google employee's internal diversity memo goes viral

Amp34 said:
And the politics right have been hijacked by the alt right.

Where does it leave us that are in the middle? ;)
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There is no middle ground. If you dare to question either side you are pigeon holed by them.

It is already coming to blows, just look at the violent rallies in America. Two groups of people hell bent on their view points that are completely unwilling to engage in dialogue. You can laugh about it now but it is coming here soon.

The alt-right don't pervade mainstream media, university campuses and corporate workplaces to the extent the ultra liberal left does. The alt-right is effectively some angry boys making nasty comments on the internet.
 
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TallPaul1878 said:
You haven't got a clue about how physically demanding construction is. You really haven't.

I'm an electrician and consider myself in very good physical shape. I work out and I ride a road bike regularly, yet I return home from work absolutely battered. By Thursday I'm flagging and thankful that I've prepared my working week so that by Friday I'm doing some testing and inspection rather than knocking chunks out of walls again.

Plumbers retire from work with wrecked knees.

Brick laying. Absolutely hilarious. I can guarantee that you've never picked up a trowel in your entire life.

Your body doesn't adapt, it recovers. Over and over again. I'm 35 and have pains in my fingers every once in a while, pins and needles. Doctors say it is the early onset of arthritis. That's because the job does damage to your body and I'm a relatively very healthy male, doctors agree.

Women don't adapt to these conditions they suffer. They get more repetitive strain injuries, more broken bones and more tired out.
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And you don't have a clue about my background so perhaps rather than acting all high and mighty you could be a bit politer. ;) So let's be clear, all those guarentees. They're wrong. :)

I can almost guarantee however that you are stronger because you work in construction than you would be if you worked in an office (all things being equal), which is the point.

The data backs up my claims as well. Yes construction is tiring and damaging work, but there are plenty of women that can quite happily do it, and in fact with the push to get more women into construction the number of women on building sites (including brickies) is on the up.

Two of the biggest issues in construction regarding women at the moment are not strength, they're the culture on site and the persuading women that construction is a career that women can flourish in.

Currently around 1% of the construction force are women in the UK, is that really representative of the number of women that can actually do the job, or is there something else at play here? If that is representative then does that mean that women in the UK are significantly smaller and weaker than women in other countries that make up greater proportions of the construction industry workforce?
 
TallPaul1878 said:
There is no middle ground. If you dare to question either side you are pigeon holed by them.

It is already coming to blows, just look at the violent rallies in America. Two groups of people hell bent on their view points that are completely unwilling to engage in dialogue. You can laugh about it now but it is coming here soon.

The alt-right don't pervade mainstream media, university campuses and corporate workplaces to the extent the ultra liberal left does. The alt-right is effectively some angry boys making nasty comments on the internet.
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That and arguably many of the major newspapers in the UK, and the US presidency. At the very least to a similar amount as the "ultra liberal left" do.
 
Amp34 said:
And you don't have a clue about my background so perhaps rather than acting all high and mighty you could be a bit politer. ;) So let's be clear, all those guarentees. They're wrong. :)

I can almost guarantee however that you are stronger because you work in construction than you would be if you worked in an office (all things being equal), which is the point.

The data backs up my claims as well. Yes construction is tiring and damaging work, but there are plenty of women that can quite happily do it, and in fact with the push to get more women into construction the number of women on building sites (including brickies) is on the up.

Two of the biggest issues in construction regarding women at the moment are not strength, they're the culture on site and the persuading women that construction is a career that women can flourish in.

Currently around 1% of the construction force are women in the UK, is that really representative of the number of women that can actually do the job, or is there something else at play here? If that is representative then does that mean that women in the UK are significantly smaller and weaker than women in other countries that make up greater proportions of the construction industry workforce?
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There is no bloke culture on site that prevents women from working. Most site cleaners are female, sales staff are predominantly female, interior designers are predominantly female. Nobody is willing to get fired by making an untoward comment to a female colleague.

