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I understood gender discrimination once I added “Mr.” to my resume

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Re: I understood gender discrimination once I added “Mr.” to my resume

#371

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You might want to look up the definition of quota then. It might not mean what you think it means. The solution to discrimination is not more / different discrimination.

De jure, de facto, potayto, potahto. Discrimination is prejudice plus power . Men are the ones with the power right now and "sexism against men" can not exist . Not in this society. Come up with a list of MRA talking points and I'll laugh at you.

dis·crim·i·na·tion /disˌkriməˈnāSHən/

Noun:

1) The unjust or prejudicial treatment of different categories of people or things, esp. on the grounds of race, age, or sex.

2) Recognition and understanding of the difference between one thing and another.

Hmmmm.... nothing in there about power.

sex·ism /ˈsekˌsizəm/

Noun:

1) Prejudice, stereotyping, or discrimination, typically against women, on the basis of sex.

Sure... it says typically against women. But if sexism against men can not exist then that definition would have to say always... not typically. So you might not want to accept it... but your statements are wrong... plain and simple... wrong. You can't just make your own definitions for words and then project them onto everyone.

Quotas discriminate. Period. If the rule says you must have 50% women and 50% men, when it comes time to hire a new person, you absolutely will have to take the gender of that person into account in order to make sure you stay within the quota. I have absolutely no idea how reasonable people can think quotas are anything but discrimination.

I'm not part of the MRA. But go ahead and lump me into the MRA group if that is what you need to do so you can laugh at me. I really don't care. Because that would just be one more thing you are doing to water down the real issues. You do your cause no good to be like that. Overuse of words that used to mean something is becoming the butt of jokes! You are making them a joke. Go laugh at that. Wolf! Wolf! Wolf! Eventually no one will listen anymore.

Re: I understood gender discrimination once I added “Mr.” to my resume

#372
post #370

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Some set of hiring managers assumed a mother with kids would likely focus more on family then career. In the present times, some set of managers would assume it for ANY woman of childbearing age. And if a woman doesn't have kids, she's assumed to get pregnant and go on maternity leave.

Actually the best remedy to this could be to give father equal length paternity leaves.

absolutely agreed. http://www.sweden.se/eng/home/society/equality/facts/gender-...

Sweden does it :)

Re: I understood gender discrimination once I added “Mr.” to my resume

#373

Earlier quoted context omitted.

If the bias is subconcious, moving to this would still have an effect.

People are remarkably good at picking up on subtle signals that correlate well with their existing biases. Instead of "It seems like a women" they'll subconsciously think "It seems like an even."

It wouldn't be perfect, but most of the effect would be removed.

Re: I understood gender discrimination once I added “Mr.” to my resume

#374

Earlier quoted context omitted.

De jure, de facto, potayto, potahto. Discrimination is prejudice plus power . Men are the ones with the power right now and "sexism against men" can not exist . Not in this society. Come up with a list of MRA talking points and I'll laugh at you.

dis·crim·i·na·tion /disˌkriməˈnāSHən/ Noun: 1) The unjust or prejudicial treatment of different categories of people or things, esp. on the grounds of race, age, or sex. 2) Recognition and understanding of the difference between one thing and another. Hmmmm.... nothing in there about power. sex·ism /ˈsekˌsizəm/ Noun: 1) Prejudice, stereotyping, or discrimination, typically against women, on the basis of sex. Sure...…

Dictionaries are not politically neutral. They record the popular, not the best, understanding of a thing, and they privilege the "mainstream" from the perspective of very white, very male, middle class academia. In practical terms, dictionaries are good at telling you what a subset of the population thinks. It's more or less argumentum ad populum, indirectly.

Re: I understood gender discrimination once I added “Mr.” to my resume

#375
post #339

Earlier quoted context omitted.

"no women, no sexual harassment suits" Why is it bigot to think that? Seems like a valid concern, can't really blame companies for worrying about that? It's of course a problem, but what is the proper solution?

I would say that the proper solution is don't sexually harass employees.

That assumes that every sexual harassment lawsuit has merit.

Re: I understood gender discrimination once I added “Mr.” to my resume

#376
post #347
post #342

Earlier quoted context omitted.

What happens is that women usually get to do the reduced time because they have a higher claim to their kids. It is not only the paternity leave, but also for example working part time later on. Dads don't get the option to do part time instead of their wives a lot. Of course it happens, but it is not the usual thing to expect.

It all depends on which country one speaks about. Many European countries, have shared leaves between parents.

As I said, it's not only the parental leave that is an issue. Often later on one parent decides to only work part time. Usually it is the mother.

Re: I understood gender discrimination once I added “Mr.” to my resume

#377
post #340

Earlier quoted context omitted.

"she's assumed to get pregnant and go on maternity leave" Would you say that assumptions is completely unfounded? What percentage of women don't have kids?

I don't think people are necessarily saying that this assumption is or is not unfounded. But it should not be grounds for not hiring someone.

But what is the solution? Why should companies be responsible to pay for that risk? I think if society doesn't want women to be disadvantaged because of the "risk" of becoming family persons, then society should pay up, not companies.

Re: I understood gender discrimination once I added “Mr.” to my resume

#378
post #340

Earlier quoted context omitted.

"she's assumed to get pregnant and go on maternity leave" Would you say that assumptions is completely unfounded? What percentage of women don't have kids?

You'd need to narrow it down some - what percentage of women in "industry X" don't have kids. I don't know if the numbers would be significantly different, but they might for some industries.

In some industries you might not have a significant enough number of women to create a significant statistic.

Re: I understood gender discrimination once I added “Mr.” to my resume

#379
post #92

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Seriously, have a think about it. That comment might be smarter than it first appears.

Could you elaborate, I'm failing to read between the lines.

Perhaps the idea is that OP was actually fishing for compliments. She said she doesn't want to evoke unwanted attention because she is too good looking, but by writing that she notified the internet of being very good looking.

Re: I understood gender discrimination once I added “Mr.” to my resume

#380

Earlier quoted context omitted.

For tech companies it shouldn't be a problem to interview candidates blindly. Give some questions as written tests and coding assignments. If talking is necessary, there is software changing voice pitch. Skype has a plugin like that. Just interview a candidate sitting in another room, streaming what they write and use the same voice settings for all candidates. My impression that nobody uses written tests because com…

The problem with that is similar to "online dating". Sure you can learn a lot about a person without ever seeing or hearing them... but you don't really know a person until you have spent a portion of time actually interacting with them. If you are hiring a person to be part of a team, you need that person to gel with the team at least on some level. I don't think you could get an accurate representation of that if y…

Exactly. You can anonymously sort for IQ, but not for EQ. And the IQ parts can be gamed. (I know of someone who "cheated" their way into Microsoft)
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