Angry White Men

[Medusa]

Re: Angry White Men

^

My initial reaction to your post was "Seriously???" I mean...I SERIOUSLY thought it was more than a bit over assumptive.

And I have ovaries.

Really? It came off a tad huffy( his posts later on). Though I'm not saying it's not completely understandable.

*yup. I checked. I haz the ovaries too.


This whole discussion is why I believe women are evil and should never be f'd with.

[Caelia]

Re: Angry White Men

I'm with Medusa on this one, and I have a propensity to get huffy and I still have my ovaries.

ADD: Can I up the ante by chucking in my uterus into the mix?

[Hawkfeathers]

Re: Angry White Men

I dunno about all this - but the most frequent reason I ever heard for being turned down for a job was that I was "overqualified". Somewhere, there must be a fine line I never learned about.

[Maria de Luna]

Re: Angry White Men

I'm with Medusa on this one, and I have a propensity to get huffy and I still have my ovaries.

ADD: Can I up the ante by chucking in my uterus into the mix?

Is this argument going to turn into a pile of genitals?
cause I'm gonna not wanna see how that turns out...

[B. de Corbin]

Re: Angry White Men

Is this argument going to turn into a pile of genitals?
cause I'm gonna not wanna see how that turns out...

Nope. If that's what's happening, I'll just withdraw. I really get sick of that particular game.

[Caelia]

Re: Angry White Men

I dunno about all this - but the most frequent reason I ever heard for being turned down for a job was that I was "overqualified". Somewhere, there must be a fine line I never learned about.

To sort of bring it back on topic, that's why I'm personally mixed on affirmative action. The term "overqualified" is a major loophole for businesses that want to discriminate, but it also may be a case where one is too risky to hire due to their qualifications. It seems like if someone wants to discriminate there are still ways.

Does that mean the baby should be thrown out with the bathwater? No. I do believe it should be tweaked.

[MaskedOne]

Re: Angry White Men

As a concept, my distaste for affirmative action is rather large. As a practice, shrug, I'd have to do a significant amount of research before commenting either way. I don't think I'll ever like the idea but taking time to go through the numbers (this is not an invitation to throw links at me, I'm not interested in delving into statistics on this topic atm) might convince me that it's a lesser evil than removing it right now. That said, there are a lot of things I grudgingly admit to having a use for but can still get easily annoyed by. Even if affirmative action serves a useful purpose right now, it's an injustice and one of the long term goals of society should be progressing to the point where it has no use and then removing it. If it can't be demonstrated to serve a useful function, then kill it now. I'm not gonna hold grudges against people getting more angry about it then I can be bothered to.

[nbdy]

Re: Angry White Men

In a rational business world the qualified Latina would get the job every time because the business can pay her about 60% what it pays an equally qualified white man. For some reason I do not see many Latinas in management anywhere, but a lot of white dudes, so there must be some great value to having a white penis even if you are just managing a restaurant or department store. I think people generally agree on what should be the case (the sacred) -- hiring purely on ability or potential -- but study after study shows not only prejudicial hiring, but prejudicial pay scales (the profane). The biases are often not intentional acts, but there is no doubt that they exist. Back when virtual reality was first hitting the scene I remember thinking that here was the answer -- rather than affirmative action we could have virtual interviews where every applicant would look and sound the same, yet expression and body language conveyed. I can't remember all the criticism that got lobbed at that one, but it was pretty much shredded -- and that was before internet forums. Anybody have a better idea?

[Moody Thursday]

Re: Angry White Men

To sort of bring it back on topic, that's why I'm personally mixed on affirmative action. The term "overqualified" is a major loophole for businesses that want to discriminate, but it also may be a case where one is too risky to hire due to their qualifications. It seems like if someone wants to discriminate there are still ways.

Does that mean the baby should be thrown out with the bathwater? No. I do believe it should be tweaked.

I always wondered how being "over qualified" would be bad. I figured the more experience/education, the better. I guess that answers my question.

