Reverse discrimination

[cathou]

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 ?

 

[DeadXV]

Well personally i think it was dumb of your boss to go gender over experience, since you'd think experience would get more work done (and therefor profit) while gender would get you a pat on the head.

So basicly no i dont think its acceptable since, once again, experience = time and time = money.

 

[Gigano]

I don't think that's acceptable at all.

Individual qualifications in regard to the job at hand is what should matter. Nothing else. And discriminating based on gender isn't "reverse" discrimination; it's just discrimination, plain and simple.

I for one would never have much respect for someone who got in on a quota. At least not until they'd proved themselves time and again. And even then there'd always be the lingering knowledge that not only did they not truly earn their place on their own merits, they were also fine with benefiting from unjust discrimination.

 

[Sizzle Montyjing]

Well... my school had this 'Equality Quota' bullshit thing going on, in which they hired anyone on the basis of if they were born in another country.

Oh the fun we had with the teacher that could barely speak English....
Anyway, it must be horrible to be in that situation, i've been in it because i have ADD.
I hate getting special treatment over others.

 

[Princess Rose]

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.

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.

Your boss was EXTREMELY unprofessional to tell you his decision making process.

 

[Rawne1980]

You ARE good enough to do the job otherwise female or not you wouldn't have got it, however, you are a female which in turn shows other folks your employer values equal opportunities.

Now the idea is to not get pissed off over how you got the job but show them why it was the right choice to give it to you.

 

[manic_depressive13]

All you have to do is prove that you can do the job. Affirmative action will go away when the gender gap closes. Until then, it is the most effective way of allowing you to actually get the experience this man apparently had. It's not as though you're not qualified.

 

[kyllmikael]

Working as a programmer I've seen the same thing happen on a couple of occasions. If I was you I would just go with it. There are a lot of reasons to hire you besides you being a female. IT as an industry doesn't rely on experience as heavily as other jobs. Depending on the job just being out of school has a lot of benefits for potential employers. I.e. lower salary and up to date knowledge. My real concern is, if that is the real reason, that your company would even tell you, and more importantly the other applicant. It sounds like you are going to be walking into a hostile work environment.

 

[Grospoliner]

It never is okay. An employee should only be hire based on their qualifications an nothing else.

 

[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.

 

[Frozen Donkey Wheel2]

Nope. Equality works both ways. Hiring you just because you're a girl is just as discriminatory as NOT hiring you just because you're a girl.

 

[cathou]

Working as a programmer I've seen the same thing happen on a couple of occasions. If I was you I would just go with it. There are a lot of reasons to hire you besides you being a female. IT as an industry doesn't rely on experience as heavily as other jobs. Depending on the job just being out of school has a lot of benefits for potential employers. I.e. lower salary and up to date knowledge. My real concern is, if that is the real reason, that your company would even tell you, and more importantly the other applicant. It sounds like you are going to be walking into a hostile work environment.

Like I said, I already work for the company, i guess it wouldn't had found out if I was a new employe, my boss didn't told me that right away, I made him talk by indirect questions. And in a company were every sellers (I was in the sales department before moving to IT) is basically in competition between each others it's always an hostile work environment. There's a lot of gossips and rivalty here, and the management is too strict on some unimportant things, but not enough on others (like enforcing a strict no food on your desk, not even coffee, which have made te productivity drop by the way, but does nothing about some very unskilled employe that basically does half the work they are suppose to...

Honestly, if I get the chance to get another similar job elsewhere, I would probably take it

 

[nekoali]

Well, it's not really 'reverse' discrimination.. It was just discrimination against the other applicant because he was a man. It is just wrong, and it happens all the time, but people don't get called on it because it's phrased in a way that you aren't against whatever, you are for this something else. Fighting against marriage equality isn't 'anti-gay' it's 'pro traditional marriage'. Blacks were segregated because 'they are more comfortable among their own kind'.

In an ideal world, when applying for a any kind of limited position where there are more applicants than positions, be it work, school or what have you the only thing that should enter the decision making process is qualifications. Race and gender quotas are demeaning and insulting to those they are supposed to help, since it is implying that they can't get a job without that help. It hurts those who have better qualifications but are turned down for a less skilled candidate because of these rules/laws.

These things were started for a good reason, much like unions. Some people were not getting a fair shake. Women or blacks or Latinos or whatever group had difficulty finding work, even though they were as or even more qualified than the white middle aged Christian man. So they made laws saying 'you need to hire X minorities or else' instead of laws saying 'Stop being a discriminatory jerk and hire the best person for the job.

 

[Noyourjoanzy]

That's not reverse discrimination, it's just discrimination vanilla but for a different reason.
You are welcome

 

[AnarchistFish]

I find these kinds of rules to be complete crap. Employers have to pick people to fit in with equality rules, the irony being that that doesn't make it equal at all.
If it were equal, then sex/race etc wouldn't factor, wouldn't matter at all and if a man or woman is picked over a woman or man (respectively) then that's coincidence. Someone is still being given preference based on some kind of characteristic unrelated to the job.

 

[Conza]

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 ?

Ok first off, young lady I assume? It's not "Reverse Discrimination", this is what's called "Positive Discrimination".

Secondly, this time it worked in your favour, so congratulations and don't sweat about it, not really.

Yes, I'm a guy, so maybe you think my opinion doesn't count, but if I got hired at a matriach type company because there were too many women (I know they don't exist, just an example), I would not care, and just be thankful that I got the job at all, I mean in this economy? I'd be glad I was positively discriminated because of my blue eyes I want one that bad.

What is the big deal? The other guy was more expensive, maybe he also had more qualifications or experience? Maybe they just liked you more? Who really knows, you'll never ask, and ultimately in this job, and with maybe 90% of jobs, gender doesn't matter for job performance, so just go do a good job, you earnt it.

 

[Zeldias]

There's no such thing as reverse discrimination. To claim that is to claim that only minorities and those that are not in power due to the systemic biases that exist in our culture are the only ones that can be discriminated against. Discrimination is discrimination.

Next, I don't think promoting diversity in the workplace is a bad thing, especially when (I'm gonna talk about the US since I know about the culture) we have such horrific biases being expressed every day as commonplace and normal. Better to have enforced diversity than to turn a blind eye and allow people to commit injustices based on implicit racisms, sexisms, and other negative belief systems that permeate the culture and infect our opinions.

That said, you were hired, and that douchebag wasn't. If you were hired and the tipping point was that you're female, is that really bad? It still means you're capable of doing the work. If your place of employment chose a female over a male, it means that they're at least aware of biased hiring practices and doing a little bit about it. I'd rather work for a place that cares about injustice, even if it's only to not get sued, then a place that doesn't give a damn.

Finally, to all the people talking about "it should only be about the qualifications," sure, in a perfect world. But that's not the world we live in. In the US that we live in, a person can be turned down from a job because the employer doesn't like their hair, because they have a hard time pronouncing their name, etc. There's millions of petty, stupid reasons based on ethnic, racial, gendered, and heteronormative biases that'll keep a person from being hired. If at some point things happen to swing your way because you're part of an otherwise suborned group, that sounds like a bit of parity entering our social strata to me.