Reverse discrimination

[Princess Rose]

Your boss was right to hire you. Affirmative action works because it gives (mild) preference to groups of people who haven't had the opportunity before.

Would you say the same about the male elementary teacher who is hired over his female counterparts on the basis that he is male? That honestly happens all the time.

If Men had been long discriminated against in the terms of being hired as elementary teachers, then yes.

Honestly, I know nothing about teacher hiring beneath the High School level. Therefore, I can't judged if such a hiring would be helpful or not.

 

[illas]

...because you being a woman in a team of mostly men is a positive attribute, and could improve the group dynamic in a deeper way than mere experience.

Correct, to an extent. Diverse workforces are significantly more productive. However, legally if one candidate is superior to the other he/she has sufficient grounds for legal action in light of the OP detailing that her boss admitted gender discrimination (even if it is not following the usual male> female inflection).

...Just as a man in a team of mostly women might.

Indeed, kindergartens/children's schools (where in the UK, 96% of teachers are female) are currently desperate to employ men and will give them massively preferential treatment, to the extent that they will employ an unqualified man over a degree-educated woman.

"What goes around, comes around", etc. etc.

 

[Grand_Arcana]

NEVAR.

It should always be based majorly on qualifications and partly on things like personality, disposition, etc. Gender, race, etc. should never enter the equation.

Well, that puts younger employee's at a severe disadvantage, doesn't it.

 

[Agayek]

Do you think it's acceptable to use gender or race to determine who will get a job between two persons roughly equal otherwise ?

In your case, it's not right that it happened. This is basically the worst possible outcome of the affirmative action movement. Someone better qualified for the job got passed because they weren't "diverse" enough.

That said, if two people really are equal in the job (roughly equivalent experience, each has complimentary skills, etc), then I don't see a big problem with picking the "minority" one. It's not very nice, and I would say it's demeaning to the one you hire (what with the implication that they can't get the job any other way), but there's nothing inherently wrong with it.

 

[lacktheknack]

NEVAR.

It should always be based majorly on qualifications and partly on things like personality, disposition, etc. Gender, race, etc. should never enter the equation.

Well, that puts younger employee's at a severe disadvantage, doesn't it.

Because they weren't in the first place?

Thankfully, younger adults dominate the job-searching pool, so it shouldn't be a major issue.

 

[Mortons4ck]

You got the job.

Just go with it.

 

[Dense_Electric]

Theres no such thing as reverse discrimination, just discrimination.

This. Reverse discrimination does not, has not, and will never, exist.

It's "reverse discrimination" in the sense that rather than not getting the job because of her sex/race/whatever, she did get the job because of her sex/race/whatever. So yes, there is a proper usage for that term.

I know what you're referring to though, that discrimination against whites or males is somehow "reverse discrimination," and in this sense you're right, that's just plain discrimination.

 

[jboking]

Your boss was right to hire you. Affirmative action works because it gives (mild) preference to groups of people who haven't had the opportunity before.

Would you say the same about the male elementary teacher who is hired over his female counterparts on the basis that he is male? That honestly happens all the time.

If Men had been long discriminated against in the terms of being hired as elementary teachers, then yes.

Honestly, I know nothing about teacher hiring beneath the High School level. Therefore, I can't judged if such a hiring would be helpful or not.

It's not that they've been discriminated against, but rather that the field has almost no male applicants, and having an all female staff looks bad because it looks like discrimination against males. So if a male applies for a job as an elementary school teacher, and a woman applies for the same job with near equal qualifications, the male is almost certain to get the job over her. This is something I have personal experience with.

Honestly, this 'reverse discrimination'(or positive discrimination) shit stings of filling quotas and viewing people based almost solely on their demographics so they can avoid lawsuits.

 

[Dense_Electric]

*Please delete, double post*

 

[Dense_Electric]

There's no such thing as 'reverse discrimination'.

A white man and a black man apply for the same job, the white man gets the job for the simple reason he is white.

A man and a woman apply for the same job, the woman gets the job for the simple reason she is a woman.

I see an odd resemblance.

'Reverse discrimination' may sound all fun-for-all-the-family, but it's obviously a euphemism for... Tada!... -Discrimination-.

Apparently some of you guys didn't read the OP carefully before posting. That's not how she's using the term (see my previous post).

Your boss was right to hire you. Affirmative action works because it gives (mild) preference to groups of people who haven't had the opportunity before.

Would you say the same about the male elementary teacher who is hired over his female counterparts on the basis that he is male? That honestly happens all the time.

If Men had been long discriminated against in the terms of being hired as elementary teachers, then yes.

You're suggesting that because discrimination occurred in the past, discrimination in the opposite direction in the present and future is acceptable?

