Positive Discrimination

/15

On Thursday, Harriet Harman the Equalities Minister in the UK put forward plans to allow organisations to discriminate in favour of candidates who are female or of ethnic minority.

You can watch her speech here: https://news.bbc.co.uk…

I would not want to be given a job with the knowledge that the reason I got it had to do with my gender rather than my professional capabilities, and I would not want my colleagues to also be thinking that. In fact, it would put me off working anywhere with a high ratio of men to women. I want to work somewhere because my work is appreciated, not so they can tick a box or improve their statistics.

Things may not be perfect as they are, but the knowledge of the inequalities are, to me, an incentive to work harder which is why I find the bill demoralising.

I view any discrimination, including this so called ‘positive discrimination’ as wrong. It’s still discrimination even if it is with the best intentions. I believe this bill would do more harm than good, especially for small businesses, and I imagine a lot of people would use it to justify being rejected for a job.

Wouldn’t it be better to offer more flexible working hours and give people the option to work at home to attract more women into these ‘male-saturated’ jobs? After all, many firms are put off by employing women if they have children (or potentional children) to look after. This would also make it easier for people with disabilities to work with the organisation.