What does true equality of opportunity look like?

steddyeddy

What does true equality of opportunity look like? I sit on the panel of the Athena Swan in my university and it's a question that comes up again and again. Athena Swan is the body which ensures equality of opportunity amongst different genders, races and social class in STEM subjects but there's differences of opinion about how to do this. Some people think you make equal levels of gender and public/private school kids in the class is equality of opportunity but in my view it's clearly equality of outcome which is disagree with. Another question is how many levels to we equalise across? Right now in Athena Swan we have a directive to equalise men and women according to gender by focusing on opportunities of both genders but then they analyse genders to make sure the 50% of women come from equal private/public school background. I do believe that differences in opportunities hurts everyone but how do you go about fixing it?

troyzer

In the aggregate, there should be no difference between equality of opportunity and outcome.

biko

It's confusing. On one hand we are supposed to disregard gender - on the other hand we are supposed to promote women, for being women.

Paddy Cow

steddyeddy wrote: »

What does true equality of opportunity look like?

It looks like the CAO where you are just a number and it is your merit, not your age, race or gender that gets you into university. Quotas are ridiculous. Not every career is going to have a 50/50 split. More men than women are interested in STEM and that's ok. Trying to entice a woman who has no interest into STEM is like trying to convince a man to train as a nail technician.

Equality of opportunity is not the same as equality of outcome.

troyzer

Paddy Cow wrote: »

steddyeddy wrote: »

What does true equality of opportunity look like?

It looks like the CAO where you are just a number and it is your merit, not your age, race or gender that gets you into university. Quotas are ridiculous. Not every career is going to have a 50/50 split. More men than women are interested in STEM and that's ok. Trying to entice a woman who has no interest into STEM is like trying to convince a man to train as a nail technician.

Equality of opportunity is not the same as equality of outcome.

The CAO system does include a few levers to benefit the disadvantaged.

I'm a beneficiary of it.

Equality of opportunity and equality of outcome are the same thing in theory on a large enough population.

Paddy Cow

troyzer wrote: »

The CAO system does include a few levers to benefit the disadvantaged.

I'm a beneficiary of it.

Equality of opportunity and equality of outcome are the same thing in theory on a large enough population.

What do you mean? If we had the stats for the entire world, I'm pretty sure that you would find few women bricklayers.

judeboy101

Equality only truly exists when you are staring down the barrel of a gun.

Outlaw Pete

Most of the equality of outcome proponents are just pushing for more women in lucrative positions, which shows how it is flawed thinking before it leaves the starting stalls. If they were campaigning for more women in the less cushy male dominated areas of employment I might take them serious.

Equality of opportunity is all that is needed.

Within reason of course. My Lapello's job application has been overlooked but I understand.

kneemos

Equality of opportunity is largely socio economic I'd have thought.
If equality of outcome means a 50/50 split it's wishful thinking.

mad muffin

Only at death we are truly equal…

_Kaiser_

It's simple.

If two people, one man and one woman, work in the same job for the same amount of time, with the same education and experience and perform to the same level then they should receive equal pay and opportunity to take on new tasks, promotions and so on.

If however one makes a choice to take time out to travel the world or start/focus on raising a family and then comes back to work after an extended period of absence then no, they should not expect to be able to slot back in at the same higher level their colleague earned through their work and decision to prioritise that.

If however the returnee is prevented from having the chance of "catching up" over time then yes, that's unfair

Life is full of choices and each of these has an effect on other aspects of life. These choices are individual and will result in different outcomes. That's neither unfair nor discrimination

What's unfair is the notion that someone can come back and expect the same money, responsibility or benefits that someone else earned in their absence.
There's an ad on the radio at the moment where a hypothetical mother has returned to work and complains that her role changed or her former staff member is now her boss and is advised to seek legal advice. It's ridiculous.

Life elsewhere and for others does not go on "hold" while you pursue your own choices, nor is it unfair that those choices may not be as advantageous as others in different situations

Outlaw Pete

California have recently made it illegal for companies not to have a woman on their board (must have 3 by 2021).

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BGp9l8CGaE8

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nsuyEx4GrKo

stinkbomb

Paddy Cow wrote: »

It looks like the CAO where you are just a number and it is your merit, not your age, race or gender that gets you into university. Quotas are ridiculous. Not every career is going to have a 50/50 split. More men than women are interested in STEM and that's ok. Trying to entice a woman who has no interest into STEM is like trying to convince a man to train as a nail technician.

Equality of opportunity is not the same as equality of outcome.

Thats literally the opposite of what equality of opportunity looks like.

buried

True equality of opportunity would be a demand for a certain quota of Parliament representatives to be people with no wealth behind them already in order for them to run for elections for parliament. Good f**king luck ever seeing that sort of "equality"

Wanderer2010

What this study fails to take into account is personal bias and the fact that your competence doesn't matter a jot if your boss simply doesn't like you and wont ever progress your career. On the other hand people who are absolutely useless can be promoted right to the top because their face fits. Its all very well banging on about women and men having equal opportunity etc etc but that ignores the harsh reality of the working world.

orourkeda1977

doesnt exist

One eyed Jack

steddyeddy wrote: »

I do believe that differences in opportunities hurts everyone but how do you go about fixing it?

