positive discrimination and quotas - right or wrong? And how do you justify it?

[LRDTheFeministDragon]

I was wondering what you think about evening up the balance of women and men in certain professions (not politics if that's ok - seems to me it's a different discussion seeing as their job is to be representatives)? Which way(s) are best/most justifable morally - quotas? Encouraging women to apply but treating their applications just like men's? Positive discrimination during the selection process?

I'm asking because I had a conversation where I didn't feel equipped to argue my side. A friend is just starting out on a career as a conductor. I think he's very good. He knows it is a very male-dominated profession. He is really fed up because he's applying to some programmes in the states (think hundreds of applicants for a handful of places). He's heard that they encourage women to apply by interviewing virtually all women who apply - so it is much easier for women to get to the interview stage. And some places, he worries, may also accept women who are less good than men.

On the one hand, I feel for him. But I also felt angry that when I suggested women who got as far as applying to this very male-dominated course might already have had to fight quite a lot of prejudice, he dismissed this. He also reckons he should not 'have to feel guilty' about discrimination against women 'in the past'.

Should we justify positive discrimination? Does what I'm describing even count as positive discrimination, or might it not be recognition that the women applying are a self-selecting bunch? How would you feel if this was your DS or DH (it's not mine but I'm trying to think of it that way) - would you be fed up?

The discrimination has already happened in a thousand ways before anybody applies for a job, theonly differernce in postive discrimination is that it wouldbe obvious instead of hidden and justified as being natural or inevitable.

I just don't think you fight discrimination with more discrimination. There are better, practical things that can be done before quotas.

'The discrimination has already happened in a thousand ways before anybody applies for a job, the only differernce in postive discrimination is that it would be obvious instead of hidden.'

I'm sure that's right, but I would hate to feel I'd been selected/promoted because of my gender. It's a recipe for insecurity, resentment and general bad feeling.

All the methods suggested in this thread of improving recruitment - gender-blind application forms, giving minority applicants automatic interviews, etc - are excellent and I'd like to see these used much more widely. Also more publicity given to the 'cultural cues' problem of why people see men as more worthy/able, which is clearly the case but which I have never seen discussed anywhere else.

I'd prefer, where there are concerns, to see sex-blind CV/interview phase and auditing of the advertising of positions.

But I think some areas require a different approach. Where entrenched sexism is endemic and there has been a long history of paying lip service to equality (or ignoring it) I'm somewhat in favour of quotas if only to make change fast and to put pressure on industries to take some responsibility.

I could see quotas possibly being useful in areas like senior positions, the City, acting, nursery education (if we're going to worry about the menz) and Boards of public companies. Because in these situations, sex-blind hiring will never fix the issues - there are structural reasons why women don't get the good jobs to the same extent as men.

If there is reasonable concern there will not be enough well qualified women the quotas could be graduated over time so the industry has time to start encouraging and building up the talent pool, and potentially there could be quotas put down the line on educational institutions too.

I'm not certain quotas would work, and if they are minimal (>40% say) then I don't think they will have the impact necessary to make themselves redundant (which should be the aim). There may be other better approaches, and I'd be happy to see other things that are robust put in place instead if someone has an idea. I just can't be doing with the idea that it's OK to do nothing because men don't want to risk possibly being put close to the position that women have been in for eons. I get a bit annoyed at the presumption that what we have now in hiring is a meritocracy - we've never had a very meritocratic hiring process. Quotas wouldn't make that worse.

I do think care would be needed about how this sort of thing is done. I recall back in the late '80s/early '90s BT increased it's percentage of female engineers significantly. They did it by re-designating call centre jobs (poorly paid and predominantly women) as "engineers".

"I'm sure that's right, but I would hate to feel I'd been selected/promoted because of my gender. It's a recipe for insecurity, resentment and general bad feeling."

It happens with blokes all the time though, or it has in places I've worked, men who are pretty crap being promoted because their face fits, they look good in a suit etc

And yes it causes resentment. But I think I'd rather have the job / promotion and risk being resented than leave it as is with rubbish men being promoted ahead of capable women!

Incientally I'm not decided on any of this, but that comment did make me smile, I've seen it happen so many times!

For government level jobs, why not implement rigorous testing standards?

Place all available applicants into a room to file a test, then only choose as many of the best scorers as what is needed to fill the positions available?

The test would be administered by a private corporation, each tested person is given a number, and their sex and age is redacted when reporting to the hiring government authority.

That's one way to ensure that only the best qualified get an entry level position. The numbers are called out for those who meet or exceed the standards for the position available.

For advancement through the ranks, perform the same action. All those who wish to obtain a higher level job report to a testing facility. The same process is repeated, except that additional scoring is added based on the performance reports that have been on file in the previous position.

Remove sex and age from the equation entirely. The respective hiring authority only has the viable "human" score upon which to make a decision.

As far as private corporations go....well..they are in it for the money. This is one of the reasons more companies go out of country to fill positions. If the corporations here could have a reasonable guarantee that the rules of the game do not change every few years, then they might make a similar investiture for hiring practices. This takes them off the hook of political correctness and saves them money on the long run because they know they are getting quality people to fulfill the positions, instead of meeting ANY kind of government mandated quota that costs them.

