just need to get this off my chest. http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/uk_politics/8314322.stm basically the conservatives and current goverment want to increase the number of women, ethnic minorities and disabled people in parliment. This is rediculous. The fact that the goverment is trying to hit targets is raciest/sexist in its own right its called POSITIVE DISCRIMINATION and im sick to death of this type of thing happening. we are supposed to live in a equal opportunities society. Everyone should have the same chance of getting the job/position whatever but the sad fact is this does not happen. sometimes it is discrimination and thats why equal opportunities was created but to swing the other way is just as bad. i once heard on the bcc radio quite a while back that they were giving grants and pay insentives to women plumbers because they wernt enough and for some reason we needed more so the trade is gender balanced. Im 100% for equal pay and opportunities but it seems to me that depending on your sex, race and health now that could give you an unfair advantage over someone else because everything has to be balanced.
On the other hand, women still earn only 73% of what men do for the same jobs and this pay gap is getting worse. Add to that the fact that no matter how emancipated society may seem, in families where both partners work equal hours women still do the majority of the housework and child rearing. I could churn out equal facts on ethic minorities and particularly the disabled. Sorry, but this is a men's world --a White and able-bodied one at that. Positive discrimination is a crap solution with lots of drawbacks, but at least it acknowledges the problem. And Lord knows the Tory party's White old-boys bastion could do with some women and minorities.
i read an article a bit ago about why women still earn less than men. it says the key difference it found in its research of x amount of men and women was: women do a job/project well they wait to be noticed by the boss and have the mentality that hard work = promotion/more money. men do a project whatever and ASK for promotion and more money. They are cheeky enough to ask and often get. i admit we still arent there in this equals thing but i believe postitive discrimination is the wrong way to go about it as your not employing the best person for the job, but the company may just need to fill the qouta for disabled, ethnic minority or sex target that year. i also couldnt give a crap who does the job as long as they do it right. thats the mentality that is needed just a shame the goverment seems to think employing % of men, women ethnic minorities, disbaled etc means its fair
We've been here before http://forums.bit-tech.net/showthread.php?t=169753 The only thing to add this time round is that I don't believe Cameron would actually do this.
It is 'positive discrimination' so yes, it is discrimination. It would be extremely naive however to assume that women earn less because they just don't ask for promotions and pay rises enough. Just look at what gender still does most of the poorly paying, low status jobs.
I don't know about anyone else, but I remember a time where candidates for a job application were offered the job based on experience and qualification, not gender and race.
yeah my comment about the difference in pay doesnt explain it all cause there has alwasy been a gap but a percentage of that gap getting bigger could be down to this reason. yeah its shame now that with every job application form you need to fill in your race, gender age religion etc i have only recently got my job (3 months ago) and i filled in countless applications that NEED all this info. I tend to not fill it in at all as it should be irrelevant
I remember a time when politicians had integrity, people were polite and law-abiding, crime was scarce, youngsters were respectful to their elders and parents loving, strong and wise. Get real. People have always been discriminated against, based on gender, sexual orientation, religion and ethnicity. Only now it is acknowledged that this is unaccaptable.
I'd still rather have the best candidate for a job that involves running the country, as opposed to token women. I'm surely not alone in that! On another note, how will the women on the shortlists feel? Smug that they managed to put one over on men, or gutted when they hear the words "Well, you were actually our 8th choice for the job, but everyone ahead of you was a bloke. Welcome to the Tories!"?
this isnt about being politically correct this isnt about discrimination this is about representation Democracy is based upon the presupposition that there is universal investment in politics. However, for various socio-economic reasons this just simply isn't the case. There are swathes of society who feel disenfranchised, leading to their voting apathy, which in turn leads to them being unrepresented in the ruling class. You have to remember for many of these groups their motivating factor is not attainment, but mere day-to-day survival. And the only solution for that systemic, cultural and economic imbalance is representation and support. "Equal Opportunities" are to redress that inherent imbalance. Something to think about:
So would I. But what makes you think that you have been getting that before? Before you got the old boy favorite; now you get the token woman. Same difference. I bet that the women feel vindicated, if anything. Because the 8 men ahead of them were probably not prefered because of competence, but because they were part of the old boys' club. Welcome to the Tories, after all. You are all acting as if this was a level playing field that was tilted by Cameron. It was not. It was heavily leaning the other way. The fact that you can't even see that proves most of all that some measure of addressing this bias is needed.
+1 Looking at a job placement in isolation does suggest unfair advantages, however it is not in isolation. Unfair advantages are are given to those who were born with unfair opportunities in our unfair society.
sounds like you guys are going through what america went through in the 90's.. the good ol boy networks need to fall away.. I know there's still alot of prejudice here, see it all the time- and it always goes back to who you know.. it's not even a white thing over here anymore cause mexicans, blacks, asians do it too it all depends on who's running things.. having a quota on jobs isn't necessarily a bad thing imo- it worked for the most part over here sure some would disagree.. but if you had to work harder than joe's butt buddy for the same promotion
Yeah i agree that it isnt a level playing field and it still isnt but those people that that have this boys club, no ethnic minorities need sacking or taking to court for discrimating. but at the same time you cant simply swing it the other way to try and blance the system. at the end of the day a person should be employed for there ability to do the job and nothing else. Yes i know how the system was back in the day and it was completely wrong but that does not justify the same system but opposite today. Everyone should be equal and will eventually balance out. we also have to accept that you cant have everything been proportionally represented i.e. there are more women than men in the UK ~55% so that would mean we should have 55% of parliment as women. how about if we get some ethnic minorites in that currently make up less than 8% of the UK population should 8% of parliment be from this group ???
Do we know that discrimination is the reason there are not as many female MP's as men? I seriously doubt its as simple a reason as that. Cameron would say anything to get some extra votes, until he delivers its all his usual BS. I think women should be paid equally to men but i would also like to see the same paternity leave given to men as women.
+1 da_rude they should be paid the same but your right men should have longer paternity leave too. aparently they are working on this - last i heard they wanted to make womens shorter but more days on full pay. they then add time on to the mens leave and increase the amount of days on full pay.