Monday, November 26, 2018

Comments on quotas and gender bias in hiring

This is a comment which appeared under the YouTube talk on attacks on a physicist who actually did research on gender hiring differences and found a bias against men. Less qualified women were hired. The Fiamengo File Episode 90 on the shaming of Alessandro Strumia. She’s a great commentator on current problems in society with feminists, genderists, racists, intellectual quality and quantity, etc. University of Ottawa. Like Jordan Peterson and Gad Saad she’s a Canadian with a great series on YouTube.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sOCIke7zLMo

“I am a retired electrical engineer, raised in a feminist dominated household. I worked for FAA. About 1995, there was a policy announced from DC. By 2000, 50% of all technicians were to be female. We had some female technicians already. From what I saw, they were well accepted and fully competent. There were some instances of sexual harassment and policies were instituted to protect them and raise awareness of the need to not offend females. These were rational and well administered, for the most part. I recall one female technician with a sign above her desk that read, "Sexual harassment will not be tolerated, but it will be graded." She loved the attention she got for being female, and it was a happy and highly functional workplace. The female technician and engineer numbers were steadily growing, but once this 1995 policy was introduced, the path to promotion for managers was to select women technicians over men, if at all possible. I could write a book about the results of this forcing a change onto a workforce responsible for maintaining the safety of the air traffic control system.

At first, I welcomed the policy, thinking that disparity in gender diversity was due to bigotry. Primarily, it wasn't. There were very few capable female candidates. Secretaries and other technically incompetent women were encouraged to apply for positions that formerly required deep technical backgrounds. After a few classes at the FAA Academy, they were led to believe they were technicians, though some really were incapable of using a screwdriver. In my limited experience, I saw several such cases where they were sidelined because they were too dangerous to be allowed near the equipment. They drew full pay, but managers did not know what to do with them. Their careers were ruined by believing what they were told, so a misguided policy could be made to appear successful. They were then led to believe that their failure was due to the patriarchy.

On the other hand, the competent female technicians suffered by association. When I was assigned to work on some project with a female before the policy was initiated, I was glad for it. I like women. Having them in the workforce improves the general conditions. I never had problems with incompetence or corruption before this 1995 policy. Afterwards, I was often nervous to be working with women, despite my long favorable history of association with many feminist minds. Male technicians would tell me of their dread to be working with incompetent women technicians, which was never the case prior to the policy. The chances of being called before the Accountability Board for non-malicious comments or jokes were strong, and could have severe consequences. What was a funny joke, which make women technicians laugh, suddenly was a matter of utmost offensiveness. Where was the middle ground of telling the guy to cool it? Times change. Those with more than 3 neurons to rub together want to avoid trouble. Electronics technicians were smart people, mostly ex-military and knew how to get along under authority. Elimination of overt sexism had been happening. Then, the PC police started busting heads, figuratively. Now, hostility proliferates, and it all gets blamed on men, particularly old white men, like me.”

Jordan Peterson always win these battles with feminists, as does Fiamengo and Saad.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xkMq-R6BfmA



No comments: