At what point will gender equality stop

fez

fez

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Its a topic that comes up a lot in the media in various guises and hot topics obviously come and go but it feels like until women make up > 50% of everything deemed male dominated it won't stop.

There are a huge number of industries where women outnumber men but that isn't an issue. Tech however is constantly berated for having too few women. No suggestion that it appeals to men more than women its simply an issue with sexism.

The number of CEOs in huge businesses is heavily skewed in favour of men again. This isn't because to become vital to billion $ companies you have to dedicate your professional and personal life to them, no, its again sexist.

Women should be able to have children, not work for years and not suffer in their careers in any way. I don't know about most of you but a lot of the time when I talk to women about maternity leave or you overhear them talking about it its clear why its such a big issues.

A large percentage of women wish to have children and raise their children themselves. They don't want to work a 9-5 stressful job and miss their children growing up. Having children is a big time sink and having more than one will take over your life in most cases. The majority of women do not see this as an issue. It is what they want. They may go back to work but it quite often isn't full time and things change. Being out of an industry for a few years is hard.

A large percentage of women see their company as a pinata to whack to see how much cash they can squeeze from them and will time pregnancies to essentially not work for a few years and then leave the company at the end of it. If you do it right you can have 2 children and barely go back to work. A lot of people don't see an issue with this.

There are a lot of statistics about the gender pay gap for mothers vs men yet they never seem to explain who they are including and what their criteria is for the data.

I think we should do what we can to help people who want to work whatever their circumstances but it feels like we are getting to the point of trying to make having a child something that doesn't affect your life at all.

If you take the pregnancy out of the equation completely and you tell a company that one of their employees isn't going to be about for perhaps a year, they may come back for a little bit and then do the same again, they may do this for a few years and never come back. All the time you cannot replace them properly as they could come back. This is the biggest barrier in my opinion to women progressing in some areas. Children also mean your situation can change rapidly at any time.

Anyway, it just annoys me how one sided the debate on these things is in the media. It seems like if you disagree then you are sexist.
 
It's a touchy subject and sadly off limits to sensible discussion most of the time as a certain band of people will vilify you for simply asking the question.

Women should not be penalised for having children, of course, but should they be paid for years of missed experience/time working over a person who has not had kids?

That's the real question. Is the "pay gap" a product of oppression or inequality or simply the product of a statistical anomaly created by the time out of work that is (in general) dominated by women?
 
Women should not be penalised for having children, of course, but should they be paid for years of missed experience/time working over a person who has not had kids?

Yes, because a new child will be worth more to the country both in economic terms and every other measure than whatever work could be done in the same length of time taken for maternity leave.
 
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Good post malt. I believe it to be down to differing experience levels and also missed opportunities as a result of being off as well as...more importantly choice.
My aunts for example both chose careers which would maximise their time available with my cousins.
 
When all the moaning feminists can have their cake and eat it too.

Free education for woman, cuz yaknow?
Free travel for woman, buses are descriminating.
Priorities for every job, cuz derp not enuff wimenz in diz job (but I picked gender equality degree)

Why are female models paid way more than males?

Sexism baby....
 
Unfortunately, discrimination of all kinds still exists in the workplace (and elsewhere). Until such a time as everyone is actually treated equally there will be positive discrimination enforced to try and redress the balance.

It's just a stage of society we have to go through to reach the point of equality for all.
 
A large percentage of women wish to have children and raise their children themselves. They don't want to work a 9-5 stressful job and miss their children growing up. Having children is a big time sink and having more than one will take over your life in most cases. The majority of women do not see this as an issue. It is what they want. They may go back to work but it quite often isn't full time and things change. Being out of an industry for a few years is hard.

A large percentage of women see their company as a pinata to whack to see how much cash they can squeeze from them and will time pregnancies to essentially not work for a few years and then leave the company at the end of it. If you do it right you can have 2 children and barely go back to work. A lot of people don't see an issue with this.

This is not an issue for women. This is an issue for society and is values based. Society needs children to be raised.

Many of the gender gap statistics that are quoted take raising children into account. My opinion is that it's better for parents to raise their children rather than external nannies or child carers. So that means that at least one of the parents needs to stay home and fulfil that role and current societal norms mean that it's more acceptable for that to be mum rather than dad. Who's fault is that? It's societies fault for having that social norm and so it means society needs to decide to compensate for that.
 
Unfortunately, discrimination of all kinds still exists in the workplace (and elsewhere). Until such a time as everyone is actually treated equally there will be positive discrimination enforced to try and redress the balance.

It's just a stage of society we have to go through to reach the point of equality for all.

What is equality though. We are not all equal. We are not all the same intelligence, strength, beauty, personality etc. We don't have the same drive, priorities, skills, aptitudes. Science tells us that men and women are not the same. That isn't a bad thing and I don't see why it is treated as such.
 
Unfortunately, discrimination of all kinds still exists in the workplace (and elsewhere). Until such a time as everyone is actually treated equally there will be positive discrimination enforced to try and redress the balance.

It's just a stage of society we have to go through to reach the point of equality for all.

This is one of the things about equality, it's not about being equal in how you treat people, it's about equality of opportunity.

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It will never stop until we get more control of our biology and we can control our genetics. Before the modern world existed all cultures even those remote and cut off fell into similar gender specific roles. This was not an accident it is ingrained in us. There are always exceptions to it but you can see it throughout nature.
 
Not really relevant but I went part time/self employed when my wife and I had our children. Now they are old enough for 9-3 school I am back in full time work. :)
 
Parts of society are skewed in favour of women and some just happen to be skewed toward men. Sadly some laws are deliberately skewed against men.

I would be surprised if anyone could find a law in favour of men that could not easily be rebuked or rubbished
 
My opinion is that it's better for parents to raise their children rather than external nannies or child carers. So that means that at least one of the parents needs to stay home and fulfil that role and current societal norms mean that it's more acceptable for that to be mum rather than dad. Who's fault is that? It's societies fault for having that social norm and so it means society needs to decide to compensate for that.

I don't know how much of that you can pin on being the societal norm. Women are biologically wired to want to have children and look after children. Men in general are happier than women to work and see their children evenings and weekends as it were.
 
In my personal experience, attitudes towards work changes once a child comes into the equation too, I've seen women who work their butts off at work, return after maternity and no longer give a monkeys, they are only there to earn enough to get by and don't care about anyone or anything in the company, just getting home to their kid.

I understand that completely but its not likely to earn you a pay rise or promotion is it, compared to someone who's willing to go the extra mile and doesn't have to take time off whenever baby is poorly yet it is my understanding they are probably included in this statistic about being paid less etc.
 
I don't know how much of that you can pin on being the societal norm. Women are biologically wired to want to have children and look after children. Men in general are happier than women to work and see their children evenings and weekends as it were.

Why are there more stay at home dads now than there were 30 years ago?

Is it because men are becoming more biologically wired to want to look after kids, or is it because the societal norm is changing?
 
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