Reply to post: Reality

Reality

The issue here is one of fighting nature. Now, before I start, I believe that any job should be filled by the best qualified candidate, whether male, female, black, white etc.etc. There should be no selection occurring due to bias rather than ability.

However, the idea that men and women have the same desires and therefore aptitudes towards different jobs (and the skills required) is clearly biological nonsense. Men and women are driven by two different hormones. These have physical effects on the body, but they also have psychological effects as well. In some cases, societal bias simply emphasises this, in some cases, it is entirely artificial. However, if you look at numerous university studies, even amongst the very young, the outlook of boys and girls is very different. This is amazingly apparent in schools. Boys have a tendency to fight and normally punch each other a few times and next day are best mates again. Girls tend to be far more psychological in their fighting, with cliques etc. that go on for years. The old, "I can't be your friend because you're friends with her" lark. This is by no means universal, but definitely splits between the sexes.

Even more apparent are physical differences, which can make a difference in certain jobs. If the job is physical, you're more likely to pick a man (statistically) because on average, men are stronger. That's not to say a stong women should be denied the job, just that the split won't be even and is never likely to be. A good example of this is jobs where different physical requirements have been set for men and women. Why? Here's the physical standard. You pass, you're in, you fail, you're out. But no, we have to have more women, so the standard is lowered for women. Why not lower the standard for wimpy men as well? Why only women?

So, it's completely unreasonable to expect the number of women and men in jobs to split roughly equal (as with the population). Some jobs, that might be the case, but most will have a split one way or the other. Artificially fighting this is trying to fight nature. Men and women are different and due to that, will have different traits and strengths on average. Rather than see the differences as a bad thing, we need to embrace them and positively use them to advantage. Trying to make everyone the same is fighting against nature.

In all the above, I'm talking about averages and statistics. The best person for the job should be employed at all times, with the emphasis on qualifications. However, we shouldn't expect it to split evenly.