That logic simply does not work. If we keep that up, discrimination will never end. If we're ever planning on getting anywhere as a society, we have to stop looking at a person's race, sex, sexuality, religion, etc., and start looking exclusively at their qualifications.

 

[YawningAngel]

What do you think of that situation :

I just finish a diploma to be an IT technician. In the company I work for, there was a opening for that, so I apply. We were two that asked for the job, and I got it. Last week I was moving my stuff to my new desk and the guy that I was in competition for the job with told me: "it's just because you're a girl, otherwise I would had the job".

My first reaction was to think, ok he's pissed off because I get the job, but after talking a bit with my coworkers and my boss, it turns out that he was right. I've got the knowledge to get that job and my boss tell me he's sure that I will be good at it, but the other guy have more experience than me, and the final decision was indeed make to put a girl in the IT department because there was none before, and that they wanted to show that they promote diversity in all the company departments.

Now I'm a bit furious because I don't know if my coworkers think i'm a good tech or if I'm just that girl that get the job because I'm a girl.

Do you think it's acceptable to use gender or race to determine who will get a job between two persons roughly equal otherwise ?

There is no such thing as "reverse" discrimination. There is just discrimination.

 

[Sean Renaud]

You're suggesting that because discrimination occurred in the past, discrimination in the opposite direction in the present and future is acceptable?

That logic simply does not work. If we keep that up, discrimination will never end. If we're ever planning on getting anywhere as a society, we have to stop looking at a person's race, sex, sexuality, religion, etc., and start looking exclusively at their qualifications.

Yes that's exactly what I'm saying.

That logic works perfectly and yes the discrimination will end once we've hit a balance that is somewhat sane. We're NEVER going to look exclusively at their qualifications. It's simply not realistic. People are always going to hook up their friends who most likely are the same race as them simply because of the way we live in neighborhood predominately made up of our "tribe" and who's tribe is on top? We also in many cases more comfortable with those of our tribe, it's how we're wired and it's gonna take a few million years of culture changes and evolution to get us out of that. Hell there is research suggesting that attractive people make more money over their lives than unattractive people do.

If we lived in fantasy perfect world like you want we'd STILL have to deal with the fact that minorities don't currently in many cases have the money to go to college, even if we took money out of the equation and said college is for the top 5% (or whatever the exact number doesn't matter) of students you'd STILL have to deal with the fact that kids who have educated parents are more likely to be educated themsevles and vice versa and until we enact your Plan Perfect that you'll still have parents who haven't gotten into college not because they weren't good enough but could not afford it which of course effects what kinds of jobs they can get which effects their children.

There are two ways to break the cycle. A we break it on purpose with "reverse discrimination" or B we wait it out and understand that none of us will be alive when the cycle is broken.

(also the escapist has the WORST quote system I've ever seen. It literally hurts.)

 

[Madara XIII]

Welcome to Affirmative Action! Hope you enjoy being told that your such an inferior person that you need every bit of help you can get.

Granted, when it was first implemented it was needed to help keep discrimination to a minimum but it's not that big of a requirement now. Giving people things automatically simply based on race, gender, anything besides talent or skill is just plain BS.

Indeed. Affirmative Action in itself can be considered discrimination because of the need to increase diversity in either Gender or Race.....

WELL F*CK YOU TOO UNIVERSITY!! I guess having a 3.9 GPA and having a reading level that exceeds that of a Freshman in College during my 11th grade year in Highschool (As proven in my essays towards scholarships)just doesn't show how qualified I am.
But the moment I mention I'm Hispanic then BAM! I make it.
Is it wrong I had to play that card? Yes. Yes it is, but it's utterly pathetic that they had to take my ethnicity into consideration before awarding me rather than my work ethic.

 

[Madara XIII]

There's no such thing as 'reverse discrimination'.

A white man and a black man apply for the same job, the white man gets the job for the simple reason he is white.

A man and a woman apply for the same job, the woman gets the job for the simple reason she is a woman.

I see an odd resemblance.

'Reverse discrimination' may sound all fun-for-all-the-family, but it's obviously a euphemism for... Tada!... -Discrimination-.

Apparently some of you guys didn't read the OP carefully before posting. That's not how she's using the term (see my previous post).

Your boss was right to hire you. Affirmative action works because it gives (mild) preference to groups of people who haven't had the opportunity before.

Would you say the same about the male elementary teacher who is hired over his female counterparts on the basis that he is male? That honestly happens all the time.

If Men had been long discriminated against in the terms of being hired as elementary teachers, then yes.

You're suggesting that because discrimination occurred in the past, discrimination in the opposite direction in the present and future is acceptable?

