A heated debate started on another thread that I do not want to derail. One of the ultra-feminist-misandric poster explained that a candidate was dismissed because she's a woman threatening the swiss male authority.
I have seen the opposite in my environment and my wife's environment (male-heavy tech company).
I know that my wife is against quota or affirmative action to help women get jobs or responsibilities. Her argument is she wants to be recognized for her skills and not because she's a woman.
What do you think, is affirmative action or quotas a good solution?
It has nothing to do with male/female issues but with the nature of power relationships in working environment. Working in education, I've seen the same with female head masters not letting competent candidates come anywhere near hard evidence of said head masters' weaknesses. Nobody wants to make one's position of power any more exposed than strictly necessary. It's about the psychology of hierachy, not anything male or female bosses are any different at. Gender differences are overrated anyway.
given that there is an underrepresentation of women in upper management across companies, does it mean that men fear more women than other males? Women are equally threatening for their power positions as other men I assume.
I think that back in the 60s when the US brought in the anti-segregation laws we did need that push to start things off. However, I would hope that 50+ years on quotas for women, coloured people, disabled, etc, wouldn’t be needed.
I think another problem too is that now the view is you should have such and such a percentage of women/minorities/whatever in all workplaces and sometimes that just isn’t practical. Also a lot of professions don’t appeal for them to work in. I know they moan a lot in the UK that there aren’t enough women in Parliament/Government but people have to be interested in doing that; you can’t just regulate that sort of thing. And come on, how many women coal miners have you seen? I’m not saying there aren’t any, but it’s a profession that’s never going to be 50/50 on gender.
Unfortunately, one of the big problems is the lack of equality of pay for doing the same job. That’s still a problem in the UK and probably many other countries as well. It doesn’t make it attractive so you have fewer women/minorities applying.
In giving a job to a woman because she's a woman, you're denying a job to a man because he's a man. Simples. Swap the genders or replace them with any arbitrary category of your choice, the story is the same.
I pity the fool, be it HR or upper management, who tries to make me hire that way.
I agree with the above completely. It is, in my view, sanctioned sexism (or any other ism depending on the demographic in question). The problem is, how DO you guard against institutionalized unfair hiring practices that favour one demographic against another? It would be nice to believe we are past the days of needing affirmative action, but I cannot believe that we are - particularly in industries heavily dominated by one demographic or another (I have in fact worked at a coal mine in central BC as a student - a good job that nonetheless taught me that sexism in the workplace (even in a unionized one) is still alive and kicking.
Women are more likely to leave the work force for family responsibilities, and take more sick leave than their male counterparts (especially those women ith children, since they take sick leave to care for their children).
This is not to say that the wage gap is fair, or that anyone is crazy to hire a man. This is just a commonly presented argument for wage and percieved gender bias in hiring.
In ten years of being a sole parent, I never had to take significant time off work to care for my kids (i.e. never more than the odd hour here and there).
Sick time? I've almost never had to use that for myself, let alone my kids.
Wow, that's amazing! I wish the Krippe would keep my kids when they're sick, but they always call...and somehow the kids can't seem to manage to stay home on their own.
Fortunately, my husband and I have compatible work schedules and a circle of good friends, so it hasn't been an issue. Well, except once, when I needed to teach a course that morning and therefore my husband had to cancel a trip (chicken pox). That time, I had to leave my daughter at Krippe until he could pick her up.
Still, how fast can they come? Can they pick up from day care? With small children, the difference between ok and really sick happens with basically no notice, so it would be good in case something like this happens again (and there are days when he's out of town and I do have courses and meetings-we've gotten lucky so far).
One of my colleagues uses them and she was very satisfied. Tne red-cross is organized by cantons and in Fribourg they provider a baby-sitter within 4hours (cost is 5-25 chf/hour depending on your income).
I am against gender quotas on the whole but some where, somehow, the children do need to be cared for.
My mother was sick since I was young and my father worked his but off to keep food on the table. If it wasn't for my grandparents I really don't know how we would have been able to get along?