Hiring Men or Women

[sisterofmercy]

I'm fairly sure it's possible to get paternity leave as a new father too so it shouldn't be quite as cut and dry as it used to be. Think I had two male teachers leave for a while as their partners had children. It's not as much as maternity leave but it's still time off.

 

[patriot1123]

Just for information as the topic is discussed:

Under United States federal law, discrimination based on pregnancy or gender is only unlawful for employers of fifteen or more employees - not for smaller employers. State laws may vary.

I can understand the impetus, if legal, to hire people who aren't as likely to take long periods of leave during their employment. I have mixed feelings about it.

 

[white avenger]

I preface this post by confessing that I am a woolly-headed liberal...

[MENTION=6758]white avenger[/MENTION] [MENTION=11237]Mr Giles[/MENTION]

I live in the UK where affirmative action isn't enforced nearly as harshly as it is in the US and other countries. I appreciate that I may have a rose-tinted view of the reality of the situation, but it seems logical that you hire the best person for the success of your business.

That doesn't necessarily mean the best qualified person. It might mean the person who has the brightest, morale-lifting personality which increases productivity or the harshest taskmaster who rules with an iron fist, which has the same effect. It may also mean hiring the woman with the fruitful womb because even if she misses 26 weeks of work, the long term benefit of having her in the business outweighs the short-term hassle and expense.

In the real world, morale is great in its place, but not if feeling good costs in production and work quality. That leads to loss of customers, which leads to lay offs, reduction or elimination of bonuses, loss of benefits...and poor morale.

Top quality, professional,well motivated employees, no matter how unhappy they might be, lead to increased quality of product, which leads to more customers, greater demand, new jobs, bigger bonuses, better benefits...and improved morale.

If I were running a company, I would rather have employees who grumble a bit but get the job done than employees who love each other but can't keep up production. Sorry, but I'm just strange that way.

 

[This Year's Girl]

In a heterosexual couple both men and women should (want to) take parental leave. A man also "have a child" even if he doesn't give birth. Also, there are gay male couples. I don't know how it is in other countries, but in Sweden it's illegal to discriminate a woman in this matter in the hiring process and I think that's 100 % right.

 

[Cast No Shadow]

I agree it's wrong, but regardless of laws being in place, this won't stop people doing it. There's nothing stopping an employer just saying "ah well he was just better suited for the position", hiding their real motives.

 

[Professor Walsh]

Its the law in Britain to take up to 1 years leave. And i agree, honestly i do, that its totally unfair, to judge a potential employee based on the fact she 'might' get pregnant. But, for the simple fact it is the law(which is a joke and the government should pay) then you can understand an employers sceptasism.

Since when did the UK have 12 months fully paid maternal leave?

---------- Post added at 10:26 AM ---------- Previous post was at 10:10 AM ----------

This thread reminds me of why I pay my income tax with a smile on my face. Here, we get up to a year's parental leave with 80% pay, of which some is earmarked for the father, some for the mother and some can be split as the parents please. This is paid for over the national welfare budget.

 

[Bexieh]

I can understand where small business owners might be coming from as it could be pretty damaging if they're struggling to keep afloat and then have to pay for an extra employee on top of it. But I still think it's unfair to judge on who might or might not get pregnant. How can you possibly tell? Unless you're psychic, even if you ask someone if they plan on having kids any time soon, accidents do happen. And like many people have said, men can take paternity leave so choosing a man instead is never going to be a safe bet either. Even so I still don't believe it's right. I can't say I have much experience in the world of work but I'd like to think I have the same chance of getting hired as anyone else, not a lesser chance because I'm a woman and one day I might just end up pregnant. Planned or not.

---------- Post added at 11:25 AM ---------- Previous post was at 11:24 AM ----------

Also, I never heard about Joss firing Charisma?! I'm kinda shocked!!

 

[Cast No Shadow]

I also think it's important to note that it's not just women who have to work against prejudice in the workplace, it definitely happens to men too.

When it comes to my line of work, I know if I go for a teaching job in a primary school and the other candidate is male, I have much more chance of getting it.

Males are rarely employed in primary schools, unless it's in a managerial role (e.g. head teacher - which brings up another prejudice) because they're seen as 'predatory', and people question their motives for working with young children, which is entirely unfair.

 

[xfivebyfive]

I also think it's important to note that it's not just women who have to work against prejudice in the workplace, it definitely happens to men too.

When it comes to my line of work, I know if I go for a teaching job in a primary school and the other candidate is male, I have much more chance of getting it.

Males are rarely employed in primary schools, unless it's in a managerial role (e.g. head teacher - which brings up another prejudice) because they're seen as 'predatory', and people question their motives for working with young children, which is entirely unfair.

