Positive discrimination policy?

[Monkeytrousers]

here

I can see how it might grab people as a good idea, but think it's a very bad move and wouldn't support it myself.

I think it is awful. People need to be promoted on merit not to fill a quota. Women have worked hard to be recognised as equal to men in the workplace. This policy would damage our position even further with people believing that someone was only in their role due to positive discrimination and not due to their achievements.

There are no quotas in this policy. It's entirely voluntary.

I think it's a good idea.

(BTW MT, I don't know whether you ever saw my thread thanking you all for the trees? They are very lovely.)

Think it's an awful move, and utterly patronising. If I'm successful in an interview I want to know that it's because I was absolutely the best person for the job, not because of what I've got between my legs!

But at the moment, it seems likely that women are frequently refused employment precisely because of what's between their legs. Is this situation really preferable to some extremely mild legislation that tips its hat to positive discrimination without introducing any quotas?

Trees? Wot you on about PW??

I really don't think that's the case now PW - it was undoubtedly and equal pay is still an issue, but which jobs are women being refused for - and how can you prove it was down to their sex and not merit - or lack of, especially if men have been refused also.

Women today have the opportunity to live their own lives, as individuals and with an agency as potent as the men around them. That this has been a bumpy ride full of revelation and some nasty surprises is a tale of life and lesson not covered by the catch-all claim of ?oppression?, which I think this policy is attempting.

Racism is much more rife than sexism today I think, but I still think positive discrimnination even in that instance is the worst path of many.

Show me that thread!

Oh, bloody hell - of course I do! Ignore me. Silly bint

The idea about not being secretive about pay is never going to work in top flight companioes either, whose male employees aer always trying to outearn their other male collegues. That's not sexiam, just women joining the selfish fray

hang on a minute - the proposals only "allow" companies to offer the job to a minority candidate if both candidates are equal (very rare I would guess) - its not forcing you to choose a minority candidate. And insisting that public sector companies disclose what the pay gap between sexes is. Its hardly revolutionary.

I once discovered that I earned £30k less than a man doing an identical job to me. I have rarely been so furious.

surely the word "discrimination" in the first paragraph should tell anyone that this is a bad idea. wether it is pre-empted by the word positive,racial,sexual or class is of no relevance in my books as it is still racial and sexual discrimination just not the type we are used to.
this will just lead to bitterness and resentment. yes make it harder for companies to discriminate in favour of whites/males. but dont actively encourage them to discriminate against them.

IMHO, there is no such thing as positive discrimination. If you discriminate in employment, it means that you choose one person over another based on something unconnected to their ability to do the job. I don't see any justification for that.

I didn't when it came to Labour's women-only shortlists and I don't now.

I am beginning to think that most people have only read the title not the actual policy...

Dittany, women in those yop flight jobs are the ones 'suffering' the most discrimination, according to some feminists - becasue they think 100k a year + bonuses is fine and don;t join the scrum to out earn their male peers. That is really called discrimination in some areas. It's mad!

Agree kewcumber!

I'm no fan of city wbankers, but the number of female city workers pursuing (and winning) discrimination cases, not to mention the insider accounts of what goes on in the big city firms, suggests that there is a lot more going on than women demurely deciding that they can't be bothered to push for the top salaries.

Do you actually believe that discrimination doesn't exist, MT? What would your definition be?

lol at city bwankers!

Oh I do believe that discrimination exists, but not in the way it did 30 or 300 years ago.

I just think a period of calm observation aboutr what is going on - what amounts to choices and what amounts to real discrimination, and not just hard competitivlness (after all, some one has to come second sometimes) needs to happen - but that doesn;t fit with the tradiaional 'it's time to get angry again' motto. What if the time for getting angry has passed - get pissed off maybe, get invlolved, but angry? It's all that class of '68 stuff isn;t it really. It had it's place. The world has moved on.

Save our anger for real discrimiantion against women - in rape prosecution policy for instance - on women trying to survive on minimum wage..

and women in very oppressive patriacal cultures around the world!