Enough is Enough

[Freedomlover]

Ideally, the employer should not care if the worker is a man or a woman; black, white, red, yellow, or brown; or any number of irrelevant characteristics. The employer should only be concerned that the job gets done and done well. I can see the reasoning for quotas in an unfair society, but disagree with them on principle.

Exactly.

[Freedomlover]

And for my Canadian friends, have a look here:

http://www.sid-hill.com/ntins/bbs-062c.htm

I hold dual citizenship, and thus am qualified to express opinions, good or bad, on both governments.

[Shay]

Sorry Shay, but women don't hold the market on that one anymore, at least in my circles. My wife may have taken the early morning shifts, but I was the one that stayed up with them well into the twighlight hours, so she could sleep. I just wish I could have had a year off to stay with the kids when they were babies that job is way more rewarding than my usual one.

Oh, I'm sorry if I implied that. He's happily playing with his big sister's train set right now, but I wasn't insinuating men aren't great parents (I'm married to a wonderful father) but just joking about lifting my burly not-so-little guy!

I don't know if I'd call it rewarding. Rewards are for when a job is done, and parenting, like straightening the verdammt living room, is a neverending task*. Parenting's a tough job, just the same as being a cop or a doctor or a carpenter or a fast food clerk is a hard job- the only difference is it's never the same thing twice.

Freedomlover- If I missed a point, I don't see where, sorry.

*(Plus, no one ever wants to chat with me at parties when they talk about their jobs about it except to say they wish they could do it and it's so fufilling. I've taken up knitting just for the conversation, I swear.)

[bubba]

Generally speaking, there are major gender differences in physical ability. I'm sure everyone has noticed men and women are built differently. Men have much more upper body strength ( don't slam me about chairborne warriors please, I'm speaking generalities). This is a biological fact. Women, on the other hand, have far better fine motor coordination. Each has abilities that compliment the other as a cooperative unit. Competition between the genders is silly and counterproductive. On the specific level, standards need to be standards. Anyone competing for a given job should meet or exceed those standards and when lives depend on those standards they need to be strictly enforced. I remember a gal that graduated from Seal training but went back to her old unit instead of remaining a Seal. She understood and acknowleged that even though she did graduate in the field she couldn't sustain the physical effort the way the men in her class could and could be a danger to the team because of it. In some instances a given woman can initially meet the requirments of the job, but the question is can she sustain that level of effort. We all need to understand our own limitations. (btw, no way I could have passed SEAL training or the physical requirments to be a firefighter so I don't feel guilty saying this stuff. )

[Archangel]

If this were the case (especially in professions such as firefighting, policing, military, etc) than I would have no qualms about it. Unfortunately, at least here in Canada, we have shot ourselves in the foot with political correctness. We have changed the physical standards between men and women. I appreciate that some women can do just as well as men in these positions, but if the women cannot perform the same level of testing, how are they expecting to perform the same in the field? I for one would be more confident in my coworkers if I knew that they could all manage to get me out of a buring building, or the line of fire.

We also set a quota of minoritiy positions that had to be filled, before other applicants could be considered. This would mean that if a male of caucasion origin did really well on all scoring and testing, but a person of a minority heritage was needed (even if they did poorly on all testing) that position would go to the person of the minority race.

I am not advocating and race or gender preferenace, but I would prefer to see it as may the best person win. Equal standards for all.

I'm going to line up with Shay here, but you probably figured that.

I'm guessing that you're referring to the BC Firefighters challenge on standards. The media did not do an honest job of reporting that and made it look like it accommodated the woman at the risk to the public's safety. The part the paper didn't publish is that: very few in NA use that test; current training says get a partner for that load; the test was not universally applied (the son of the chief did not have to do it); it was not kept up to date (current firefighters could not do the test). The fire department was required to update their testing to NA norms.