Maybe thats how it is there but here the majority of teachers are female because more women want to be teachers then men. Not because theyre not hiring men. Why do you think teachers get paid so little? Because its a predominantly female career and therefore less valued.

 

[This Year's Girl]

[MENTION=11317]Cast No Shadow[/MENTION] Good point. Etnicity is often a issue too. Although women tend to have more difficulties in the workplace than men, but it definitely happens to men too.

 

[Cast No Shadow]

Maybe thats how it is there but here the majority of teachers are female because more women want to be teachers then men. Not because theyre not hiring men. Why do you think teachers get paid so little? Because its a predominantly female career and therefore less valued.

Well, obviously I can't make a comparison because you're from the US, and I'm from the UK, but here teaching is a HUGELY valued career, with a very decent wage, which (along with LOVING it) is part of why I decided to train.

There is a fairly equal women:male ratio in my classes, and it's just a shame that they're definitely as skilled as the women, often more skilled, yet they are limited simply because of their sex.

Perhaps it is a lesser issue, but I think equality should always be achieved, and just because it happens less often doesn't mean it's less important.

---------- Post added at 05:16 PM ---------- Previous post was at 04:59 PM ----------

[MENTION=10588]SlayerOfVampyrs[/MENTION], a teacher here isn't on a set wage, they're on a pay scale, so they earn more for each year of teaching.

It also depends on the type of teacher you are. There's NQT, which I will be, which is on the lowest pay scale. Then there's Advanced, then there's excellent.

If you're a Newly Qualified Teacher (NQT) you start on around £22,500, for the first year.
You then move onto around £24,500 in your second year, working up in a similar £2000 jump until you're 6th year, at £32,500.

Then you can move on to Advanced and Excellent.

It also changes depending on where you live. If you teach in inner city London, you start on £27,000.

 

[sisterofmercy]

I wouldn't say teachers are amazingly well paid for the kind of job they perform. That said, I'm going to be a teacher for a while as it's better than not having a job at all and in this climate you have to have sensible job prospects even if you don't find it hugely enjoyable.

But yeah there is a shortage of male primary school teachers here. Not so much for secondary schools though I think. It might not come down to it being discrimination against males, it just might be that males don't feel as suited to teaching people quite that young. The Government is trying to encourage more male teachers though.

 

[Taake]

Sidenote: here in Sweden I'd say that once you get to like middle school the ratio between female/male teachers is about 50/50, in pre-schools the employees are predominantly female, not to say there aren't any males, they're just considerably less. So teaching has never been a job that I thought of as having a gender bias, in high school I actually only had two female teachers and like six or seven different male ones...

Anyway, the question du jour: hiring men or women....
my pick; women
my reason; they smell better

... and of course I'm joking. I think hiring should be based on quality of work or experience and not gender, I realize that this is not the reality in many cases and that's a shame, that's really something that needs to be worked on.
To me there's nothing that says a man will be a better employee (even if his paternity leave is optional - don't think it is here anymore though...). That's what - a year of your time? Valulable time for sure, but in the larger scope of things, not that big, men around here stay at home with sick kids as much as women do so I don't see the difference in hiring either a mother or a father.

What I think is regretable is the attitude that female employees can be somehow penalized for the chance that they might have a child at some point during their career. To me it's an archaic opinion and if that's the reason it's ridiculous. Personally I've never encountered it, but it's a sad thought. If there's some other kind of gender/race bias in the employer then it's equally regretable. I think White Avenger made a good point that there's always someone who's going to feel discrimminated against should they not be chosen for a particular job... however I still think that there still is a real problem with these things in the world. Just because many people are shouting discrimmination it doesn't mean that none of them are right.

Though I think there's a general misunderstanding with how progressive our day and age is. It is very progressive comparatively of course, but it's not ideal, it'll probably never be ideal truth be told, but at least there's voices out there. Working to change it.

It wasn't that long ago since discrimmination looked considerably worse and we owe a lot to our ancestors who helped us this far down the road. So for me I think this is an important topic, because there shouldn't be a difference in hiring depending soley on gender, and I know that I at least want my child to grow up in a world where when he enters the work-force this won't be as big of a problem and females won't be de-valued either in hiring or salary. As long as you pull your weight as an employee, your gender should carry no importance.

*long rant over*

 

[SlayerFest]

You start a thread like this...on a Buffy forum. You're looking for a fight haha.

If the man is more qualified, he gets hired, if the woman is...she gets hired. I mean there are other factors, obviously, but I don't understand hiring a man solely because he's a man, or because a woman might get pregnant.

---------- Post added at 09:31 AM ---------- Previous post was at 09:29 AM ----------

Ok, so say you hire a woman, that gets pregnant 3 months later, and she takes a years paternity leave. So you hire someone else to cover for her, while still paying for the other women on leave. That means (even as a small struggling business) your paying for 2 people to do the one persons job.
Say she comes back for 3 months, and gets pregnant again! Then your still legally obliged to pay her. Is that fair on the employer?

