Equality and equal opportunities - Aibu?

[Tedp]

Perhaps a contentious issue, but for a change it doesn't feature Brexit or Boris. 🙈😂

Overnight I received an email from an organisation I'm a member of, advertising the next meeting and including both the proposed agenda and also details of elected office roles within the group which are currently vacant, inviting nominations.

What surprised me was that the vacancies are only open to those who identify as women. I must stress, I personally have no interest in being nominated for or elected to any of these offices, however I do strongly believe in equality and equal opportunities for all.

To my mind, a person's suitability for a role should be based on their competence, not on their gender. Surely we want the best person for the job, regardless of their gender, their religious beliefs, the colour of their skin or any other characteristic.

Can you imagine the uproar if an employer advertised job vacancies with the byline 'Women need not apply', or 'No people of colour'? This clearly wouldn't be acceptable, as all people have the same right to be considered for the same opportunities, and selection would of course be based on their experience, qualifications and performance at interview or assessment. So why should this not be true where other genders are excluded?

Positive discrimination can be just as dangerous as negative, and sets an unacceptable precedent that all people are not equal.

I will of course raise this at the meeting, and look forward to some robust debate on the matter. Just wanted to get it off my chest.

Don't worry, normal Brexit service and Boris Bashing will resume shortly. 😉

To my mind, a person's suitability for a role should be based on their competence, not on their gender.

Absolutely agree. Unfortunately that's not the case in our society where men have dominated public life and senior jobs for hundreds of years because of their sex, not their ability.

What roles where only open to women?

also it's open to men anyway - if they 'identify' as women

I think without knowing the organisation or the roles, it's difficult to say whether its discriminatory to stipulate they're only open to women.

I used to oppose positive discrimination, but I have changed my mind.

The thing is, that men are so far ahead in most areas that we will not gain equal access by starting to treat everyone equally (even if we could, we can't because we have all been brought up in a patriarchal society and carry subconsciously bias towards men).

We need to do something to help women catch up, and one of the things we can do is promote women into areas where they don't have fair access so the next generation will consider their presence more normal.

What are the roles?

There are some roles which it can make sense to restrict to a specific demographic - though tbh I can't think of any where 'identify' as a woman would be appropriate.

Also, perhaps it would be relevant to know what the current sex ratios are across the various elected office roles, and the sex ratio of the membership.

if it's the Women's Institute then YABU

I also used to oppose positive discrimination. But now I don't, looking into it, countries where they have done it eg boards of companies have to be x percent women, those with more women do better.

The problem with the 'the best person for the role' mentality is that the people deciding who the best person for the role is, are usually white middle class middle aged males. And 'surprise!' the person they normally think is best for the role is a white middle aged male. I am not saying everyone is sexist but people do have unconscious bias. People are starting to look and judge organisations for lack of diversity. Sometimes something radical is needed to break the status quo and having more diversity benefits everyone

Depending on the organisation and role it could be entirely appropriate.

I can’t get overly worked up about positive discrimination, just sad that it’s still needed in the 21st century

the vacancies are only open to those who identify as women

Women just ARE women and have no need to go round actively "identifying" as such

The people that tend to "identity" [whatever the holy fuck that even means] as women are male born people.

Examples:
Philip/Pippa Bunce - "identifies" as a woman on the day they collect awards for women in business. But can be a man on other days.

Liam/Lily Madigan - "identifies" as a women when taking a job as a woman's officer in the Labour party

I agree. The biggest problem is the 'identifying as' bit.

If a role needs to be for women either due to the role itself or for a positive discrimination reason, then it should be for a woman (adult human female) not for anyone else.

If needed for reasons of sex/biology then it should go to the sex/biology.
If for positive discrimination or role model reasons then how is it helping women for an ex-man to get the role?

The "identifies" part means that it is literally open to and Tom, Dick (yep), and Harry who fancies applying.

*any

What is the organisation?

If it is womens aid or rape crisis you are being unreasonable.

Positive discrimination can be just as dangerous as negative

This is bollocks. Positive discrimination levels the playing field.

If a board or committee is lacking in diversity then its perfectly acceptable to try to recruit from those groups that are currently unrepresented.