By using the opportunity to create opportunities for other people, to do just that. You’re not going to hurt anyone by creating opportunities for people who wouldn’t otherwise have had those opportunities had you not created the opportunities for them. The results of a quota system are the outcomes one expects to find in a system where everyone is given opportunities that wouldn’t normally have been available to them to achieve the same potential as anyone else who takes those opportunities for granted and doesn’t regard them as opportunities, but rather as entitlements.

Consider if you will, any time quotas are mentioned in relation to creating more opportunities in employment for women. It’s not long before someone points out that there are already equal opportunities for women to work in waste management. There are, and so those are not areas of employment where women need the opportunities to be able to achieve the same potential as men in those areas. There are areas in employment where policies could be introduced to give women the same opportunities in employment as men already have, which men take for granted, because as far as they’re concerned, they are entitled to those opportunities solely by virtue of what they imagine was their hard work, and not the hard work of the many people who contributed to their success.

It’s the same idea behind elevating people with disabilities in order to give them opportunities to gain employment - change the goals of the organisation from the top down, and restructure the organisation from the bottom up, and in that way parity in representation is achieved through the introduction of quotas. It’s still a system based upon merit, but now the criteria by which we award merit is changed so that people before who were awarded merits solely on the basis of what they imagined was their hard work, are now finding themselves having to compete on an equal footing for the same employment opportunities as people who would previously have been thought to have been unsuitable for those positions, by the people who imagined it was their hard work got them to where they are.

It’s easy to achieve this in educational and other institutions which have no regard for wasting public money, but it’s much harder to convince employers in the private sector that diversity is good for their bottom line -

Diversity... is it good for business, really?

Is Diversity Good For Business?

How Diversity Can Drive Innovation, Harvard Business Review


Tokenism, on the other hand, as in the context of the Swan program you’re referring to, is a terrible idea.

professore

We already have equality of opportunity in Ireland. There is nothing stopping anyone working their butt off and getting a good degree in a well paid discipline with skill shortages - other than their own interest, motivation and ability. They are throwing money at disadvantaged students nowadays.

Once you are qualified, can work reasonably hard and have a half decent personality you will walk into a job regardless of gender, race,.sexuality etc. All the other stuff is just white noise. The ones shouting loudest about equality of outcome are people who have studied unemployable subjects.

engiweirdo

steddyeddy wrote: »

What does true equality of opportunity look like? I sit on the panel of the Athena Swan in my university and it's a question that comes up again and again. Athena Swan is the body which ensures equality of opportunity amongst different genders, races and social class in STEM subjects but there's differences of opinion about how to do this. Some people think you make equal levels of gender and public/private school kids in the class is equality of opportunity but in my view it's clearly equality of outcome which is disagree with. Another question is how many levels to we equalise across? Right now in Athena Swan we have a directive to equalise men and women according to gender by focusing on opportunities of both genders but then they analyse genders to make sure the 50% of women come from equal private/public school background. I do believe that differences in opportunities hurts everyone but how do you go about fixing it?

From what I've personally experienced ,gender , race etc are de rigueur in 3rd level institutions, they do however like to maintain the status quo of very middle class backgrounds. Nobody really wants the smelly commoners in the staff room after all.

One eyed Jack

professore wrote: »

We already have equality of opportunity in Ireland. There is nothing stopping anyone working their butt off and getting a good degree in a well paid discipline with skill shortages - other than their own interest, motivation and ability. They are throwing money at disadvantaged students nowadays.

This is simply not true for many people prof -

Facts and figures

Disability and poverty

Employment has a key role to play in preventing poverty among people with disabilities. Research carried out by the ESRI shows a strong link between disability, joblessness, and risk of poverty, and conversely that employment is a safeguard for people with disabilities against experiencing poverty in their working years or on retirement. Over 80% of people who were ill/disabled and at risk of poverty were in households with nobody at work. Over 80% of those who were ill/disabled but not at risk of poverty had income from employment (67%) or a private pension from employment (14%).

Employment

The 2011 census showed 33% of people with disabilities of working age in work, compared to 66% of non-disabled people.

In total, there were 112,000 people with disabilities in employment. In international terms, Ireland’s employment rate for people with disabilities is low, even allowing for inter-cultural differences in how people report themselves as having a disability.

There are particularly low employment rates for people with physical disabilities, and those with intellectual disability or with mental health difficulties.

Comprehensive Employment Strategy for People with Disabilities 2015 - 2024


Getting financial assistance from the State, I’m not exaggerating when I say it’s like trying to get blood from a stone. In many cases people simply don’t have the resources themselves to be able to apply for assistance of any sort from the State.

Once you are qualified, can work reasonably hard and have a half decent personality you will walk into a job regardless of gender, race,.sexuality etc. All the other stuff is just white noise. The ones shouting loudest about equality of outcome are people who have studied unemployable subjects.

That’s not particularly true either, on either of those points. It’s idealism at best to suggest that anyone can simply walk into a job regardless of their gender, race, sexuality and so on. They can’t, no matter if they’re qualified, willing to work reasonably hard, or have a cracking personality. Everything depends upon what potential employers are looking for, and they generally aren’t looking for people who they imagine will be of no value to the organisation. As it happens, ironically enough, people who studied courses in which there was previously thought to be no prospect of employment are being snapped up by corporate giants - Google and Microsoft of course being two of the biggest and most well regarded and recognised, notwithstanding the fact that Google have their own problems to sort out with the numbers of millennials they chose to employ, to their own detriment of course.

