This book is currently sitting somewhere in my To Read pile and this post has just bumped it to the top, so thanks!

Okay I said I'd let this drop but I can't let that take stand... Women got the vote by going on hunger strike, smashing windows, and setting shit on fire! Societal change (not just for women but for all groups) has always been 'forced'. It's the only thing that's ever worked.

And the people in power have never, ever liked it either. But give it a few decades and hopefully all of these measures will be in the past.

Ah yes, as we know, all social change has been brought about by groups of people quietly sitting back and doing nothing.

;)

Despite (I assume, forgive me if incorrect) not being a woman and (from what I can see) not being active in any feminist subs or spaces, you apparently think you already know all the answers to the issues of workplace gender politics. I don't really have any more energy in trying to discuss this with you as it seems you're not interested in considering other viewpoints. Cheers.

Yeah, because women LITERALLY weren't allowed to even apply for these roles until recently, and there's still massive sexism within a lot of manual labour industries. It's almost like (gasp) increased equality in the workplace could help to solve this issue too!

Well, it's unfair for both, obviously. I used quotation marks for women in the sense that quotas are an established practice designed to address inequality, which can be interpreted as giving women an unfair advantage.

However, it's rare for people who consider quotas to be unfair who also recognise that men dominating all high-powered/high-paying roles is unfair, too. But that position is logically inconsistent. If getting a job based on your gender is bad, then getting a job based on your gender is bad, whether you're male or female. (The only way to 'logic' out of this position is the blind belief that men are in positions of power due to innate superiority - i.e. if you admit to being a straight-up old-fashioned sexist, which surely no thinking person would do).

As you said, literally the only way to make it 'fair', in theory, is to have 50/50 quotas for men and women for everything. But that's what gender quotas already are, and it sounds like you don't think they're a good idea! Hence my confusion.

(If women wanted revenge, the quotas would be to have 80-100% of all powerful roles filled exclusively by women for a couple of millenia or so. I don't see anyone proposing that particular strawman, however.)

Sorry, I'm genuinely confused. Could you please explain why accepting the same thing for both men and women (preferential treatment/quotas) is 'bias'? Because 'treating people equally' is the opposite of bias, by definition...

EDIT - sorry, I think I get what you mean now with unfairly vs 'unfairly'.

You're saying that it's fair for men to dominate in workplaces and politics, because 'meritocracy' - they're inherently better, at everything, on average, than women? Is that correct?

/blinks.

Yes, this is literally exactly what I'm saying? But you sound like you think you're having a 'gotcha' moment with me. I agree with you. Since everyone is okay with men unfairly obtaining positions, everyone should be okay with women 'unfairly' getting positions through quotas, too.

Otherwise it's not equality, as you say.

The word 'might' is doing a heck of a lot of hard work in that sentence there, lol.

I'd like us to get rid of dumb stereotypes that say men can't be 'nurturing' and women are too weak for hands-on work, yeah. Do you really think men and women choose different careers because of some innate god-given gender difference, or because thousands of years of societal/cultural pressures push us towards different things? I know which one I think is more likely...

Absolutely, and also for nurses, carers and teachers. (Maybe if we recruited more men to these professions they wouldn't be so overworked and underpaid!)

Oh okay, so you're going with the "men are in vastly more positions of power because they're just inherently superior" angle?

Righto then. That's certainly... a take.

But men don't get hired purely based on merit.

That's my point.

(Unless you think the majority of powerful positions occupied by men up til now were based 100% on merit, and women are just inherently inferior? I doubt anyone would admit to genuinely believing that these days though, surely...)

There has always been an invisible quota for men.

Why is a male quota acceptable but a female quota isn't?

Why should you expect people to hate incompetent women who've been placed in a role due to a quota, more than incompetent men who are placed in a role due to their privilege? Neither option is great, obviously! But why should one be worse than the other?

(For the record I am playing devil's advocate somewhat - I do think that quotas are blunt instruments at best, I think they should be used to ensure a diverse shortlist of qualified candidates rather than directly applied, and I hope that in a few decades or so we'll no longer need them.)

Actually there's pretty extensive evidence to suggest that encouraging diverse shortlists leads to better recruitment and also helps to reduce prejudice and encourage a broader pool of applicants in the future.

In a prejudiced society men already have an unfair advantage; there's effectively already a 'man quota' in many ways. And yet some men like to pretend that it is merely 'meritocracy' that's led to politicians, CEOs and other powerful figures being vastly more likely to be male.

Nah. That's the man quota.

Meritocracies work great in a society free from prejudice. Alas, we don't live in one of those yet. Maybe one day...