[Medusa]

Re: Angry White Men

In a rational business world the qualified Latina would get the job every time because the business can pay her about 60% what it pays an equally qualified white man. For some reason I do not see many Latinas in management anywhere, but a lot of white dudes, so there must be some great value to having a white penis even if you are just managing a restaurant or department store. I think people generally agree on what should be the case (the sacred) -- hiring purely on ability or potential -- but study after study shows not only prejudicial hiring, but prejudicial pay scales (the profane). The biases are often not intentional acts, but there is no doubt that they exist. Back when virtual reality was first hitting the scene I remember thinking that here was the answer -- rather than affirmative action we could have virtual interviews where every applicant would look and sound the same, yet expression and body language conveyed. I can't remember all the criticism that got lobbed at that one, but it was pretty much shredded -- and that was before internet forums. Anybody have a better idea?

Weird though. I'm a Latina. And I've been in management more then 16 years. 8 of those as a store manager.

Anywho. I think if something has been a 'traditional' established practice and it's known to be unfair. Well then it's going to take a while to turn that around. What white men are experiencing now is what all the other of us have been experiencing since forever. The mere fact when it was said all men were created equal..they were 1/3ding black people and didn't even count women as a person.


*Maybe we should call this thread angry women thread!

[DanieMarie]

Re: Angry White Men

The problem here, in the USA, isn't with the job market. It's with education. Here, education isn't equally spread out. And forcing companies to meet quotas isn't going to fix the education problem. The idea is that if minorities get better jobs, their children will go to better schools, and things will even out. But that just means that the white man who didn't get the job is going to be sending his kid to a less affluent school. It doesn't really fix the problem, it just sugar coats it to make minorities happy.

So now colleges and even grade schools have to meet quotas... is that fixing the problem? No. Flat out no. Because that just means kids from the majority are being placed in the schools with less funds and now they aren't being taught well. And that colleges are turning down better qualified students to meet a quota. Which also means that they are having higher drop out rates. The fact is, from grade school up, all schools need to have equal funds per student and be given equal opportunities to provide for those students, whether the community they are in is rich or poor, and students should be able to reach their full potential in every school, not be held back because the school doesn't have the funds. And at this time, the government is saying they can't do that. So instead they create an equal opportunity job market where less qualified people get hired. Which isn't right. At all.

That makes sense, but sometimes you have another problem reflected in education. In a lot of fields, women outnumber men in terms of university graduates, but they're still making up less of a lot of those professions.

Overall, though I've been playing devil's advocate with quotas here, I think the better solution isn't quotas, but to do everything possible to try to get men to spend less time at work and more time at home. Men should take paternity leave (unfortunately, in the US you don't have leave at all, so you don't have much to work with...here you get a year split between a couple), and constant overtime should be discouraged. It shouldn't be women who have to balance career and family; it should be everyone. That will fix the bias if we can make it actually happen.

[Maria de Luna]

Re: Angry White Men

That makes sense, but sometimes you have another problem reflected in education. In a lot of fields, women outnumber men in terms of university graduates, but they're still making up less of a lot of those professions.

Overall, though I've been playing devil's advocate with quotas here, I think the better solution isn't quotas, but to do everything possible to try to get men to spend less time at work and more time at home. Men should take paternity leave (unfortunately, in the US you don't have leave at all, so you don't have much to work with...here you get a year split between a couple), and constant overtime should be discouraged. It shouldn't be women who have to balance career and family; it should be everyone. That will fix the bias if we can make it actually happen.

discouraging constant overtime I don't think would help much, the nurses around here are quite obviously (obvious to me anyway) predominantly women and they fight over overtime...
I don't like the "quota's" thing eigther, I dont like having to be a statistic tio get a job, or feel like I am. That said, I don't think I've ever been hired based on the fact that I'm a girl, or not hired for that matter, I agree with Thalassa that it is generally more likely to be my veteran status that turns employers off, a few employers like to hire vets, and some won't tell you that they do not like to hire vets, How would you be able to tell?
I can say that I know that everyone in administration in this hospital who has a secretary has a female secretary. There are women in Housekeeping that just Will Not Do certain jobs, (bathrooms, really? who cleans them at home?) and while the current residency roster is fairly well mixed, permanent employee doctors are quite predominantly male, we dont even have a female OBGYN in the hospital, and we have 6 OBGYNs on staff... I know it is just one place, but it is something I see every day. I dont know what salaries they are making, but the jobs that traditionally pay better, just do not have many women here, So I guess whatever it is doing affirmative action is not equalizing that issue, I'm not going to go into race, because while it is there it is slightly less obvious in an inner city hos[pitakl that had the reputation of once being referred to as the "butcher shop."

