Agreed

As a working mother I am totally against gender quotas. Should always be the best person for the job.
We need a change in laws in relation to maternity and paternity leave.

There is no legal obligation to provide paternity leave in Ireland – not even one day. It’s completely at the employer’s discretion.

The countries that have little difference between male and female wages also tend to have equal leave entitlements for fathers, but the government continues to ignore this. It seems it’s impossible to admit that it’s actually fathers that are discriminated against in employment law.

Very good point.

Merit should be the only reason a person is offered a better position. If a person feels they are the most qualified and have not got the position due to gender issues then the issue is with the company not behaving correctly so tackle the HR department about that. I totally disagree with quotas as they are biasedt and go against the whole idea of merit.

I hate the idea of quota systems and ‘diversity hires’ because it makes me worry that I was only hired to fill ‘the woman quota’ and not because I’m just as good as my male colleagues.

On the other hand, so many studies have shown that interviewers and managers discriminate against women in hiring, salary and promotion considerations that you really have to wonder what we can do to fight against that. Maybe more employers could consider doing ‘blind interviews’ like many professional orchestras do…?

Jessica I’m glad that most people are against the quota idea because I think it is a backwards step and it would lead to the best person not getting the job because of their gender which defeats the idea of the quota.

In relation to these studies that have shown this discrimination you refer to is this as subjective as the report above. Just because a woman thinks that she hasn’t got the job because of her gender doesn’t necessarily make it the case. Perceptions sometimes become reality.

I think the only reason that there could possibly be any discrimination would be over fears of the dreaded pregnancy and maternity leave. If this is to be cleared up then I think the Govt. needs to address the problem of this being so unbalanced in favour of women. If men were just as likely to be missing for a few months after the birth of their child it would take this unbalance out of the system and hopefully lead to more women getting the positions that they “deserve” as opposed to getting positions because they are women.

The study this article reports on is more subjective than most, but there are studies which examine the actions of interviewers given example applications that show how pervasive this discrimination can be, even in academia: http://www.pnas.org/content/109/41/16474

That study shows that even when the only difference between two otherwise-identical candidates is the gender of their name, people in charge of making hiring decisions favoured the male applicant over the female – deciding that they were more suitable not only for the job, but a higher starting salary and more career mentoring. It’s a pretty damning study, really.

You are soooo right here!

One woman does not a trend disprove.

In fairness the fashion industry tends to be dominated by women in the first place so its not the best example to use

No but its the fact she managed to work her way up right from the bottom

I have to agree with you, sadly some women are against women. I know of numerous companies that are very cautious hiring women aged 25-40, and the sad part is that it is women in higher positions that make that decision :(

And the fashion industry routinely pays its male models a fraction of what it pays it’s female models. That’s ok though, because that’s what “market forces” dictate. It’s just not ok when it’s the other way round

Same with the porn industry.

Or so I’m told.

Which is why there should be share parental leave so its just as likely a man will need time off.

That is 100% unfair and literally illegal. Not every woman plans on having children – and why don’t you offer equal paternity cover to even out the balance? After all, for almost every woman who has a child there is also a man who could use some quality time with his new kid too.

This is EXACTLY the type of attitude that leads to the type of discrimination the article mentions.

Jessica,
The problem is the maternity versus paternity leave inequality. In it’s current state, statistically speaking the woman is more likely to miss more time due to the chance of her having kids and using her maternity leave than the man. Businesses being businesses will assess risk and usually play conservative. I don’t agree with this discrimination and I would suggest that both males and females have to take the same amount of leave for pregnancies. This would level the risk to the business and remove a factor that leads to discrimination.

Hey Jessica, how do you feel about our courts saying that the “threat” of pregnancy is a good enough reason to treat boys unequally before the law by imprisoning them for having sex with girls the same age?

Our female Chief Justice thinks it’s ok to use pregnancy to discriminate when the discrimination is against men

http://www.thejournal.ie/underage-sex-ruling-shows-inequality-of-law-ispcc-364351-Feb2012/

@Jessica

Its so annoying when the real world gets in the way of the utopia that women seemed to think was out there for them as their workforce participation grew over the last 50-odd years.

I think women assumed that men would automatically be there to fill the gaps left in parenting by their desire to combine working in the home and working out of the home.
The only problem was that no one spoke to the men !

Whether society like to accept it or not women are better suited to raising young children… Thats nature.
I know that doesn’t suit the ‘career woman’ but thats life.

So don’t have children if you want to be the MD.

that’s the feeling I get at the moment – sorry you’re a woman of a certain age, we don’t care if you’re well able to do the job but we’re worried you’ll have a load of babies and mess up our project plans

They should! But unfortunately, as a wide variety of studies have shown, the playing field is not level and women are often discriminated against solely on the basis of their gender in employment, promotion and salary discussions.

The barriers are more than just perception; sadly they do indeed exist.

In the ideal world Scarr but unfortunately here in Ireland we do have the ole boys club and women are not welcome, Its a fact

True

That’s because women of a certain age are now having to dumb-down their qualifications to get jobs and take ones that are more likely to give balance with home-life

And let’s not forget people like you Pierce with that attitude, You also are to blame!

Exactly how am I to blame for the low number of women a senior levels?

Dismissing the low numbers of women in the workplace and in senior positions as being somehow our own fault(seriously, why would anyone choose to be discriminated against?) is a pretty crappy and unhelpful attitude, Pierce.

I will ask again, how exactly am I stopping women from getting to senior positions. Unless you lumping all men in together in some plot to oppress women.

How are you *helping*? Dismissing the problem is actively unhelpful and damaging because you’re pretending that it’s not actually anyone’s problem except that of the people being discriminated against. Which is untrue; it’s also a problem that should be tackled by employers(of any gender) because they’re the ones doing the discriminating.

If you don’t care, just say so. But pretending that this is a problem that only women can solve somehow is farcical.

I am helping by pointing out that it’s not some kind of plot by employers to keep women down. Maybe there are good reasons why employers prefer men, maybe there isn’t. I am not in favour of discrimination in law whether you see it as positive or negative discrimination, but if you want women are more than half of the electorit, stop voting for people who don’t share your views.

This actually has nothing to do with overt sexism like some kind of weird ‘plot’ as you seem to think, nor does it have to do with discrimination under law. In Ireland, at least, sexism is a subtle, insidious thing. People who really don’t believe themselves to be sexist display unconscious discrimination against women, particularly women who attempt to negotiate for raises or promotions in exactly the same way that men do.

Again, dismissing this well-documented phenomenon is deeply unhelpful of you. It’s not about who we vote for(one upper class white man or an upper middle-class white man or how about the occasional token upper-class white woman? What a selection!), it’s about making everyone aware of this unconscious discrimination so they can identify it in their own behaviours and try to stop it.

It is so very good of you to remind me of my “unconscious discrimination against women”, how very sexist of you.

Did I accuse you of discrimination? I just said ‘people’ do it; not all people, but if the studies are any indication it seems pretty common. Maybe you don’t, which would certainly be nice. I’m not saying it has anything to do with gender either; women are generally as likely to discriminate against other women as men are. It’s just how society conditions us to be.

But maybe you *should* examine your own prejudices on this issue, since you seem so eager to chalk it all up to women just not trying hard enough or something.

So for the third time of asking, how am I to blame for the lack of women at senior levels Jessica