School debate about fertile women being employed

[reallyconfusedmostofthetime]

My child's tutor (YR8) started a class debate about whether women of child bearing age should be employed. Is it unreasonable to think this is sexist and ridiculous?

I would really, really be hoping they were going to broach the topic of whether women's existance and experiences are appropriate topics for 'debate'.

Taking part in a debate includes listening. Would you feel equally comfortable with a debate about one race being superior, say?

I think there are some really naive posts on this thread. Encouraging children to rehearse sexist and dehumanising tropes is far more likely to encourage sexism than defeat it. There’s been a lot of research on this (see eg Don’t Think of an Elephant by George Lakoff).

I do. And so? This debate topic still accepts in its underlying premise that women's rights are conditional and that it is conceivable for women to be enslaved to men at any moment. There is no equivalent debate being had about not employing any men of reproductive age, perhaps because men pose a danger to women and during the reproductive age, this danger in the form of sexual assault can lead to the further issue of pregnancy. Men's rights are not up for debate in the same way you accept women's rights to be.

What we want in debate and critical thinking is topics where both sides can be reasonably considered.

Were you in Y8 at the time?

@BirthdayRainbow being poor is not a protected characteristic. Being a women is. Our human rights are not up for debate, and teaching children that they are, is dangerous

No, I really believe the rise of someone like Andrew Tate is aligned to broader issues within society and not just a simplistic view that ‘bad’ or ‘wrong’ ideas aren’t debated enough and that’s why this persists. If only we talked more, everything would be fine!

I’m old enough to remember all the controversy about Nick Griffin appearing on Question Time. At the time people said ‘oh but we have to let people debate these ideas, it’s important to show people what they are etc’. Well, it’s probably a good 15 years since then and the far right is alive and well in the UK - it takes another face but the ideas continue.

@Precipice, of course girls and women's rights should not be sacrified for male ego. but our company simply doesn't get female applicants. It's a wet, cold technical engineering working environment, with significant health hazards. There's nothing glamorous about it. But it is fundamental to keeping your world functioning, healthily.

@reallyconfusedmostofthetime I imagine the whole point of it is to have a conversation about sexism. They're not really proposing it in a 'straight' way, or they'd be disciplined.

@DaisyDoor

And why should the girls in the class be forced to listen to a load of sexist and dehumanising arguments denying their agency?

I’d suggest you’re underestimating how many of the small business owners reluctant to hire women are women themselves. My first team leader once very vocally announced she was pleased the new staff on her floor were ‘lads’, because she’d already had a couple of women on mat leave that year and was ‘sick of it’, despite having had a couple of maternity leaves herself while working there.
A lot of the girls will have potentially internalised these views purely from being exposed to them. Having those views challenged not only changes their attitude to others, but also what they’re prepared to stand for themselves.
Should it be down to women and girls to ‘fix’ this problem? No absolutely not, but the men certainly don’t seem to be in a hurry to.

I agree with you. There are ways of looking at these issues without it being as part of a debate. Having to listen to some of the views at the age of 12 is thoroughly depressing.

We did cover these subjects as part of a sociology a-level but in a more objective way.

@pam290358 what the hell is on the other side of the debate?? Are you trying to suggest there are some legitimate arguments against women working?

Totally agree and I'm the same. There's always a reason other than that to reject

You've seen from this thread that there are real employers out there, not hiring women because the risk to their business is too great, if that woman takes maternity leave or doesn't return afterwards.
So you have to debate this, because it's really happening. Not mentioning it, doesn't make it stop happening.

I've seen it play out in businesses where women have taken successive maternity leave, or several employees at once have been off having babies and it's really fucked over the other employees, who have increased work loads. It's not always possible to temporarily replace the staff on leave. So if I owned a small business I'd probably be very cautious too.

Is the school in the middle east? If not YANBU

I digress a tad from the OP but the employers or the employers families on here saying they don’t employ women of a certain age is just gross. This is a post about creating debate in a school and you have just casually come on to tell us about your illegal work practices. How depressing.

The fact that it is even up for debate means that it is a debateable topic. It isn't. It implies that there are two valid debateable sides to a) are women independent individuals in their own right? 2) does a woman between the ages of, say 18 and 45, have any right to earn her own money? 3) is it even debateable that women of this age should be dependent on a man or the state for the money to live?

To debate it is to a) give credence to the belief that women should by nature be dependent on others b) encourage the dinosaurs in their belief that women are not autonomous individuals.

Luckily it is the easiest argument in the world to shoot down on a human rights platform alone, but that doesn't stop it being a debate that my generation settled in the west over 50 years ago. Yet it rears its ugly head again along with other women's rights issues that my generation thought were settled once and for all. It begs the question. Are my grandchildren really having to reinvent the wheel? If so, why the f*ck did my generation bother?

Perhaps the next debate will be - should women have the vote? Jeez.

Love all the women on this thread who wouldn’t employ women…

I think it’s a risky topic to debate because without a good teacher a lot of classes would conclude women shouldn’t work. V uncomfortable with say an all boys class discussing that, or a mixed class doing it and the girls having to listen to it.

And that’s why there are laws in place, to protect us from misogynistic woman haters like yourself.

I’m sorry but I think you’re being really naive to assume the outcome of the debate will be that everyone sees the light, rather than taking it as confirmation that women’s rights are indeed contingent.

Not sure why apparent employers are boasting about not hiring young women when pretty much all employers are currently struggling to employ anything with a pulse? If any of it is actually true, not only have you cut out a huge wealth of the best talent, you're probably a shite employer in other ways so they are surely lucky to not work with you?

Well said. Absolutely disgusted at the comments on this thread and that the topic is even considered debatable. It’s not.

My son's primary school teacher asked them if a husband in a marriage transitioned and became a transwoman, would it still be a marriage? It got them talking and thinking about it.

I think they'd be better served by arguing that men who are having babies via wives/partners/etc should be required to take 6 months paternity leave, minimum, to share the load/career hit with women.

Imagine if the question was 'should black people be trusted to participate in society freely, given there are proportionately more black people than other races serving prision sentences'.

You absolutely cannot offer that kind of thing to children to debate without first giving them the history, facts and context to understand and debate it. It does my head in that sexism is still treated as less of an issue than racism and other 'isms' even though it impacts half the world's population.

Just to add that I've lost out on jobs as a younger woman, to men who were no better qualified or more experienced than I was. I spent a long time thinking there was something wrong with how I'd interviewed etc, and it might have helped to know this wasn't about me, as a candidate - it was about their willingness (or not) to take a risk.
A good teacher will widen the debate about long term consequences of not hiring women, where that leaves us and what steps could be taken to mitigate risk for small employers. They would explore fairness and responsibility for children and what society could put in place to level the playing field so that fathers are not more advantaged than mothers. Maybe look at shared leave, whether mat leave as it is, is the best model, subsidised childcare etc