It would certainly get students to be more competitive for an ACTUAL education, instead of just being parrots in schools, because they know that it won't be their sex, their suit, or their color that gets them a job. It will be nothing but their intrinsic ability as determined by the testing.

Dev, how would you design the tests?

People keep trying to design tests that really test everyone equally - it is fiendishly hard.

Btw, the quotas my mate is talking about - if they are mandated at all, and not just his suspicion - are not govt. mandated. They're because the orchestras want to make themselves look more equal, he thinks.

Devlin that is a great idea for initial screening but I don't think it would work for the final hire. It doesn't reveal anything about how, for want of a better word, personable someone is. The vast majority of jobs involve communicating with others, teamwork, talking to clients and all the rest of it. Someone who ticks all the boxes for technical knowledge might be utterly hopeless in the actual job.

Without reading the entire thread, I just wanted to add an experience my cousin had regarding 'positive discrimination.'

He's always wanted to become a fireman. He's young, fit (just been accepted into the army), and healthy, and a couple of years ago he was invited to attend one of those interview days they do. Although he thought he had done fairly well on all of the tasks, a senior fireman took him to one side at the end of the day and said that if it was up to him, he'd probably accept him, but that unfortunately they had quotas to meet, and since my cousin is male, white, straight and not disabled, he didn't fit any of the criteria, so would be at the bottom of the pile :(

As much as I think that positive discrimination can be a good thing, if I was trapped in a house fire, I'd rather someone who was the best person for the job came to rescue me, than someone who'd been accepted mostly because they fit a particular quota the fire service had to fill.

pinkgirlythoughts that's exactly the thinking that is the problem in the first place. Why do you think a white heterosexual man is going to be the best person for the job?

And I find it strange (and frankly unbelievable) that the fire service is now prioritising people with disabilities and people suffering ill health to work as fire fighters.

pink - you're in the US? This is the sort of thing my mate is worried about, though he hasn't come across anything that's nearly so blatant. TBH, though - it is really tough - but if your cousin is just as good as the other applicants, they have to pick somehow, don't they?

I think this is what my mate does not get - he wants us to reassure him that he'll be better than the women applicants, and he worries he may be better and still get overlooked. But he doesn't seem to realize he could be the same as them, leaving the employers to make decisions based on other things than how good he is.

I do feel sad for him worrying though, and for people like your cousin.

It's a fascinating insight actually.

pinkgirlythoughts your post assumes that your white, heterosexual brother is the best person for the job. It assumes that any black, gay or female candidates will be inferior.

ALSO what the senior fireman told him shows the exact problem as well. He took him aside and said I WANT to give you the job (subtext because you are white, male and heterosexual, just like me) but the bloody company have told me that I might have to give it to one of these bloody (equally good) blacks / gays / women (delete as appropriate).

And this is why people who want quotas want them. To stop all the white heterosexual men giving all the jobs to other white heterosexual men. Unless it's a something like a cleaning job, in which case a black woman can do it.

Grrrr.

But if you didn't know if a candidate was fe/male, black, gay, transgender, disabled or any group until interview stage and if you actively targeted your recruitment methods to attract under represented groups (ie put an advert in local Asian paper, ran a programme where staff go into schools and talk about working in the organisation/industry) then in theory you increase the chances of shortlisted applicants being more representative of society without the need for quotas.

Then the next task is to remove some of the cognitive assumptions by conducting blind assessments where possible and independently auditing. Yes it would take longer than quotas but it would leave a less bitter taste and arguably be more effective in the longer term.

I'm in favour of quotas. White upper-and-middle class men have benefited from an invisible quota for years. We've asked nicely for them to share the pie and they won't, so it's quota time!

The 'quota = less qualified candidate' thing is, I think, a bit of red herring. There's nothing in a quota that means a less qualified woman would be employed. The whole point of a quota is that women, gay men, people of colour are losing out to white men even when their qualifications are identical.

I do think that after a while quotas would become unnecesary. Seeing something is a powerful tool. So if girls saw women in positions of power as a matter of routine, then they would see that they, too, could grow up and occupy a similar position.

Bring on the quotas!

But that isn't postive discrimination for 'fairness'. That postive discrimination for 'revenge'.

How else to explain White upper-and-middle class men have benefited from an invisible quota for years. How else can it be seen as anything other than some revenge-based scheme to get back at, well White upper-and-middle class men?

If quotas are to be introduced it has to be driven not by revenge, but by the simple requirement that the best candidate gets the job. If that's a 'fireperson' then unfortunately in my eyes that means someone who can hold their breath for longest and carry a person backwards down a ladder, in smoke, from a second storey ladder. Hate to say it but that precludes a lot of less weighty females. I couldn't care a rat's ass if the fireman'man' was white, black, straight or gay; when you need saving its meaningless. But if there are females who satisfy the physical requirements, then they should have every opportunity of fulfilling the role.

The target should be to ensure that the best candidate gets the job, not that employment be based upon sexist or racist criteria.