1% of site workers are female because they represent the very few people that actually want to do the job. More people are killed in the construction industry per year than on the battlefields of Iraq and Afghanistan. It's a dangerous job, it's hard work and despite it's relatively high pay in places MOST people choose not to do it. Women especially.

To claim that more and more women are coming into construction is a fallacy, especially bricklaying which is incredibly labour intensive.

From the nature of your comment I feel completely vindicated in questioning your experience in the construction industry.

Sure, big companies like British Gas and Virgin Media might be employing more females. These are exceptional cases. These companies do a particular job. Connecting up a meter box usually, that job is not anywhere close to as physical as a general electrical or plumbing job.

Construction will always be dominated by men, such as war fighting will be and caregiving and teaching roles seem dominated by women. That's what this whole argument is about. Men and women are biologically different, they think differently and want different things from life. There is always going to areas that cross over when you are talking about millions and millions of people but to deny that it exists is to deny a scientific fact.
 
J.T said:
Yeah, has nothing to do with the fact that most woman (note I said most not all!) just don't want to do those types of jobs...
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Exactly.

The question is why?

Same question goes for why is nursing dominated by women.

A significant reason (but not the only reason) is that many are driven by societal norms about what are women's jobs and what are men's jobs. It's something that many in a lot of industries are trying to change, be that women in construction or engineering, or men in nursing and teaching.
 
Amp34 said:
Exactly.

The question is why?

Same question goes for why is nursing dominated by women.

A significant reason (but not the only reason) is that many are driven by societal norms about what are women's jobs and what are men's jobs. It's something that many in a lot of industries are trying to change, be that women in construction or engineering, or men in nursing and teaching.
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Societal norms that have been in place for thousands of years and repeatable across all cultures across the globe.

So why are we trying to reinvent the wheel here? What is so terrible about a society that has functioned this way for it's entire time on the planet and now all of a sudden it's "wrong" and steps must be taken to change things.
 
Amp34 said:
A significant reason (but not the only reason) is that many are driven by societal norms about what are women's jobs and what are men's jobs. It's something that many in a lot of industries are trying to change, be that women in construction or engineering, or men in nursing and teaching.
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What evidence do you have to support this? If anything, recent studies indicate male and females have different preferences. Unless you're telling me that male and female monkeys were subject to the same societal norms?
 
Schlong&Stable said:
Yes, I was about so say the same. Most of these jobs are physically challenging in some way or another. Spending all your days reaching under floorboards to run pipe or cable is just not something most women are robust enough to endure if they have a choice. Which thanks to a fairly generous welfare system, they do.
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Heck, try doing any lightweight job that involves climbing up and down a ladder all day. Most people don't realise just bending down, climbing ladders, standing, digging, crouching, etc can be physically tough and demanding when you're doing it all day, and that's before you've even done the actual job!
 
Amp34 said:
The question is why?

Same question goes for why is nursing dominated by women.

A significant reason (but not the only reason) is that many are driven by societal norms about what are women's jobs and what are men's jobs. It's something that many in a lot of industries are trying to change, be that women in construction or engineering, or men in nursing and teaching.
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You won't get the answer you want for that because nursing is similar to nurturing and a women's biological role is to nurture.

Shoulda used a better example.

Teaching is a very gender-neutral profession though.
 
TallPaul1878 said:
There is no bloke culture on site that prevents women from working. Most site cleaners are female, sales staff are predominantly female, interior designers are predominantly female. Nobody is willing to get fired by making an untoward comment to a female colleague.

1% of site workers are female because they represent the very few people that actually want to do the job. More people are killed in the construction industry per year than on the battlefields of Iraq and Afghanistan. It's a dangerous job, it's hard work and despite it's relatively high pay in places MOST people choose not to do it. Women especially.

To claim that more and more women are coming into construction is a fallacy, especially bricklaying which is incredibly labour intensive.

From the nature of your comment I feel completely vindicated in questioning your experience in the construction industry.

Sure, big companies like British Gas and Virgin Media might be employing more females. These are exceptional cases. These companies do a particular job. Connecting up a meter box usually, that job is not anywhere close to as physical as a general electrical or plumbing job.

