The end to Fireman Sam?

Kronos said:
The Commissioner of the London Fire Brigade thinks we should stop saying the word ‘fireman’ to encourage more women and BAME applicants.

Should we stop using the word? Would it really make a difference?

What on earth is a BAME?

Should we just stop using the term man?

Has the world gone mad?
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I was seriously wondering the other night, why do the Oscars have a "Best Actor" and "Best Actress" award?

Given all the PC stuff surround gender identity thought crime. A chairman is now just a "chair" that you can't sit on; in the media actresses are always now called "actors"; firemen are all being replaced by firepeople...

So why is it OK for the Oscars to separate actors and actresses with their own awards? Surely it should just be "Best Actor" and that's that?

After all we're not allowed to call actresses "actresses" now, we must call them "actors" (apparently "actress" is a homophobic racist slur used by the Nazi alt-right). So shouldn't we all boycott the Oscars, or at least wear a balaclava and hide our faces whilst we watch on TV?
 
Womyn just sounds like the plural of woman tbh.

Should go all out and change it to Femin. Men and Femin. Or Men and Femme.
 
FortuitousFluke said:
The best way to put it is like this, if you have a job where you have 10 applications, 9 from white British men, and 1 from other demographies I would focus on finding a way to increase the 1, not reduce the 9.
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Surely whether we need to do that is based on the makeup of the population in the area the job is based in?

If you're recruiting for a job in an area where 90% of the population is white, then it would hardly be unusual for 90% of the applicants to be white, and that's not exactly a problem which needs to be solved.

If it's an area with e.g. a 50/50 split then sure, maybe it needs some investigation as to why the figures are skewed

Obviously for the sake of equality, we'd also have to identify which jobs the BAME candidates are disproportionately applying for, and figure out how to increase the number of British white men applying for them...
 
From a pure grammatical perspective there is no issue with Fireman Sam. We are reliably informed he is a man. Likewise Batman, Superman, Wonder Woman. These are singular people with a fixed gender.

The issue is when you say 'I need a Fireman to help me'. That is not a singular person but one from a group who could be male, female or transgender. Then Firefighter is the correct term. Like Police Officer.
 
terley said:
Consider me schooled, fair play bro keep up the good work.
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Fair play fella, to be honest I'm just a "weekend warrior" retained fire fighter, but had to play the card to stand up for my sisters in the service.
Have to admit that though the push for a more diverse force has resulted in some really cringe worthy recruiting material but beyond that and some here-say from embittered folk who couldn't make the jump to whole time I haven't seen it affect things operationally, we still get plenty of sleep n pool games in
 
FoxEye said:
I was seriously wondering the other night, why do the Oscars have a "Best Actor" and "Best Actress" award?

Given all the PC stuff surround gender identity thought crime. A chairman is now just a "chair" that you can't sit on; in the media actresses are always now called "actors"; firemen are all being replaced by firepeople...

So why is it OK for the Oscars to separate actors and actresses with their own awards? Surely it should just be "Best Actor" and that's that?

After all we're not allowed to call actresses "actresses" now, we must call them "actors" (apparently "actress" is a homophobic racist slur used by the Nazi alt-right). So shouldn't we all boycott the Oscars, or at least wear a balaclava and hide our faces whilst we watch on TV?
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I was under the impression that "actor" was a gender neutral term anyway. The word "actress" doesnt need to exist. A women is doing exactly the same job as a man when acting. It's almost as if we need to say "farmer" and "farmess". Everything needs to be labelled and pigeonholed now.
 
Haggisman said:
Surely whether we need to do that is based on the makeup of the population in the area the job is based in?

If you're recruiting for a job in an area where 90% of the population is white, then it would hardly be unusual for 90% of the applicants to be white, and that's not exactly a problem which needs to be solved.

If it's an area with e.g. a 50/50 split then sure, maybe it needs some investigation as to why the figures are skewed

Obviously for the sake of equality, we'd also have to identify which jobs the BAME candidates are disproportionately applying for, and figuring out how to increase the number of British white men applying for them...
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Like I said you're not looking for a mirror image (even though I rather confusingly used the word mirror repeatedly in this thread). You want companies and organisations that are broadly speaking demographically representative of the groups they work with or support or represent. On a local level this means for areas where there is a higher make up of BAME groups then it's useful to be able to represent those groups in your workforce. At a national level I think it's a lot more strategic, you're not really looking for a 75% white 10% black etc makeup, your looking to be able to say that this is a job for anyone, that this isn't just a job for white men, or black women, or multi-coloured attack helicopters.

You're right, in some areas a majority white workforce would be representative, there are still benefits to a bit a of diversity as different backgrounds bring different perspectives/skills/outlooks (not just talking about race or gender here), but at the end of the day you can only recruit from the pool that is available. Like I've said previously it's not about shoe-horning more BAME people into certain jobs, it's about saying "hey, we live in an area which is 60% BAME, why aren't any BAME people applying for our jobs? What can we do to engage them so we can make use of the resource that we currently seem to be locked out of?".

In response to your second point, if I were heading up an industry that for some reason had a lack of interest from British males then I'd be extremely interested in knowing why that is and working to address the issue. It's not a case of just supporting minorities, although for a variety of reasons (some valid some not) they tend to be focused on more, it's about gaining the unique advantages of a more diverse workforce. People tend to think of all white boardrooms for instance as being out of touch echo chambers, but the fact of the matter is you'll have similar issues with all black or all asian boardrooms, we just talk about it less because there aren't that many of them in this Country.
 
Haggisman said:
Surely whether we need to do that is based on the makeup of the population in the area the job is based in?

If you're recruiting for a job in an area where 90% of the population is white, then it would hardly be unusual for 90% of the applicants to be white, and that's not exactly a problem which needs to be solved.

If it's an area with e.g. a 50/50 split then sure, maybe it needs some investigation as to why the figures are skewed

Obviously for the sake of equality, we'd also have to identify which jobs the BAME candidates are disproportionately applying for, and figure out how to increase the number of British white men applying for them...
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The trouble is often people don't care about the root cause, just the headline figure - which can be paraded in bold type on 24 hour news.

Ie if in a 50/50 area only the white population hold the necessary qualifications and/or experience (for any role), the real question should be "why aren't the non-white population attaining these qualifications as readily?" But it's easier to just say to an employer, "You must recruit more BAME regardless until you reach 50/50, you horrible racists."
 
Stuff like this is absolutely stupid, but thats the world we live in.

IMO sticking a label like 'BAME' on people doesnt help either.
 
FoxEye said:
Ie if in a 50/50 area only the white population hold the necessary qualifications and/or experience (for any role), the real question should be "why aren't the non-white population attaining these qualifications as readily?" But it's easier to just say to an employer, "You must recruit more BAME regardless until you reach 50/50, you horrible racists."
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This! You don't meddle with the outcome, you remove the barriers that lead to that outcome.
 
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