What does true equality of opportunity look like?

mariaalice wrote: »

The core question of equality of what has to be answered first.

One eyed Jack wrote: »

Well of course most teaching is done by tenured teachers, I already pointed out that newly qualified teachers can’t get permanent positions in schools and are effectively working part-time. I didn’t argue that teaching wasn’t a middle class salary, I asked specifically could we agree that €55k is a middle class salary? I accept that it’s possible we could differ on what we regard as peanuts, but for the work they are actually expected to do, I personally would expect a lot more than €55k to do it. You’re also ignoring the fact that many teachers will be expected to put in hours of unpaid work in the form of extra-curricular activities, which is another reason why men are more in demand nowadays than women - the need for children to do physical activities such as getting involved in sports and so on.







I wouldn’t hazard to guess how true that actually is, but it doesn’t negate my point that she is hardly living what I would call the high life on her Government pension.





You accuse me of bigotry, and then go on to imply that not only are men in prominent positions schemeful, but women are too? Again, I’ve yet to meet a schemer at the top who got there solely as a result of scheming, but in my experience, schemers regardless of their gender, generally don’t rise above bottom-feeder level. They’re generally the type of person who will accuse men at the top of scheming their way there, and women at the top of sleeping their way to the top, as opposed to recognising the work they put in to get where they are, that that person isn’t willing to put in, and then claim they could have been a contender.





That’s simply not true Franz. I can think of numerous CEO’s who’s accents are associated with inner city socioeconomically deprived areas. They come from working class backgrounds and they often remind anyone who cares to listen of this fact. I’m not talking about “I sold penny apples with me maaaa” Bill Cullen types, they’re generally spoofers, “looking for warriars” me hole, I’m talking about people who are biased against spud munchers like myself who didn’t grow up in the inner city but rather grew up in the arse hole of nowhere and in a way I’m glad I was never exposed to role models like Conor McGregor and Dr. Dre who have no regard for the responsibility they have as role models for young men. I wouldn’t want my own son to turn out anything like Conor McGregor, and I live smack bang in the middle of the inner city so I see exactly the type of behaviour he inspires in young people - behave like a scumbag, and you’ll earn a reputation for yourself as a scumbag. No amount of money will ever buy class, and Conor McGregor is proof of that if ever proof was needed.






I live in the same world as you live in where of course class exists, but it’s not as influential a factor in children’s outcomes as adults as their sex. Social mobility dictates that people can move from the lower socioeconomic classes to the upper socioeconomic classes, but what they can never change is their sex, and that will have different impacts both positive and negative on their lives as they move up the social ladder. The fact that many Irish CEOs are men who come from socioeconomically deprived backgrounds is a testament to the fact that socioeconomic class isn’t so much a barrier to children’s outcomes as adults, as their sex.

A good case in point being I met a woman out the other night and I didn’t recognise her at first, she recognised me (in spite of the fact I was no longer in possession of a six pack, but have gained a few kilos in the intervening 20 years, and she had lost a few kilos ). We had both been at the same level in a company where we both worked 20 years previously, and I had progressed much further in my career than she had in hers. The key differentiator between us? She was a single parent at the time, whereas I was not, I had the support to be able to get the promotions I got due to the fact that my wife had chosen to stay at home and raise our child, and now my wife too has chosen to focus on gaining a third level qualification in an area of employment she is interested in, that could prove to be quite lucrative if it works out for her.

I don’t see what’s unbelievable about suggesting that the days of breaking people’s balls and offering them meagre rewards for their labour are fast becoming a thing of the past. They are! In Western society we are becoming more well educated, and people who previously wouldn’t have had access to education, let alone higher education, are now able to avail of opportunities that weren’t available to them before. This increases their expectations of their value to potential employers, and employers are beginning to recognise that in order to attract top talent - they need to offer top renumeration packages, or better than their competitors anyway at least.

I don’t expect Government will recognise that reality any time soon though, as long as we still elect scheming nest featherers who are more interested in looking after themselves and their own, and so we will inevitably have to put up with the introduction of programs like the Athena SWAN program which for all intents and purposes are nothing more than a vehicle to keep a small number of people in some very well paying jobs. In reality they will do little to nothing to address the issues they claim to want to address, and as has been pointed out already by eddy - the program is hardly even out of the starting blocks before they’re arguing like children over who should be leader, each one seeing themselves as the bigger victim of some perceived social injustice. It’s all academic anyway, thankfully :pac:





They clearly do care though, as demonstrated by the fact that we’re even having this conversation, never mind the fact that the boardroom is no longer perceived to be the preserve of stuffy starched collar types, but we have the likes of CEOs like Mark Zuckerberg, Jack Dorsey, Elon Musk, Larry Page and Sergey Brin - hipster types who generally give me a pain in my face, but there’s no denying their appeal to millennials.

In fairness to the use of terms like C-suite’ and ‘going forward’ in that article - generally in Ireland anyone using the terms should be taken out back and shot with balls of their own shìte, but the article is about 10 years old and sourced from the US, did you really expect that there wouldn’t be cultural differences in the language used? That kind of language appeals to a small minority of people, most people would be unlikely to use the terms outside of the boardroom.





People with computer science degrees alone, generally do begin and end as code monkeys. In order to become CEOs, they have to have a lot more to offer than simply a degree in computer science. I also didn’t say that Arts degrees are used to hire people, I said it may well be a persons Arts degree makes them an invaluable asset to a progressive company operating in a modern economy where it’s not just what you know, but it’s whether or not you fit in with the company culture. James Damore no longer fitted in with the company culture at Google, and found that out when he decided to pull a Jerry Maguire and made himself a liability as opposed to an valuable asset :pac:

Software engineers are generally easily replaceable, software engineers who fit with the company culture on the other hand, are an invaluable asset, including software engineers from India who generally work for peanuts compared to their American counterparts. Just ask anyone who works at Disney

Lawsuits Claim Disney Colluded to Replace U.S. Workers With Immigrants


We’re not even close to being at that level in Ireland yet where Irish people are a minority in IT, in fact we’re punching well above our weight in that regard with the number of indigenous Irish people employed in Irish IT HPSUs -


High Potential Start-ups (HPSUs) - Do I qualify?





Not at all Franz, my world view is just that though - global, as we are now playing in a global economy. In that world what matters is strategies to diversify and increase profitability and sustainable growth, and part of that is of course recognising and acknowledging how the other half lives, as opposed to a formerly insular world view which was dominated by men who imagined they would always be entitled to a job for life solely by virtue of their sex, and are now finding out that such an insular world view is simply neither sustainable nor particularly profitable in the long term. That’s exactly why corporates have had to change their attitudes towards the other half - because they’re beginning to recognise the influence the other half has, ironically in part thanks to their own inventions like social media which made the global economy a whole lot smaller and does away with many of the physical barriers to employment allowing for the creation of new opportunities which didn’t exist before, like competing for market domination in IT in industrialised fast growing economies like India -





These are the top 10 tech companies to work for in India


It certainly puts your complainants about the employment prospects for your token inner city white boy in Ireland and accusing me of not knowing how the other half lives, in perspective.

One employer suggested firms were unwilling to sift through applications from those of working-class backgrounds. “Is there a diamond in the rough out there?” the unnamed recruiter told researchers. “Statistically it’s highly probable but the question is … how much mud do I have to sift through in that population to find that diamond?”