Tokenism and virtue signalling probably seemed like a good idea at the time and made them attractive as an employer to other misguided misfits :pac:

Junkyard Tom

professore wrote: »

There is nothing stopping anyone working their butt off and getting a good degree in a well paid discipline with skill shortages - other than their own interest, motivation and ability.

This is really dumb in so many ways. Does a child neglected by an alcoholic single-parent have the same equality-of-opportunity as a child raised in a stable two-parent home with a live-in tutor?

AllForIt

I have a degree in a STEM subject. There were 2 women out the some 100 students that participated in the course in my former uni.

I don't understand what barriers are in place to stop a 17yo female from applying for a STEM subject. How could a 17yo woman feel before they ever engaged in it think that they wouldn't get on in it in a career ? It's a bit rich to say that women aren't being allowed to get on in STEM areas when they don't even engage in the study of it in the first place.

I didn't go into Computer Science in the end. I decided it was way too demanding on my personal time because if you don't know Computer Science requires constant learning on top of the work itself. That's just the way it is and I suspect it's the same in other STEM subject areas.

I think that many women don't go into CS exactly because of the same reason I didn't, especially because woman may wish to have a family. I'm male and still I didn't want to suffer the burden of all my free time being soaked up by constant learning often just to keep up no mind advance.

And get this , which backs up my last point, both the 2 woman who were part of my class, were lesbians. So not one single heterosexual woman studied CS in my class year at UCD.

stateofflux

Equality of opportunity looks like the ways things are now for men and women in most professions

How do you fix it? It aint broke---but going down the ignorant and sexist gender quota (equality of outcome) road will lead to trouble

Paddy Cow

stinkbomb wrote: »

Thats literally the opposite of what equality of opportunity looks like.

I'm confused. As I see it, equality of opportunity means that the opportunity is available to anyone, regardless of gender or race. So if a job is advertised, anyone can apply for it. That doesn't mean that every sector is going to have an equal division of men and women. So you'll have a majority of men in something like construction and a majority of women in childcare.

Paddy Cow

stateofflux wrote: »

Equality of opportunity looks like the ways things are now for men and women in most professions

How do you fix it? It aint broke---but going down the ignorant and sexist gender quota (equality of outcome) road will lead to trouble

Gender quotas are the worst idea ever and will only lead to division amongst the sexes. I am a woman and would like to think I would get hired because I'm able to use my brain and not just because I have a vagina and the company gets to tick a box in their quota ratio.

Feminists go on about the objectification of women but being hired simply because you have a vagina IS objectification. It's saying that women aren't strong enough to rely on their own skills and merit and having a vagina is the most important thing in the interview process if going up against male candidates. I find it ridiculous and embarrassing that they think this is empowering.

I'd rather see a board of ten men who got their on their own, than eight men and two women who are there to fill a quota. Do women who want to get hired because of a quota think their colleagues are going to respect them? When diversity quotas become a thing, would they be happy to give their slot to a less able candidate but that candidate is a person of colour so the company gets to tick two boxes at once - female and diversity? I don't think so but this is the dangerous road we are going down.

suicide_circus

^^^many women don't have vaginas

Paddy Cow

suicide_circus wrote: »

^^^many women don't have vaginas

That's a good point. How will we evaluate who is a woman and who is a man? Could a man self-identify as a woman and get in as part of the gender quota?

suicide_circus

Paddy Cow wrote: »

That's a good point. How will we evaluate who is a woman and who is a man? Could a man self-identify as a woman and get in as part of the gender quota?

in a word, yes.

Graces7

Paddy Cow wrote: »

What do you mean? If we had the stats for the entire world, I'm pretty sure that you would find few women bricklayers.

Never seen a woman working at roadworks either

One eyed Jack

Paddy Cow wrote: »

Gender quotas are the worst idea ever and will only lead to division amongst the sexes. I am a woman and would like to think I would get hired because I'm able to use my brain and not just because I have a vagina and the company gets to tick a box in their quota ratio.

Gender quotas don’t in and of themselves lead to division among the sexes at all. What is almost guaranteed to lead to division among the sexes are people who feel they were denied opportunities for employment based upon their gender, and that’s how we’re now at the point where gender quotas are now becoming more prominent and getting more attention than before - because they’re an outcome of what has been an imbalance in opportunities between people on the basis of often immutable characteristics. In your example, you have it arseways - currently it’s more likely you wouldn’t even be considered for a role because you’re a woman, and so you wouldn’t be given the opportunity to show off those brains you’ve got, often based upon the assumption that based upon the fact you were born with a vagina, you’re more likely to want to push a gaggle of children out of it at some stage and employers would have to consider paying you for maternity leave and possibly comply with legislation regarding allowing you time to breastfeed and so on. It would cost them less to hire a man, whether he’s likely to be a half-wit or not generally tends to be irrelevant, as is obvious from the sheer numbers of men in positions where they have the opportunity to hire women, but they don’t, because they imagine women will want to take time off to have children, like maternity leave is coming out of their own pockets - those women should stay at home and be provided for by men rather than getting any ideas above their stations.

