Gender equality 'is decades away'
Gender equality 'is decades away'
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Jaglover

Original Poster:

46,815 posts

265 months

Thursday 5th January 2006
quotequote all
Perhaps they can legislate that men have to do their fair share of child bearing.

"It says action must be taken now to remove the barriers to women's success."

This is a key phrase, but the key barrier is nature.

"The commission has called for a legal requirement on employers to promote sex equality - and for more senior women to be allowed to work flexible hours"

How does this work?

If you have children however you structure it working a 40-50 hour week is still pretty tough.

BBC said:
Gender equality 'is decades away'

Woman hold only 10% of senior posts in large firms, the study says
Women are still decades away from attaining the same status as men in public life, research suggests.
The Equal Opportunities Commission says the pace of change in politics is very slow, and that it will be 200 years before equality reaches Westminster.

Women now make up nearly half the workforce, but the EOC research says only a minority attain senior positions in both the public and private sectors.

It says action must be taken now to remove the barriers to women's success.

In large companies, the judiciary and the police force, only about 10% of senior roles are held by women, the EOC study says.

'Action needed'

And while 20% of MPs are women, the rate at which they are progressing in politics is slower than in other areas.

The commission says it will take 200 years for women to gain equal power in politics, unless the main parties make more effort to redress the balance.

Commission chairwoman Jenny Watson said: "Thirty years on from the Sex Discrimination Act, it is time for us to face some stark facts.

"Women will not make it to the top in significant numbers unless action is taken to remove the barriers that stand in their way, and Britain will continue to miss out on women's skills and talents for another generation."

Flexible hours

Other findings suggested it would take another 20 years before there was equality in the top management of the civil service and 40 years before women were treated equally at director level of FTSE 100 companies.

It would also be another 40 years until there was equality in the senior judiciary.

The research did point out that in some areas women were "reaching critical mass in some areas, including as heads of professional bodies (33%) and national arts organisations (33%)".

The commission has called for a legal requirement on employers to promote sex equality - and for more senior women to be allowed to work flexible hours.


anonymous-user

84 months

Thursday 5th January 2006
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Q:Why have no women been to the moon?

A:It doesn't need dusting.

Axeman30

9,325 posts

257 months

Thursday 5th January 2006
quotequote all
It's fascinating how economies don't tend to collapse due to external pressures, rather it seems they rot from the inside out.

Competition from China is often cited as the reason for the continuing decline of Europe as an economic power, but I think it is as much as case that Europe is pusuing social policies which deystroy it's competetiveness as much as it being a case of the Chinese becoming more competative.

Doubtless legislation will be passed in order that a certain % of senior employees must be women, and that regardless of the hours they work they must be paid the same as their male colleagues, this will have the effect of making our industry steadily less competative.

greg_D

6,542 posts

276 months

Thursday 5th January 2006
quotequote all
when women want to be taken seriously, they will be. as it stands, they look at everything from an emotional standpoint and take the hump at just about anything, and talk about bitchyness and politics, then there is the financial timebomb (from the company perspective) of children.

As with everything, there are exceptions to every rule and there are some exceptional women out there, but they will always achieve, they don't need all this positive discrimination bollox to make it happen.

B17NNS

18,506 posts

277 months

Thursday 5th January 2006
quotequote all


its going the other way I tell you

LuS1fer

43,543 posts

275 months

Thursday 5th January 2006
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Where I work there are some wonderful females who compete on equal terms with men but it has to be said that whenever there is a seriously weak link, it tends to be female - sickness, emotions, stress, inability to make a decision. THere are men of similar ilk, I grant you. I just hope that one day men get treated the same as women. It'll be an easier life.

Jaglover

Original Poster:

46,815 posts

265 months

Thursday 5th January 2006
quotequote all
Axeman30 said:
It's fascinating how economies don't tend to collapse due to external pressures, rather it seems they rot from the inside out.

Competition from China is often cited as the reason for the continuing decline of Europe as an economic power, but I think it is as much as case that Europe is pusuing social policies which deystroy it's competetiveness as much as it being a case of the Chinese becoming more competative.

Doubtless legislation will be passed in order that a certain % of senior employees must be women, and that regardless of the hours they work they must be paid the same as their male colleagues, this will have the effect of making our industry steadily less competative.


