Comments on: ‘Positive Discrimination’

By: Shaz !!

Shaz !! — Fri, 19 Mar 2010 11:14:30 +0000

Political correctness, does this not start within education, qualifications?
Do you think someone should get a job based on qualifications? !! I would question this over.
Just because you have qualifications to say you can do the job, does not mean you actually can. Nine times out of ten those who work with no qualifications are brill workers not to say those with qualifications would not be. Personally I think the judgement should be made on maybe the person on a whole, what they can bring to the company and their ability of commitment and hardwork. As well as whether the vision of the company matches them as a person. After all a qualification could of been blagged and the person may not even have acknowledgement of the core subjects taught. Many people now a days hold voluntary experience so they should not get a job because they have not got a qualification?!! Proving skills are hard these days; my motto always remains the same “you get out as much as you put in”.

By: Simon

Simon — Tue, 16 Mar 2010 10:14:01 +0000

Positive Discrimination, Affirmitive Action. They are based on the principle of fighting fire with fire. What happened to fighting fire with water?

Two wrongs don’t make a right.

By: Matt Wilcox

Matt Wilcox — Fri, 29 May 2009 15:45:36 +0000

“I view any discrimination, including this so called ‘positive discrimination’ as wrong. It’s still discrimination”

Spot on. People are people. I still don’t understand how the answer to any form of discrimination is some form of reverse discrimination. It’s not about levelling any playing field, it’s about NOT discriminating.

Molly once bemoaned the lack of women in the web industry, and a hell of a lot of people have this assumption that if everything were fair and there was no sexism then the landscape would be 50/50. That’s wrong. The simple fact is that certain jobs are more appealing to guys than girls, and vice-versa.

The way to judge if something is unbiased isn’t to look at the statistics of who’s where and how many there are – it’s to look at the process of how people get there. By doctoring the results to fit an assumption you’re just doctoring results to fit an assumption. Nothing else.

By: Anna Debenham

Anna Debenham — Sat, 28 Jun 2008 13:29:37 +0000

Yeah, I can see where you’re coming from and that there is no clear right or wrong. It’s a tricky one. I get the point you make about the man in the suburbs and the woman in the sink estate, but can’t organisations do that anyway? How else do they decide between equally capable candidates?

Maybe I just don’t like the wording used. I’ve been brought up to know that discrimination is wrong, so when Harriet Harman says it’s ok in some circumstances, it makes me uneasy.

By: Baz

Baz — Sat, 28 Jun 2008 13:21:09 +0000

“mad” not “made”

By: Baz

Baz — Sat, 28 Jun 2008 12:54:50 +0000

Note – I’m also not saying I agree – just that you only ever hear the “political correctness gone made” side of the argument.

By: Baz

Baz — Sat, 28 Jun 2008 12:53:54 +0000

Noone said reparations for generations of injustice was easy :-)

Also note that this legislation is about “equal ability” – so if you had two equally capable candidates, one a man living alone in a big house in the suburbs and the other a woman with three kids on a crack-and-knife filled sink estate, you can legally say “I’ll give it to the woman because she needs it more” (before you would have to have made up a reason to choose between them). It’s not “I’m not allowed to pick the (male) genius because I HAVE to choose the (female) idiot”.

By: Emma

Emma — Fri, 27 Jun 2008 10:05:01 +0000

I think it’s sad that people can’t see others as people like themselves. Regardless if they’re male, female, black, white or anything inbetween. I feel the same way, I wouldn’t want to get a job just because I was a woman. I’d constantly be wondering if I was hired (especially in a mainly male environment) to be oggled at, or if I was hired at least somewhat because of my skills. It’s not something that you should have to worry about when you’re working. Even if a woman gets the job, she’s usually paid less for the same work as a man. Why is that? What do you think goes through an employers mind that makes sense to him (or even her, although I somehow doubt it) to lower the salaries of female employees? Because somebody has to think about it, it’s not something that just happens.

By: Anna Debenham

Anna Debenham — Fri, 27 Jun 2008 09:53:10 +0000

Thanks Baz,

I guess the problem is helping break one vicious cycle, and starting a whole new one, which is what worries me about it all.

By: Teifion

Teifion — Fri, 27 Jun 2008 09:43:44 +0000

I completely agree with you, as a guy I’d be rather unhappy to be passed over for a job just because someone was a lady or they were some kind of ethnic minority.