[Taxacom] (no subject)

[Stephen Thorpe]

"I think Stephen has missed the point. If a selection panel is faced with two people equally qualified and ranked equally according to the selection criteria, there is a decision to be made. Historically and  to this day (yes, I have seen it in action myself) the research shows that if it is between a man and a woman at this point, the guy will get the job. Gender equity is about excavating the underlying reasons why (and they have been well documented many many times) and making sure that sexism is not the deciding factor at this point. Sexism also shows up as e.g. canny ways of defining ‘competence’, ‘performance’ and ‘ability’"

I am intrigued as to why you think that I have somehow "missed the point"? What point? My main point was to highlight a piece of trash (feminist) "research" which claimed to disprove that quotas are unmeritocratic, but disproved no such thing! Their argument was based on a ridiculous measure of "competence" as income! All the "research" showed was that the less senior (lower income) positions were being filled with women (probably in order to keep the more senior positions still male dominated, which is badly sexist, but bears no relevance to what the "research" was trying to claim).

Making sure that "sexism is not the deciding factor at this point" is indeed very important. If the guy doesn't get the job just because he is a guy and the employer is required to fill a gender quota for women, then this is sexism. If a man and a woman applicant are equally qualified and ranked equally for the same job, then it should be decided by a coin toss. A remarkably simple solution, but I can't actually see any reason not to decide by coin toss!

Cheers,

Stephen