Well Said

I think every powerful civilisation has been eaten away from within before being destroyed by external enemies.

alfaman

6,416 posts

264 months

Thursday 5th January 2006
quotequote all
I personally don't think that there are many so called "barriers" to womens success - having worked in large Corporates with capable women senior managers and directors.

The reason that the *majority* of FTSE 100 board members are men is mainly down to numbers and supply IMHO ( rather than barriers and prejudice):

1. most board directors will be 40+ Uni. educated ........ 20 - 25 years ago the majority of Uni. graduates were men.

2. some women grads from that era will have chosen to either have families/ career break or just not want the gut-busting slog to the top .

FWIW : on my MBA programme 17 years ago ( in my mid 20's) - over 90% were men , many of whom would be now at senior management / board level.

Don

28,378 posts

314 months

Thursday 5th January 2006
quotequote all
alfaman said:
FWIW : on my MBA programme 17 years ago ( in my mid 20's) - over 90% were men , many of whom would be now at senior management / board level.


This is another issue.

Women have had equal opportunities for a period now. But its probably still only been a generation. It will take a couple of generations for this to permeate the workforce fully....to whatever extent its going to.

Trying to force the pace of the issue is economic suicide as some African countries have discovered with respect to their pace of change with respect to racial equality.

So what if they say its decades away...it *will* come eventually. Hopefully without economic suicide...

Axeman30

9,325 posts

257 months

Thursday 5th January 2006
quotequote all
The reason they cannot force it is that women are women and men are men, although some men are more like women, and some women are more like men, generally speaking the two sexes have completely different natural priorities.

My Mrs speaks 5 languages, she's got a double first from Oxford, and if she wanted could have powered her way through a bank to the top far quicker than I ever could have ( largely due to the positive discrimination laws ) and what does she want to do? Give up work and start a family, as it is she was only ever preared to work as a teacher because she wanted a 'nice job'.

And that's fine.....what is not fine is to dressup her personal choice as some kind of discrimination or glass ceiling! On the face of it we graduated in the same year from the same university and have similar levels of qualification....yet I earn about 4 times what she does, and desipite what some wooly headed lentilist would have us believe that is not the result of discrimination but a result of me working approximately 4 times as many hours!


Jaglover

Original Poster:

46,815 posts

265 months

Thursday 5th January 2006
quotequote all
Axeman30 said:
is not the result of discrimination but a result of me working approximately 4 times as many hours!




Is 'working' what you call the time spent on PH's

Axeman30

9,325 posts

257 months

Thursday 5th January 2006
quotequote all
Jaglover said:
Axeman30 said:
is not the result of discrimination but a result of me working approximately 4 times as many hours!




Is 'working' what you call the time spent on PH's




Maybe I mean cumulative hours before I started my current role. It's going to be a terrible shock if I get moved into a role that actually requires me to do something for a change.

lord summerisle

8,174 posts

255 months

Thursday 5th January 2006
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why not? i do

slapmatt

1,132 posts

252 months

Thursday 5th January 2006
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Women want equality when it suits them and then they want special treatment when it doesn't.

You can't have it both ways.

silversun

4,373 posts

256 months

Thursday 5th January 2006
quotequote all
Judging by the attitudes on PH on an almost daily basis, I'd have said that equality was centuries, not decades away.

*sits back and waits for flaming*

andy mac

73,668 posts

285 months

Thursday 5th January 2006
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I think those views are based on experiences, and not prejudice.

silversun

4,373 posts

256 months

Thursday 5th January 2006
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anonymous said:
[redacted]


slapmatt

1,132 posts

252 months

Thursday 5th January 2006
quotequote all
I think the Olympic Committee should take positive action by scrapping the inherently unequal practice of having "women's" events. Surely only true gender equality can be achieved when women compete in Olympic sports opposite their male counterparts.

greg_D

6,542 posts

276 months

Thursday 5th January 2006
quotequote all
silversun said:
Judging by the attitudes on PH on an almost daily basis, I'd have said that equality was centuries, not decades away.

*sits back and waits for flaming*


it's called real life, sorry if that upsets you.

andy mac

73,668 posts

285 months

Thursday 5th January 2006
quotequote all
It's the same level of equality found at Wimbledon... they want the same prizemoney, yet play fewer games...