it severely limits our chances of success. Ok fine. I over came that though, apparently against all odds, and having come through the other side you are now telling me that I should deal with more state intervention in the day to day running of my business. There is enough already, believe me, and I have to pay an outside firm a fairly hefty sum to make sure that I comply with existing legislation and that I don't fall foul of it accidentally. I may be in a position to recruit in the near future but I would have to give it serious thought there were more obstacles to navigate which means that my business suffers and somebody who may have had a job opportunity won't have one. Not with me at least. That's how serious the issue is.

Quotas are clearly well intentioned and while I may not have shown it so far in this thread, I do actually empathise with those who would like to see the state looking to ensure equality of outcome. I don't agree but I can understand why some people want that and I know it comes from a good place. Businesses are not all Amazon or Microsoft however. We're not all multinational behemoths sitting on endless supplies of capital, in fact the overwhelming majority of businesses are Small and Medium Enterprises and it's far more difficult for us to remain viable when faced with legislation which is really aimed at big corporations but catches us in the cross fire as it were. A small or medium business might not be able to comply for whatever reason and when those instances come up, there is no discussion to be had about who got the job. Nobody gets the job.