Feminists go on about the objectification of women but being hired simply because you have a vagina IS objectification. It's saying that women aren't strong enough to rely on their own skills and merit and having a vagina is the most important thing in the interview process if going up against male candidates. I find it ridiculous and embarrassing that they think this is empowering.

I’m not a feminist, but from what little I do understand of modern feminism (and I’ll be the first to admit I don’t understand a lot of it what with men now identifying as feminists and so on), you’re presenting an argument that was never made by mainstream feminism at least. They aren’t suggesting that women should be hired on the basis that they have a vagina, but rather they are pointing out that women aren’t being hired on the basis that they have a vagina, and what the people with the power to hire women suggest that having a vagina says about women. The people making those assumptions are usually men. Feminists are arguing that because of the fact you have a vagina, you can have all the skills and talents and experiences which have made you who you are, and you still won’t be given the same opportunities as men to show what you can do, because of the underlying prevailing assumptions about you by men, based upon your sex. Feminists may well have a point in arguing that it’s so ingrained in society that people do it unconsciously, even to themselves.

There are numerous studies done which suggest that women lacking confidence in their own abilities is one of the greatest barriers holding them back from opportunities in employment, and the basis for their lack of belief in their own abilities is based upon their own perceptions about other people being more capable than they are. It’s definitely something I’ve noticed in the years I’ve been interviewing men and women for different roles - in primary school teaching for example, it’s blatantly obvious among male candidates that they lack confidence in their own abilities. I know I do too, in spite of my mothers insistence that I should become a teacher as she believes I’m more than capable. She ought to know - she raised me, and has 40 years experience as a primary school teacher herself, but when offered the role of Principal in the school, she refused to take it because she didn’t believe she would be as capable in the role as a man.

Pointing out that women are absolutely just as capable as men, is empowering, and the corrolary of that of course - pointing out that men are just as capable as women, is empowering. I feel confident now that I could be a primary school teacher, but ask any teacher now and they’ll point out to you that unless you’re truly passionate about educating children - don’t become a teacher, because the remuneration package is crap - low pay, no job security and you’re far less likely to be hired over a man. That’s not to mention the reason I personally wouldn’t do it is because educating children has become a secondary consideration for the Department of Education who seem to interpret the term in loco parentis quite literally, where teachers are expected to fulfil the role of parents, and complete a rather tedious set of box ticking exercises and a mountain of paperwork on top of everything else they’re expected to do. Having said all that, it still beats the hell out of me why teaching is by far the most popular choice among students applying for third level education according to our most recent census figures, and that’s not the only thing I’ve observed in education -


Gender imbalances in the classroom – and all the way up

I'd rather see a board of ten men who got their on their own, than eight men and two women who are there to fill a quota. Do women who want to get hired because of a quota think their colleagues are going to respect them? When diversity quotas become a thing, would they be happy to give their slot to a less able candidate but that candidate is a person of colour so the company gets to tick two boxes at once - female and diversity? I don't think so but this is the dangerous road we are going down.

Nobody gets to boardroom level on their own, and anyone who tries to convince you that they did, it’s safe to say they’re full of shìt. I certainly wouldn’t wouldn’t want to work with someone who was so far up their own hole they’d forgotten about the numerous people who had helped them get to where they are. One of the things that struck me about the tech industry, and this is something that struck me 20 years ago, is that it’s a sausage factory - there’s literally fcukall women in IT. There are a few exceptional examples of course, such as Safra Catz (CEO of Oracle), Meg Whitman (former CEO of HP) and Marissa Mayer (former CEO of Yahoo), but they would be the most well known in the tech industry, and hardly ever heard of by anyone outside of the tech industry.

Women should be respected regardless of how they are hired, and so when you ask the question do women who want to get hired because of a quota think their colleagues will respect them, the answer is of course that they should have no reason to expect that they wouldn’t be entitled to an equal level of respect as their colleagues who are full of shìt imagining that they got where they are on their own.

Diversity quotas as I previously pointed out, have been a thing for a couple of decades now at least, certainly long before I was born, and would I be happy to give my position to a person who I imagined was less capable of my job than I am? Of course not, that would be stupid. As it happens, the vast majority of people vying for my position are men, and by sheer virtue of their numbers, there are far more less than capable men vying for my position before women even get so much as a sniff at vying for my position. That’s why in a sausage factory, the person who isn’t endowed with a sausage is likely to stand out more, to me at least, than having to deal with soft-headed sausages all day. Nobody wants to deal with a soft headed sausage really (I feel that the metaphor may be stretched at this point :pac:).

I would certainly be happy to give my position to a person who I imagine would bring something new to the table, as opposed to a bunch of soft-headed sausages who imagine they are entitled to my position on the basis that they imagine they got the opportunity as a result of their own abilities. That they could display an ability to flatter their bosses ego and kiss arse generally isn’t all that useful to me, and certainly offers no tangible value. We’re already well down the road where black people (that ‘people of colour’ identifier is a level of stupid I won’t stoop to) are being given opportunities they wouldn’t have had before due to the fact those opportunities were denied to them on the basis of their skin colour. I don’t see any reason why it is of any advantage to society to continue to deny women opportunities they should have solely on the basis that they were born with a vagina and we expect that they shouldn’t be getting above themselves and challenging the status quo. I would be only too delighted to see opportunities for men to do the same thing, because everyone already has the opportunity to work in waste management if they want to, but everyone does not have the opportunity to become CEO of a tech giant if they want to. God knows Elon Musk hasn’t exactly been covering himself in glory lately and has had to step down while the woman who took his place at Tesla is expected to act like his mother rather than being regarded as capable of turning around a shìt-show of a company -


New Tesla chairwoman's biggest challenge is controlling Musk

Paddy Cow

One eyed Jack wrote: »

There are numerous studies done which suggest that women lacking confidence in their own abilities is one of the greatest barriers holding them back from opportunities in employment, and the basis for their lack of belief in their own abilities is based upon their own perceptions about other people being more capable than they are.