If its to be done, 'tis best done for the right reasons, and 'revenge' against one particular sex or ethnic group or age group is not a good reason.

They are called firefighters and recruitment practices have already been adjusted to remove any discrimination. For example minimum height requirements which can indirectly discriminate against women and some ethnic groups have been removed and replaced with task based requirements like being able to carry a weight of Xkg over a distance of Xm and climb a ladder measuring X length in X seconds.

Quotas at initial recruitment would mean of applicants meeting the required standard would be selected for interview/the job based on their gender. An unqualified/inadequate applicant would not get through.

I still don't like it and would prefer blind recruitment practices but just wanted to point out the "quotas lead to incompetent recruits" argument is baseless.

The target should be to ensure that the best candidate gets the job, not that employment be based upon sexist or racist criteria

yes, absolutely. Two wrongs don't make a right, positive discrimination does not balance negative discrimination. No discrimination is the only target really worth aiming at.

To this end, employers should perhaps be called to account if there does appear to be bias in their hiring - but if it can be justified, so be it.

i think the firefighter example (which always seems to get brought up on threads like this - interestingly i've never actually met/seen a female firefighter so clearly they're hardly taking over the world) is a bit of a red herring as well because you are working on the basis that the best possible way of saving someone from a fire is in a big-strong-man kind of way. if fire fighting had always been done by women presumably we would have worked out a different way of doing it?

i'm pretty sure i've read a few different places (but can't be arsed to google) that one of the main recruitment issues for fire fighting is trying to avoid men with a hero complex, who want to drag everyone to safety all on their own which works sometimes but other times results in someone else having to rescue them - diverting resources from the people who needed them in the first place...

Forgive me but firefighters have to be able to lift people and carry them distances. That's a major part of the job so it's right to have a process that ensures they can do that.

They are also highly trained and continuously monitored. I dare say banks (where most of my experience is) attract plenty of thieves but we try to screen those out during the recruitment process and have other mechanisms in place to deal with those who slip through.

Some female firefighters here

"Forgive me but firefighters have to be able to lift people and carry them distances."

because that's the way the system has been set up - what i'm suggesting is that it may not be the best way of ensuring everyone's safety... we used to send children up chimneys too

i have no alternative solution to put forward, i don't think the fire fighting system as it currently works is particularly flawed but i think the idea that women can only do a job currently done by men if they do it as well in exactly the same way is flawed.

and i'm not sure what the point of your link was? i'm aware that female fire fighters exist - i'm just not convinced that there are so many of them we need to fret over the issue! am LOVING the first woman's name though - i wanted to call my imaginary son storm or lightning when i was a teenager!

IrmaLittleteapot is right with regards firefighters. If anything discrimination has been removed. They do have recruitment drives for women and ethnic minorities but that is at the "encouragement to apply" level rather than the picking level.

Katie - there are plenty of other jobs for firefighters to do other than carry people out of burning buildings. The drivers of the engines for example very rarely enter a fire as they are co-ordinating outside. And I disagree it is a major part of their job. The number of fires that occur now has been drastically reduced. Firefighters are much more often to be found at the scenes of car crashes, machinery accidents, lift problems etc. And believe me there are a few men who can't bash down doors either, for example - especially the younger ones.

And skrumle ios correct - if all firefighters were women then they would use other tools such as chairs to carry out people from burning buildings - a common way of doing it anyway. It is hard work for a man to carry a deadweight all by themselves and there are often occassions where the person being rescued is bigger than the rescuer!

Sorry - I should qualify as I sound a bit arrogant - DH is a firefighter. We have had many many interminable discussions on this in the past!

Katie, lifting and carrying is only a small part of what fire fighters do these days. They are more often engaged in fire prevention activities - speaking to groups, inspecting premises and making home fire safety checks in people's homes. Thankfully, fires are fewer and further between these days because the Fire Service places more emphasis on fire prevention.

I used to work extensively with 3 big fire authorities and they were pretty poor at attracting and retaining women, as well as minority ethnic firefighters. Lots of issues as to why, but we are talking no more than about 5% of firefighters being female anyhow. With respect of alot of their fire prevention activities, we found that there were many families who preferred to have women firefighters coming into their homes over male ones - particularly lone elderly people and sometimes young mothers with children.

I am aware that they do more than carry people. I am also aware that they do lots of other things but they still need to pass the physical and male or female makes no difference. As I understand it every place on the crews that go out is essential and all members of the team need to be highly skilled firefighters because there just isn't enough room for somebody who isn't pulling their metaphorical weight and possibly somebody's actual weight if required

I'm not sure the chimney comparison is relevant? We have tools that can clean chimneys as effectively as children could (as I understand it. I have not been up a chimney nor sent a child up one) but I don't think there's any subsitute for a person when it comes to being able to react quickly and maneouver safely in a rescue situation.

I have also met some firefighters who would struggle to pass the current recruitment physical who don't go out on shouts but do the education bit.

The link was partly to illustrate female firefighters exist and partly to illustrate the point, as made in an earlier post, that good recruitment methods can help attract minority candidates by showing them role models. That's why there's two women, one ethnic minority and one white man on that link.