At what point will gender equality stop

Soldato
Joined
19 Mar 2012
Posts
6,558
As obvious as this may seem, there isn't any real evidence to back it up. There are some biological differences between genders but nothing that makes men better at maths or women better at being carers.

Fair enough, but do we know enough about how the brain works to be sure there isn't a difference between how the sexes are wired?

I don't believe anybody can examine someone physically and tell you what they're about as a person.

Why do I love driving, fishing, programming and electronics when my brother doesn't give a damn about those things and will happily spend all weekend hitting a golf ball around?

Why does my sister ring my mum every single night when I am happy to speak to her every couple of weeks or if I have a specific need to?

These are all subtleties of character that are, as far as I am aware, completely invisible to a physical exam.
 

alx

alx

Soldato
Joined
10 Aug 2003
Posts
6,066
Location
Dubai, UAE
Peer pressure does play a massive part however studies have shown that boys will have a tendency to go for certain toys. They will do however generally speaking males prefer something around facts, figures rather than emotive writing.

Agreed, but how much is that tendency nuture rather than nature? I'm not saying boys and girls are the same and it's all nuture, but nuture often has a bigger impact than people realise. People often state 'that's just the way people are', but when you really think about it it's scary how much influence nuture can have on people.

On a slight side note, there was a programme I saw a couple of years ago about serial killers and whether it was a nature/nuture thing. They found that certain people's genetic traits were predisposed to becoming serial killers (nature), but nuture was what decided whether they actually became one or just lived a normal life.
 
Soldato
Joined
23 Apr 2004
Posts
8,410
Location
In the Gym
Agreed, but how much is that tendency nuture rather than nature? I'm not saying boys and girls are the same and it's all nuture, but nuture often has a bigger impact than people realise. People often state 'that's just the way people are', but when you really think about it it's scary how much influence nuture can have on people.

On a slight side note, there was a programme I saw a couple of years ago about serial killers and whether it was a nature/nuture thing. They found that certain people's genetic traits were predisposed to becoming serial killers (nature), but nuture was what decided whether they actually became one or just lived a normal life.

Its difficult to say really. When my son wants a cuddle its mummy, when he wants play/to go outside/bedtime story its daddy. Is that more learned behaviour though and thus not really a good indicator of nurture vs nature?

I used to think gender divides were useful. Until I went through family court and then it went out the window. My belief now is the right person should always be the one most suited.

Some of these deliberately biased tests I've yet to see to be honest.

Come to think it would be a quagmire to find if nature vs nurture is the root of how society is. My son has a fascination with cars and spiders at the moment (and animals in general), my daughter just animals a trait I like to think comes from me. Nature or nurture? Who knows?
 
Associate
Joined
28 Jul 2003
Posts
1,219
Funny you say that, I do know a girl who was a contractor for 3 years then suddenly decided she wanted a perm role... sure enough she was having a baby - barely worked in the role, took the maternity pay then quit and went back to contracting.

It isn't surprising that some small businesses are wary about hiring young females either.

However maternity pay is still pretty useful to society and plenty of people don't abuse it.

Yep seen plenty of those in my career so far. Had two of them in my first company out of uni, 2 in my second company and now 3 in my third company. They get pregnant, go on leave, have the kid, get pregnant again, back to work for a month or two, and then they're off again for another year. It's a complete joke.
 
Soldato
Joined
23 Apr 2004
Posts
8,410
Location
In the Gym
Yep seen plenty of those in my career so far. Had two of them in my first company out of uni, 2 in my second company and now 3 in my third company. They get pregnant, go on leave, have the kid, get pregnant again, back to work for a month or two, and then they're off again for another year. It's a complete joke.

A local French firm offer 12m full pay maternity. You can guess how it worked. Former colleague said they used to have a bet on how long they would last before getting pregnant (often had job through friends).
 
Caporegime
Joined
25 Jul 2005
Posts
28,851
Location
Canada
Presumably the people moaning about maternity leave don't want a pension?

Or are more interested in joint parenting leave, which is a much fairer system. After the first few weeks (barring major complications) it doesn't actually matter whether the mum or dad has time off to look after the kid.

That said the current system is broken, so we need to rethink the whole pensions situation anyway, quite possibly by making the state pension more like private pensions, by forcing the government to save some NI contributions now, to pay people's state pension in the future. We can't keep using population expansion to pay for future pensions liabilities, especially as populations are living longer.
 
Joined
16 Feb 2010
Posts
5,215
Location
North East England
It's the price of doing business. If you can't deal with people taking maternity leave (or being unable to work long term for any reason) then you're doing something wrong.

Agree with this, employ blokes, preferably ones with grown up families.

No longer employ people now but the laws are ridiculous and are massively open for abuse. For small business' it can be a major cost in time and money to have just one employee who takes the ****.

Not all woman do this and its a tiny minority even in my thankfully limited experience but it is an issue.
 
Soldato
Joined
2 Aug 2012
Posts
7,809
Back to the OP

At what point will [The striving for (My Addition)] gender equality stop

Or more to the point, at what point will all the nonsense about it stop?

Answer....

When the (currently) silent majority gets totally fed up with all the crap!
 
Associate
Joined
16 Mar 2004
Posts
597
Location
Surrey
One of the interesting points that is mostly overlooked in the gender pay gap discussions that happen on places like the BBC/ITV/Sky etc is that once you control for level/industry/function there is effectively no pay gap (under 1%).

The question then becomes one of level (why are there less women at the top) and function/industry - why do less women go for sales roles/revenue generating roles in FS/IT Sales etc.

Should the HR Manager earn the same as the KAM? Should the Marketing Exec earn the same as the CMO? In most cases, probably no, but then why are these roles often so heavily gender biased.
 
Back
Top Bottom