There was so much text in your post that I would have to write an essay to respond to it all :P so this is what I want to focus on. You notice that in women. You also noticed it in yourself but you had your mother who gave you the confidence to pursue your career, if you chose. So you didn't need the government to come in with a gender quota. You got the support you needed from your personal life to help you decide how you wanted to pursue your professional life.

Business is not about empowering people or teaching people assertiveness skills. Business is about making money. If women want to be CEO's then the onus is on them to develop these skills and put in the hours. If you want to get ahead in life, you have to believe in yourself.

If someone, man or woman, lacks the confidence in themselves, then why should they be given a position of responsibility just to fill a gender quota? What shareholder wants someone running their company who is afraid of how others perceive them?

In this day and age, there are numerous assertiveness courses. It is up to each person to decide what they want and then they have to self evaluate if they have the skills necessary to succeed. There is always going to be a level of networking. That's standard for any job. It's not just what you know, it's who you know. If I need to hire a tradesman, I'll always go with recommendations from friends, rather that risk hiring a cowboy.

Honestly, if you needed work done on your house, would you pick someone at random in the interest of fairness, or would you go with someone you could check out? That's why for even a basic minimum wage job you have to be able to provide references.

Franz Von Peppercorn

Paddy Cow wrote: »

That's a good point. How will we evaluate who is a woman and who is a man? Could a man self-identify as a woman and get in as part of the gender quota?

The answer to that, legally is yes.

Franz Von Peppercorn

One eyed Jack wrote: »

I feel confident now that I could be a primary school teacher, but ask any teacher now and they’ll point out to you that unless you’re truly passionate about educating children - don’t become a teacher, because the remuneration package is crap - low pay, no job security and you’re far less likely to be hired over a man.

That’s an insane bizzarro world you live in. Teachers earn a middle class salary, it’s a secure government job, and women dominate primary school teaching.

Nobody gets to boardroom level on their own, and anyone who tries to convince you that they did, it’s safe to say they’re full of shìt.

Some get there by stomping over others. Why the concern with the boardroom, anyway? How likely is an inner city male to get to a boardroom.

I certainly wouldn’t wouldn’t want to work with someone who was so far up their own hole they’d forgotten about the numerous people who had helped them get to where they are. One of the things that struck me about the tech industry, and this is something that struck me 20 years ago, is that it’s a sausage factory - there’s literally fcukall women in IT.

It’s exact proportional to the number of women doing computer science and the equivalent, or higher in some countries.

Atoms for Peace

Mao suites for all with only 4 styles of hair for all genders is the only way to go.

Zorya

Sometimes I feel like I live in a divergent universe. People's ideas of what constitutes a life seem so peculiar to me. All this effort at shuffling the cards to have some kind of equality in some boring boardroom in some boring job. Why not just live a life and stop getting het up about crap that means almost zilch on any true scale of life, love, meaning, purpose, contentment etc.

I am 50 - there has never been a damn thing I could not have done if I really wanted to do it. Never. I studied what I wanted, got the marks I worked for, accepted or refused career opportunity depending on my choices and priorities. All this pseudo difficulty for women is embarrassing and patronising - fait ta vie, for fecks sake. There are enough real problems to occupy a body and mind.

One eyed Jack

Paddy Cow wrote: »

There was so much text in your post that I would have to write an essay to respond to it all :P so this is what I want to focus on. You notice that in women. You also noticed it in yourself but you had your mother who gave you the confidence to pursue your career, if you chose. So you didn't need the government to come in with a gender quota. You got the support you needed from your personal life to help you decide how you wanted to pursue your professional life.

You make a fair point that I did dump a lot of text in just one post, so I’ll try to do better with this one

It wasn’t actually my mother who gave me the confidence in myself to pursue a career in IT. At the time she was actually quite opposed to the idea and cared more about fostering an interest in the Arts, something which to be fair to her does stand to me to this day, but when I suggested to her 30 years ago that computers would be the paper and pencil of tomorrow, I don’t think I’ve ever seen her laugh as hard since :pac: I’m dyslexic so paper and pencil were, and still are, problematic, and of course this was also one of the fundamental reasons for my lack of confidence in my ability to become a teacher. On Scratch Saturday (I don’t know if you’re old enough to remember the muppet with a toilet brush for hair? Not Andy Ruane - Pajo?) when I had to do a piece to camera about what I wanted to be when I grew up, “I want to be a maths teacher when I grow up”, didn’t go down well, and I was told I could say I want to be a footballer. I had the confidence to say “I don’t want to be a footballer though!”. I was an odd combination of a very dull and difficult child :pac:

I actually got the support to pursue my education from a social worker who was given my case when I moved out of home at 16 and moved into a flat while still attending secondary school and working part-time. I don’t recommend it to anyone as it was incredibly difficult, and had it not been for the social worker who saw something in me I didn’t see in myself at the time, I would not have pursued the career I did. I knew what I wanted to do, I just didn’t know how to do it, and had it not been for the social worker creating those opportunities and opening doors for me and encouraging me to go for things and supporting me, I certainly wouldn’t have had the opportunities or the motivation to do it on my own.