Hahah a year of paternity leave!? Women only get 6 months here, which is so lame.

 

[Cast No Shadow]

I wouldn't say teachers are amazingly well paid for the kind of job they perform. That said, I'm going to be a teacher for a while as it's better than not having a job at all and in this climate you have to have sensible job prospects even if you don't find it hugely enjoyable.

But yeah there is a shortage of male primary school teachers here. Not so much for secondary schools though I think. It might not come down to it being discrimination against males, it just might be that males don't feel as suited to teaching people quite that young. The Government is trying to encourage more male teachers though.

I agree, they're not amazingly well paid, but it is a decent wage.
When you say you're going to be a teacher for a while, in what context? Will you have a BEd?

It is down to discrimination, it's not even opinion. It's been part of our studies this last year, parent perceptions, and child perceptions come into it hugely.

NALDIC say that they want to recruit more males into the teaching profession, yet it's been proven that most employers would choose a woman over a male as a class teacher.

 

[Professor Walsh]

I will probably have been in the workforce for 42 years by the time I'm a pensioner. Of those 42 years I'll have spent 20 months on parental leave. Seeing as I know I'm good at what I do, I'd say not hiring me because I might get pregnant would be pretty darn stupid. When we look at a career as a whole, the time we take off due to kids is a drop in the ocean.

 

[white avenger]

Another form of discrimination, understandable, but discrimination under any sort of "equal opportunity" policy, is age discrimination. With all of the current lay offs in the U S, the market is fairly flooded with highly trained, very qualified, middle aged or over.en and women. Certainly, with their qualifications, they would be a benefit to any company, and, certainly, these people want and need to work just as much as people as much as 35 or 40 years their junior. Unfortunately, from the employer's point of view, they are at the bottom of the job list because 1) they will almost certainly retire by the time that they become fully integrated into the new business, 2) they are more prone to health problems, 3) they are often more resistant to adaptation into what is, for them, new work environments, 4) there is a distinct possibility that they will not be as familiar with new technology as people fresh out of college 5) they usually have higher bills than their younger counterparts, which means that they need a higher starting salary, and 6) they will almost certainly be subordinate to directors, managers, or department heads, which might cause tension on both sides.

This might just be the worst kind of discrimination, because these people want, and in some cases desperately need to work, and would be a real asset to any employer, but, on the other hand they are, in a very real way, short time workers, filling jobs where long term employers are needed. Both sides of the argument are right, both are wrong, and both sides have the potential to either improve or damage business efficiency.

 

[strawberryeve]

I had a manger tell me he preferred hiring women with children because they are more stable, have other ppl depending on that income and therefore are less likely to quit and take their jobs more seriously. Many corporations prefer male or female employees who have families for the same reason. A company who doesn't hire a female because she might get pregs is more likely to discriminate against women in other ways and therefore if I had a choice I would not work for them if I knew about it. While working at the same place that wanted to hire "family women" - the women in the office had their cycles synced and they all got pregnant at the same time - four women out at the same time giving birth in the same week that was hard for us to deal with but you know what? we made it work.

 

[Washburne]

Would it be easier just to hire a man(assuming they are roughly as qualified as each other)

Of course but as pointed out that doesn't make it right. Illegal or not, it happens for sure.

I also think it's important to note that it's not just women who have to work against prejudice in the workplace, it definitely happens to men too.

When it comes to my line of work, I know if I go for a teaching job in a primary school and the other candidate is male, I have much more chance of getting it.

It definitely happen to men as well. When it comes to Sweden I have to disagree about who have a bigger chance of getting a job. Men are often welcomed with open arms. Often when you're looking at word ads (I'm tired and I don't remember the right word) it's often mentioned that they appriciate men applying. Sure, people in general (and some co-workers) might be suspicious about motives. I've recieved it from time to time? Can a man hug a child? Can a woman? Like it or not, it's just something you have to live with as a man. But lets not forget all the postives responses/reactions you get just for being a male working with kids. At least it happens to me.

 

[david4wt]

[MENTION=8013]Washburne[/MENTION], as I said to Miki before, you in Sweden are very lucky. You're country is really on of the top countries in Europe in terms or social welfare and equality (or at least that is what it seems). Here in Italy, among the problems that women have to find a job because of what we already discussed, men aren't in the child care business. In university courses about primary education or child care or whatever they're called, men are really really really a minority and women are usually hired over them.
My high school diploma abilitates me to teach in a nursery, so kids from 3 months to 3 years. I don't think I'd really be able to do it because I don't have much experience, we just studied a lot of child care and pedagogy but I'm sure that if me and one of my classmates (I was the only male) went to the same nursery to give in our resumes both with no experience, they'd discart me right away.