[nbdy]

Re: Angry White Men

Well, sure, and a black man is currently POTUS. Institutional discrimination is very subtle. Because it is not out-there-in-your-face like in the bad old days there is a lot of room for a white dude to feel picked upon. Who wants to become an emblem for one's race during the hiring process? It isn't fair, but what came before was not fair either. It's tough all around. Sitting in the doctor's office Wednesday I read a bit about Warren Buffett in Fortune Magazine and I was impressed that he gave a solid nod to how much easier it had been for him to achieve what he achieved simply due to that accident of birth that made him a white man in the mid-20th century U.S. In a way I don't mind the advantage as much when it is acknowledged: "Yeah, I'm way ahead of you, but I didn't start at the same place and had a lot of help along the way." Affirmative action is an unappealing way to try and level the playing field, but can we think of something better? I would really like to think of something better, but Congress can't even do simple math right now.

[DanieMarie]

Re: Angry White Men

I also do want to know...if there's something like a 20-30% quota for hiring women in a field where half or more of the graduates are women, and women make up ca/ 50% of the population, how is this a disadvantage to men? Surely if men are making up 70-80% of new hires in a field with a higher representation of female grads, women are still losing?

Re: the nursing comment above. I think health care professions are a particular case with overtime, because they are 24/7 jobs. You can't just have a hospital shut down. However, if you're in, say, marketing, there should be NO REASON why you should be working more than 40 hours a week on a regular basis. Sometimes, there are special projects and deadlines, and its necessary to work overtime, but right now it's still the case that the work culture is 50, often 60+ hours. I'm sorry, but if they're that short staffed, they need more hires. You can't expect to have 2 active parents both working those hours...someone always loses out on their career. Unfortunately, most of the time, it's the woman. We need both parents working sane hours in most cases, and being active parents.

I know I'm not even touching the racial minority issue....I just am a lot more active in feminism and to be honest, know little about issues surrounding racial minorities outside of Germany or Canada (and even then, it's not something I'm actively involved in). Feminism is close to my heart as well, not only because I'm a woman, but also women make up half the population, and make up a large portion of university grads, and have statistically high university results, but move up the career ladder slower, are paid less, and sometimes still struggle to get hired at all. Something is seriously wrong here.

- - - Updated - - -

Weird though. I'm a Latina. And I've been in management more then 16 years. 8 of those as a store manager.

Anywho. I think if something has been a 'traditional' established practice and it's known to be unfair. Well then it's going to take a while to turn that around. What white men are experiencing now is what all the other of us have been experiencing since forever. The mere fact when it was said all men were created equal..they were 1/3ding black people and didn't even count women as a person.


*Maybe we should call this thread angry women thread!

I can kind of understand why white men in the US might be angry. They're looking for someone to blame for the real problem...which is that most of the jobs that have been outsourced have been the domains of white men (manufacturing and such). Here, I can tell you though that manufacturing is strong in Germany, and it's still an awesome place to be a white man. The unemployment rate is pretty low in this country in general, but for white men, it's almost non-existent, especially in the west.

I think there is kind of this unconscious attitude that some men have everywhere that it's their right to be employed, and if they're not and minorities and women are, it's somehow at their expense. Before I get ripped apart, NO, I don't think EVERYONE feels this way, but I think it does happen, and I think it often happens sub-consciously.

[Dumuzi]

Re: Angry White Men

What's your take?

Are quotas & extra-credit points given in job interviews for skin color or gender reverse discrimination, or a fair and reasonable readjustment?

I'm really torn on the issue.

I firmly believe that people should be hired based on their qualifications and not based on their religion/skin color/gender. When people need a good heart surgeon to save the life of their loved ones, they never care about the surgeon's religion/skin color/gender, even if they're the worst bigot/racist/sexist person there is.

At the same time I can see how human beings aren't all objective and discrimination is going to happen. So perhaps some kind of quota is needed to make sure everyone has a chance at being hired even if they are a minorty (or female in some places).