I personally didn’t need the Government to come in with a gender quota, and I think their current efforts to address imbalances in quotas in employment opportunities afforded to both men and women, amount to nothing more than tokenism. I feel that’s the essential difference between the two things you’re missing - Government tokenism is a result, or an outcome, of existing gender quotas which favoured opportunities in certain areas of employment historically based upon a persons sex.

Business is not about empowering people or teaching people assertiveness skills. Business is about making money. If women want to be CEO's then the onus is on them to develop these skills and put in the hours. If you want to get ahead in life, you have to believe in yourself.

If someone, man or woman, lacks the confidence in themselves, then why should they be given a position of responsibility just to fill a gender quota? What shareholder wants someone running their company who is afraid of how others perceive them?

It depends upon whether or not you want your business to be successful - a successful business from my point of view at least, is one that actually does empower people, and encourages people to be assertive. Those two things alone generate far more in revenue than businesses in which the goal is simply to make as much money as possible. As I pointed out to eddy earlier in the thread - diversity is good for any businesses bottom line, and this is backed up by plenty of research involving some of the worlds most financially successful companies. I do agree with you that if you want to get ahead in life, it’s important to believe in yourself. What is far more influential in your success however, will be the number of people who believe in you and are willing to take a chance on you and give you the opportunity to show them that they won’t regret having taken a risk in believing in you. Richard Branson is a good example of that philosophy.

You ask the question if someone lacks confidence in themselves then why should they be given a position of responsibility just to fill a gender quota. It’s precisely because people who lack confidence in themselves are in positions of responsibility that they’re now getting their knickers in a bunch when gender quotas are being touted as a way to address historical gender quotas which worked in their favour. They’re worried they may be toppled from their positions by someone who is as capable as they are, but has never had the opportunities that they have had. Shareholders generally couldn’t give a shiny shìte about who’s running a company as opposed to how they’re running a company that those shareholders are choosing to invest in. Both Steve Jobs and Mark Zuckerberg are, or were at least, notoriously insecure in themselves, and both made their fortunes and fortunes for their shareholders by empowering people and giving people the opportunities to assert themselves - hard to find anyone who isn’t glued to Facebook on their iPhones these days, precisely because they too are notoriously insecure and obsessed with how they are perceived by other people :pac:

In this day and age, there are numerous assertiveness courses. It is up to each person to decide what they want and then they have to self evaluate if they have the skills necessary to succeed. There is always going to be a level of networking. That's standard for any job. It's not just what you know, it's who you know. If I need to hire a tradesman, I'll always go with recommendations from friends, rather that risk hiring a cowboy.

Honestly, if you needed work done on your house, would you pick someone at random in the interest of fairness, or would you go with someone you could check out? That's why for even a basic minimum wage job you have to be able to provide references.

The nature of employment is changing, and traditional attitudes towards employment are becoming obsolete as they are no longer making money like they used to. That’s precisely why there is an upsurge in all this assertiveness training and so on - there was simply no need for it before as people “accepted their lot in life” so to speak. They don’t any more, and that’s why we see more and more young women demanding more of themselves, and demanding more of potential employers, because they’re beginning to realise that actually they don’t have to settle for what was traditionally regarded as “women’s work”.

It’s funny though you should ask me about needing work done on my house. I don’t own a house, I rent an apartment, and as it happens I do need work done on it. I don’t go with recommendations from friends because they generally tend to recommend a friend of a friend who it turns out is a cowboy masquerading as a professional to people who generally don’t know any better. I went on tradesman.ie and there isn’t a tradesman to be got before Christmas. As it turns out, the estate agent who just happens to be a woman, is far more resourceful when it comes to this sort of thing than I am, so I gave her the responsibility and it turns out she was able to deliver on her promises. Now whether the tradespeople she hires are actually any good or not is something I’ll have to get back to you on after Christmas. I haven’t seen their references, but I trust my estate agent knows what she’s doing. What I can tell you already is that I’m certainly glad I’m not paying for their services as they’re quoting considerably more than just minimum wage for labour alone :pac:


EDIT: I really didn’t do any better there at all, did I?

Zorya

I have a beloved relation who could be the poster girl for equality of outcome. She is intellectually brilliant, a mother, unreasonably pretty and works at the topmost level in her field of employment which is in STEM. In the decades I have known her not once, not even subtly, has she ever said one single thing that alludes to this whole idea that women have it tougher still. She brilliantly, confidently and determinedly pursued her course and is very popular with her largely male staff because she is easy going and NEVER plays the gender card. All she ever needed was the equality of opportunity that exists already here.