This is a good thing. And don't worry women are perfectly capable of having skills to the make contributions.

YABU.
It has been shown in study after study that what matters is representation. That is why we need more women and more BAME people in positions of power and authority.

For everyone who says to me: you shouldn't get your job (as in: all women shortlist type of things) just based on your sex/gender. I say: tell all the male world, business etc leaders that, because that is EXACTLY what we have had for centuries.

"i want to be in charge"
"have you got a penis?"
"Yes."
"you're in"

For everyone who says to me: you shouldn't get your job (as in: all women shortlist type of things) just based on your sex/gender. I say: tell all the male world, business etc leaders that, because that is EXACTLY what we have had for centuries.

Yup. When you’re accustomed to privilege, equality feels like discrimination.

Can you imagine the uproar if an employer advertised job vacancies with the byline 'Women need not apply', or 'No people of colour'?

Oh come on. You can't seriously think that's the same thing?

I remember listening to an interview with Sandi Toksvig and she was talking about reading a list of the top 100 companies in the London Stock Exchange in 2016. Top 100 companies - how many women running them? Seven. OK, she thinks, seven that's all right, I supposse. Then she realised that 17 were run by men called John. Surely that sums up why positive discrimination is needed.

if jobs had historically been given out based on competence rather than competence+penis, there wouldn't need to be positive discrimination.

Yes, there are women in senior roles, but they tend to have to be significantly better than any man and still tend to come under much more scrutiny and criticism than male counterparts.

So it's open to men too (who identify as women). Could you not just put on a skirt and identify as a woman for that day?
Also depends on the role. If it's a women's association to further the cause of women I don't think it is unreasonable if it wants a female leader.

it is not an easy issue to get right eg in law we have more not fewer non-white people ( 1 in 5 = 20% against about 12% of British people being non-white ) and jewish people in law and in the general population (probably because they realise it is a good care and encourage children into it) but no one is saying only white working class boys (or girls) from Sunderland can apply to get the balance more reflective of the general population.

Thanks everybody, some great and very well reasoned input as expected. :)

To add a little context now, the organisation in question is the local branch of a political party. The vacant positions are -

Treasurer
Youth Officer (x2)
Disability Officer
Older Persons Officer

Now none of these, so far as I can make out, would have any clear and logical reason for requiring or preferring a particular gender? Had the brief specified that they were looking for members under a particular age in respect of the Youth Officer roles, or over a particular age for the Older Persons Officer, that would have been more understandable, but I can’t see why a male or female member would be any more or less suited to the positions.

It comes across very much as a quota exercise - a case of box ticking, to show that they have the expected ratio’s of M:F in order to be regarded as ‘diverse’.

The example I gave was in respect of the Treasurer vacancy. We could potentially have a situation where 2 members are interested in stepping into this role - one of them happens to be a chartered accountant with 30+ years experience in financial management, the other can barely count to 10. If the accountant is male and the other interested party is female, we’d be in a situation where the applicant most qualified and in fact the only truly suitable candidate would be disqualified based on their gender, and the role would be filled by somebody without the basic competence required.

I realise it may be an unpopular opinion, but I do strongly believe that any opportunities should be fairly open to all, with the best qualified, most suited, most experienced etc. candidate being the one who is successful. Male or Female shouldn't make the blindest difference. I agree that historically this hasn't been the case, although it should have been, but I do feel that positive discrimination just to tick a diversity box, with little regard to the suitability of candidates for a role, is inappropriate and inherently unfair both to the candidates and the wider organisation.

The problem comes I guess is if
both youth officers are male
and the disability officer
and the older persons officer
etc

So each time a role comes up, lo and behold a man is the 'best person'. Maybe it's not right to take an unqualified woman for treasurer. So maybe they need to look harder for a qualified woman instead?

Or maybe in this case you are correct and this isn't a role which should be limited to one sex or other.

Having re-read there's a bunch of vacancies?
So are they saying the Treasurer has to be female,
or that across the vacancies they will ensure a sex balance get chosen for a better overall working committee?

The wording was that nominations for the 5 officer vacancies would only be accepted from individuals who self-identify as women.