Quota's tend not to be real issues. I work in a place that mandates population representation so I've been able to work with a people I'm rarely blessed to meet. On the flip side, there are 8 women to over 700 men (it's one of my hats to have these numbers). I'm getting fat at this job, don't try and tell me women can't do it. Another point, reducing the weight of the material we had to lift before has reduced the number of lost time injuries - to men. The weight has been pretty well phased out to bulk and crane lifts saving money and lost time injuries.

It's not so much that tests are being made easier, it's that non-essentials are being taken out. If making it fairer makes it harder for a white to get a job then tough, the unfairness is what others have been feeling for centuries. Why is it that now you chose to recognize a discrepancy?
Keep in mind, that management can also use this to divide and there's power in that control. It's a hard position to take but when I run into somebody doing a customer service job that can't speak something I understand, I have to get over my annoyance at that individual and realize that someone managed that person's hiring.
It's a simple formula: workers work, managers manage: managers don't manage, workers can't work.

[Shay]

Alright then, only women should be brain surgeons, then?

See, the argument would make more sense if there were jobs that only women could hold, but apparently it's okay to discriminate on gender when it comes to upper body strength (and aren't we supposed to lift with our legs anyway?) but not for things like hand-eye coordination.

It's all well and good to say men are better suited for some things, but my point is that we don't follow those physical guidelines already. You're having the cake and eating it too.

[Freedomlover]

I don't know if I'd call it rewarding. [parenting] Rewards are for when a job is done, and parenting, like straightening the verdammt living room, is a neverending task*. Parenting's a tough job, just the same as being a cop or a doctor or a carpenter or a fast food clerk is a hard job- the only difference is it's never the same thing twice.

The reward is in seeing the kids grow into responsible adults.

Freedomlover- If I missed a point, I don't see where, sorry.

No need to be sorry. The point is that men and women are not interchangable. They complement, yea complete each other. And because someone is sure to jump on that as a universal statement: it isn't.

[Archangel]

Generally speaking, there are major gender differences in physical ability. I'm sure everyone has noticed men and women are built differently. Men have much more upper body strength ( don't slam me about chairborne warriors please, I'm speaking generalities). This is a biological fact. Women, on the other hand, have far better fine motor coordination. Each has abilities that compliment the other as a cooperative unit. Competition between the genders is silly and counterproductive. On the specific level, standards need to be standards. Anyone competing for a given job should meet or exceed those standards and when lives depend on those standards they need to be strictly enforced. I remember a gal that graduated from Seal training but went back to her old unit instead of remaining a Seal. She understood and acknowleged that even though she did graduate in the field she couldn't sustain the physical effort the way the men in her class could and could be a danger to the team because of it. In some instances a given woman can initially meet the requirments of the job, but the question is can she sustain that level of effort. We all need to understand our own limitations. (btw, no way I could have passed SEAL training or the physical requirments to be a firefighter so I don't feel guilty saying this stuff. )

until you said "a given woman", this was crap. That point validated your initial statements. Otherwise your logic would follow that: based on one man's inability to pass, no men could ever pass. Therefore the standards would have to be rewritten to make it passable which is, I think, where we started.

[Colin]

I'm guessing that you're referring to the BC Firefighters challenge on standards. The media did not do an honest job of reporting that and made it look like it accommodated the woman at the risk to the public's safety.

I hadn't paid much attention to that, so that wasn't my reference. If anything, I was thinking of a friends experiences in basic training, but was in most part speaking in general.

[Freedomlover]

Alright then, only women should be brain surgeons, then?

See, the argument would make more sense if there were jobs that only women could hold, but apparently it's okay to discriminate on gender when it comes to upper body strength (and aren't we supposed to lift with our legs anyway?) but not for things like hand-eye coordination.

No one has suggested that women can't do any so-called men's jobs. In a great many cases they can. Sometimes better than men. The subject is the idea that all women should have access to all 'men's jobs' without regard to whether or not they can actually perform up to 'snuff.

It's all well and good to say men are better suited for some things, but my point is that we don't follow those physical guidelines already.

Sure we do. To paraphrase: It is all well and good to say that women are better suited for some things.... Who could possibly disagree with that statement? The converse is also true.

You're having the cake and eating it too.

I do not see how.