Silentcorner

If you just look at how each gender spends their spare time and cash you can see that both genders have (apart from a little overlap)have very different interests and passions...I cant understand why we seem hellbent on forcing any gender to do anything in his/her professional life that most do not want to do...this is one result of the unchallenged dominant feminist narrative...there are many others, each one as divisive as the next!

kneemos

Maybe it's forgotten what men do to get to the top of their profession.
Long hours,forgo family life,and a great deal of cleaning the bosses backside.
As we all know favouritism gets you way further than ability.

professore

Junkyard Tom wrote: »

This is really dumb in so many ways. Does a child neglected by an alcoholic single-parent have the same equality-of-opportunity as a child raised in a stable two-parent home with a live-in tutor?

Yes, that child is an extreme example in a very difficult home situation, but will get a full grant plus DARE funding on top of it. If they have the interest and ability they can do it. Plenty of brilliant free tutorials online they can watch on their phone. They can go study in the library or after school.

Of course there are extreme situations but most people in disadvantaged areas are not as bad as this.

No one in my family went to college and I was pushed to get a job by my parents. I applied for the grant on their behalf and assured them I'd work during the summers to top up the shortfall.

One of my daughters friends is from a very rough background yet he is studying IT and excelling at it.

Also all the grinds in the world won't help you in a STEM degree. It's also the least judgy of all the branches in college (medicine excepted). If you have the ability you will get the results. The arts and humanities are where the real snobs are.

suicide_circus

Zorya wrote: »

Sometimes I feel like I live in a divergent universe. People's ideas of what constitutes a life seem so peculiar to me. All this effort at shuffling the cards to have some kind of equality in some boring boardroom in some boring job. Why not just live a life and stop getting het up about crap that means almost zilch on any true scale of life, love, meaning, purpose, contentment etc.

I am 50 - there has never been a damn thing I could not have done if I really wanted to do it. Never. I studied what I wanted, got the marks I worked for, accepted or refused career opportunity depending on my choices and priorities. All this pseudo difficulty for women is embarrassing and patronising - fait ta vie, for fecks sake. There are enough real problems to occupy a body and mind.

but women can't make it on their own merits. we're told.

BeerWolf

biko wrote: »

It's confusing. On one hand we are supposed to disregard gender - on the other hand we are supposed to promote women, for being women.

What if I identify myself as a woman?

engiweirdo

professore wrote: »

Junkyard Tom wrote: »

This is really dumb in so many ways. Does a child neglected by an alcoholic single-parent have the same equality-of-opportunity as a child raised in a stable two-parent home with a live-in tutor?

Yes, that child is an extreme example in a very difficult home situation, but will get a full grant plus DARE funding on top of it. If they have the interest and ability they can do it. Plenty of brilliant free tutorials online they can watch on their phone. They can go study in the library or after school.

Of course there are extreme situations but most people in disadvantaged areas are not as bad as this.

No one in my family went to college and I was pushed to get a job by my parents. I applied for the grant on their behalf and assured them I'd work during the summers to top up the shortfall.

One of my daughters friends is from a very rough background yet he is studying IT and excelling at it.

Also all the grinds in the world won't help you in a STEM degree. It's also the least judgy of all the branches in college (medicine excepted). If you have the ability you will get the results. The arts and humanities are where the real snobs are.

Results are fine. Ability gets you results. Getting hired and you're back to the same game again anyway. Your results dont mean **** to them. "Fit" is the nice safe term used these days meaning you're not realky the right type of person.

professore

engiweirdo wrote: »

Results are fine. Ability gets you results. Getting hired and you're back to the same game again anyway. Your results dont mean **** to them. "Fit" is the nice safe term used these days meaning you're not realky the right type of person.

Point is if you are a white straight male and you go for a STEM job and you don't know your **** they won't hire you. If you are a black female and do know your **** they will hire you. In fact they will hire you over a similarly qualified male because you are a rare as hens teeth.

engiweirdo

professore wrote: »

engiweirdo wrote: »

Results are fine. Ability gets you results. Getting hired and you're back to the same game again anyway. Your results dont mean **** to them. "Fit" is the nice safe term used these days meaning you're not realky the right type of person.

Point is if you are a white straight male and you go for a STEM job and you don't know your **** they won't hire you. If you are a black female and do know your **** they will hire you. In fact they will hire you over a similarly qualified male because you are a rare as hens teeth.

If you're a straight white male from an obviously working class background who does know their ****e, you take a further step back in the queue.

The Pheasant2

Graces7 wrote: »

Never seen a woman working at roadworks either

I worked construction in a part of Canada that had quotas mandating that they must hire a portion of women (not sure what this proportion was but there were 3 on our site).

Two of them literally would only do the holding the STOP sign job i.e. stand there listening to tunes all day with a sign - the easiest and cushiest job by far on the site.
The third woman got more stuck in in fairness however she wasn't able for the heavier aspects of the work (which comprises the majority of the work in concrete construction), and so would mainly stick to sweeping/gathering little bits of debris etc. - helpful, but still one of the nicest/easiest jobs available on the site.

Meanwhile we'd be erecting steel shoring and scaffolds, hauling sacks of concrete and huge, long blocks of wood up stairs and ladders, hammering away at mispoured concrete and slag in the baking sun all day etc etc

We got paid the exact same for our work.

Equality eh?

Dyr

The only overwhelming privilege in most western countries is your parents bank account balance. Your skin colour and genitalia mean **** all if daddy is loaded

Rich women love this gender equality nonsense, suddenly they can claim they're at the bottom of the ladder instead of the top AND be given a leg up over their male peers

Winner, Winner, Chicken Dinner.