Construction will always be dominated by men, such as war fighting will be and caregiving and teaching roles seem dominated by women. That's what this whole argument is about. Men and women are biologically different, they think differently and want different things from life. There is always going to areas that cross over when you are talking about millions and millions of people but to deny that it exists is to deny a scientific fact.
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Presumably you also disagree with UCATT then?

https://www.ucatt.org.uk/women-construction

No one is denying that men and women aren't biologically different and I don't disagree that construction is likely to be dominated by men into the future. However, that difference does not explain the woeful number of women in construction, nor does it explain why the UK has such a low number of women compared to other countries.

Yes you may have had a girl in once, she doesn't represent all women however.

And some more links for you to show that your opinions are incorrect.

https://www.constructionnews.co.uk/...ll-the-women-in-construction/10017903.article

It discusses the lack of interest (and lack of knowledge) of the construction industry amongst girls, the perception of it and the push to enlighten girls to it.

It discusses the issue of the culture on site - one of the examples used being treated like a daughter, rather than a colleague, while questions are differed to other (males) on site.
 
SquirrelMadness said:
You won't get the answer you want for that because nursing is similar to nurturing and a women's biological role is to nurture.

Shoulda used a better example.

Teaching is a very gender-neutral profession though.
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Is it now? Presumably you also believe that women should be the ones taking time off to look after kids while the male continues to work full time to support them?

And as for teaching, it's gone full circle almost. It used to be predominantly male, now it's very much a female dominated profession.

https://www.google.ca/amp/www.indep...ly-24-of-new-recruits-are-men-942819.html?amp

Why is that?
 
Amp34 said:
Is it now? Presumably you also believe that women should be the ones taking time off to look after kids while the male continues to work full time to support them?

And as for teaching, it's gone full circle almost. It used to be predominantly male, now it's very much a female dominated profession.

https://www.google.ca/amp/www.independent.co.uk/news/education/education-news/gender-gap-in-teaching-grows-only-24-of-new-recruits-are-men-942819.html?amp

Why is that?
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Because there's a long growing stigma attached to men working with children. There's almost no male primary school teachers coming into the profession because everyone thinks they are paedophiles. Another example of male privilege I presume.
 
Amp34 said:
Currently around 1% of the construction force are women in the UK, is that really representative of the number of women that can actually do the job, or is there something else at play here? If that is representative then does that mean that women in the UK are significantly smaller and weaker than women in other countries that make up greater proportions of the construction industry workforce?
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This is ridiculous. Correlation =/= causation.

The construction industry is male dominated because female blue collar workers gravitate towards social care and admin work. Just because women aren't as strong as men physically doesn't necessarily mean that is the reason they don't become construction workers. There are a huge number of factors.

If that's what women and men want to do, I don't see a problem. People doing what they want is fine by me.
 
The construction industry can change, it does need to be made safer and in turn that may entice more women into the jobs. Newer technology and building practices should hopefully alleviate the need for such physical manual labour.

But we will never see parity in the construction industry between men and women on the simple grounds that women are just not inclined to do it for a long term career. Hell most men don't want to stay in it for a long term career, they all know it will shorten their life expectancy.

It's ridiculous to suggest that it is society that keeps women out of specific job roles and as far as UCATT are concerned, the unions have little to no presence within the industry.

But of course, my opinions and person experience of 15 years on the job count for nothing as they do not tow the party line do they.

That's why this conversation is meaningless, there's no point preaching to the converted, you have drawn your guns and will be sticking to them. I just hope that one day they don't backfire.
 
Steampunk said:
Because there's a long growing stigma attached to men working with children. There's almost no male primary school teachers coming into the profession because everyone thinks they are paedophiles. Another example of male privilege I presume.
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Coupled with the fact that the power dynamic in school has shifted completely away from teachers. Who would want to get involved in that? The potential to have your career destroyed by a matter of hearsay! Thanks but no thanks.
 
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