That logic simply does not work. If we keep that up, discrimination will never end. If we're ever planning on getting anywhere as a society, we have to stop looking at a person's race, sex, sexuality, religion, etc., and start looking exclusively at their qualifications.

I want to hug you for that post!

However I'll resort to a Bro-Hoof!

*Bro-Hoof*

 

[La Barata]

Snip

It's called affirmative action. Companies have a quota to fill. Legally, if two people apply to the same job, the employer by law has to hire the one that's a minority if their qualifications are similar.

Man and a woman apply: Woman gets the job every time.

White man and black man apply: black man gets the job.

White woman and black woman apply: Black woman gets the job.

Black man and white woman: .....Not sure, to be honest.

But yeah. Affirmative action exists, and the unfortunate thing is that you never really will know if you were better than that guy. The only thing you can do is to work your ass off and prove you can do the job.

 

[Madara XIII]

Your boss was right to hire you. Affirmative action works because it gives (mild) preference to groups of people who haven't had the opportunity before.

Would you say the same about the male elementary teacher who is hired over his female counterparts on the basis that he is male? That honestly happens all the time.

If Men had been long discriminated against in the terms of being hired as elementary teachers, then yes.

Honestly, I know nothing about teacher hiring beneath the High School level. Therefore, I can't judged if such a hiring would be helpful or not.

That sort of thinking takes humanity back to the days of King Hammurabi and his establishment of an Eye for an Eye.
And as Ghandi says, (I'm paraphrasing here) "Such a principle makes the whole world Blind"

It's just non-nonsensical and such an unenlightened method.

 

[Dense_Electric]

You're suggesting that because discrimination occurred in the past, discrimination in the opposite direction in the present and future is acceptable?

That logic simply does not work. If we keep that up, discrimination will never end. If we're ever planning on getting anywhere as a society, we have to stop looking at a person's race, sex, sexuality, religion, etc., and start looking exclusively at their qualifications.

Yes that's exactly what I'm saying.

That logic works perfectly and yes the discrimination will end once we've hit a balance that is somewhat sane.

No. If you honestly want to keep that up, we're going to be discriminating for a million years. And frankly, why the fuck should I (a white male) be discriminated against because my white male great great great great great grandfather discriminated against a black woman? Take it up with him, not me, or I'm going to become very angry because you are now accusing me of something I didn't do. Punishing me for what my ancestors (different people than me, I'll remind you) may have done is disgusting and one of the only true forms of evil in the world.

By your logic, paying reparations to descendents of slaves is acceptable. People who may very well have done absolutely nothing with their lives getting money because some other people two hundred years ago were enslaved.

We're NEVER going to look exclusively at their qualifications. It's simply not realistic. People are always going to hook up their friends who most likely are the same race as them simply because of the way we live in neighborhood predominately made up of our "tribe" and who's tribe is on top? We also in many cases more comfortable with those of our tribe, it's how we're wired and it's gonna take a few million years of culture changes and evolution to get us out of that. Hell there is research suggesting that attractive people make more money over their lives than unattractive people do.

And while this is true, it is also true that human beings are (or at least have the potential to be) reasonable, rational creatures. We may be wired to associate with our own race, but that doesn't mean we have to be racist.

If we lived in fantasy perfect world like you want we'd STILL have to deal with the fact that minorities don't currently in many cases have the money to go to college, even if we took money out of the equation and said college is for the top 5% (or whatever the exact number doesn't matter) of students you'd STILL have to deal with the fact that kids who have educated parents are more likely to be educated themsevles and vice versa and until we enact your Plan Perfect that you'll still have parents who haven't gotten into college not because they weren't good enough but could not afford it which of course effects what kinds of jobs they can get which effects their children.

It's funny, you're accusing me of wanting to live in a world free of discrimination as if that were a bad thing...

But onto your argument: poverty =/= race. Nowhere did I suggest we should not help the poor. What I'm suggesting is that if we're going to help the poor (or anything else), we look at that person's income and standard of living. You know, things that are, you know, relevant?

It's just like discrimination from car insurance companies. "Well, a lot of other males have gotten into accidents, so we're going to charge you more because you're more likely to be involved in an accident." Right there, they're assuming that because I'm male, I'm going to get in an accident, and congratulations, they're now all sexist fuckwads.

In the same way, if you look at a black or Hispanic person and just assume they're poor, now you're the racist one.

There are two ways to break the cycle. A we break it on purpose with "reverse discrimination" or B we wait it out and understand that none of us will be alive when the cycle is broken.

There are three ways: the two you proposed, and the third option of disregarding race, sex, etc., and considering only things about the individual that are relevant to what it is you're trying to determine. Qualifications for jobs, income level for poverty, the individual's risk (not the group's risk) for insurance, etc. Anything else doesn't even add up logically.