The Tetrarch

Wanderer2010 wrote: »

What this study fails to take into account is personal bias and the fact that your competence doesn't matter a jot if your boss simply doesn't like you and wont ever progress your career. On the other hand people who are absolutely useless can be promoted right to the top because their face fits. Its all very well banging on about women and men having equal opportunity etc etc but that ignores the harsh reality of the working world.

I hope you are not suggesting that my boss promoted his golf partner four times without having the best interests of the organisation (now closed) at heart. :pac:

steddyeddy

professore wrote: »

We already have equality of opportunity in Ireland. There is nothing stopping anyone working their butt off and getting a good degree in a well paid discipline with skill shortages - other than their own interest, motivation and ability. They are throwing money at disadvantaged students nowadays.

Once you are qualified, can work reasonably hard and have a half decent personality you will walk into a job regardless of gender, race,.sexuality etc. All the other stuff is just white noise. The ones shouting loudest about equality of outcome are people who have studied unemployable subjects.

I grew up in a council house in Crumlin to eventually lead a research project. I'd agree with you completely on social mobility with the caveat that Ireland has great social mobility for science but in areas like law or business it can be lacking.

greencap

Its this kind of sh1te.

One eyed Jack

Franz Von Peppercorn wrote: »

That’s an insane bizzarro world you live in. Teachers earn a middle class salary, it’s a secure government job, and women dominate primary school teaching.

Hmm, there’s a lot more to it than that though. While it’s true that qualified teachers who can get permanent positions after they have been probated are on the ladder to potentially earning a middle class salary (can we agree that a middle class salary is €55k? Teachers payscales for reference), the fact is that the vast majority of newly qualified teachers are unable to secure a post in a school and end up taking minimum wage jobs to make ends meet, or working piecemeal hours across as many as three different schools due to teaching shortages. It’s true that women dominate primary school teaching, which is why thanks to recent tokenism efforts - men applying are far more in demand and more likely to be hired than women, purely on the basis of the assumption that boys need male role models. What boys need are role models who inspire them to want to learn and take an interest in their own education. It’s not much good having a male teacher who isn’t capable of much more than scratching their arse who has no interest in educating children. I had a few of those in an all-boys secondary school, which were fortunately for us at least balanced out by female teachers who were passionate about education in spite of the pay being peanuts. Upon her retirement, I would hardly suggest my mother is living the high life on her Government pension.

Some get there by stomping over others. Why the concern with the boardroom, anyway? How likely is an inner city male to get to a boardroom.

Which is precisely the kind of behaviour that is stamped out when a workforce is more diverse, and the more diverse a workforce is, the more checks and balances are naturally in place to prevent people from stomping on other people who they imagine themselves to be superior to. Why the concern with the boardroom? Representation. It’s not simply a question of money, it’s also about people in positions of power and influence who represent role models for young people. Remember when you were a child and you’d tie a tea towel around your neck and jump off the back of an armchair thinking you could fly? Superman was responsible for a lot of childhood injuries back then, but he was also responsible for inspiring generations of young people, as of course was Wonder Woman for young women! New generations of young people are being inspired and influenced by Black Panther. Can’t say I could really relate to it myself, I thought the movie was terrible, but it’s what the movie represents for that black inner city male who might just be inspired to want more from their life than following their fathers and their brothers into a life of crime and anti-social behaviour.

The boardroom (or the C-suite as it’s becoming more commonly known) is the ultimate representation of success in life - a seat on the board in a successful company represents power, authority and commands a great degree of respect. Getting there, of course, is the hard part. Harder again if you’re a male from the inner city, but the days of breaking people’s balls and offering them meagre rewards for their labour are fast becoming a thing of the past, as the path to the C-suite has changed significantly over the last 20 years (article from 2011) -


Going forward, C-level executives will not simply manage their own business areas; they will be active members of the firm’s senior leadership who advise the CEO on key decisions. As one executive recruiter put it, “The C-level person today needs to be more team-oriented, capable of multitasking continuously and leading without rank, and able to resist stress and make sure that his subordinates do not burn out. And he needs to do all of this with a big smile in an open plan office. In other words, we’re looking at a whole new breed of top executive.”


The New Path To the C-Suite

It’s exact proportional to the number of women doing computer science and the equivalent, or higher in some countries.

While that’s true, I’m glad computer science isn’t the only path to a successful career in IT any more. Computer science qualifications are generally only useful if your career aspirations begin and end with being a code monkey in a cubicle for the rest of your career. I should know, I have one, and while it was useful in getting a foot in the door 20 years ago, I wouldn’t rely on it on it’s own to secure a position in an IT company nowadays as they’re being handed out like tissue paper. I look for more in any candidates nowadays than just whether or not they possess an IT qualification. It may well be their qualifications in an Arts related field which makes them an invaluable asset to a progressive company operating in a modern economy where often nowadays it’s not just what you know, but it’s whether or not you fit in with the company culture. I think that’s the path which will see more diversity in the workplace than in previous generations. I think it will happen naturally without State-sponsored tokenism efforts. Who knows? I may even shed my shirt and tie and start turning up to work in “smart casual” like everyone else in the office...

Probably not though