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Gender-based Discrimination, part 2

Intro

In my first post I talked about gender-based discrimination. There’s never a good reason to discriminate a person, on any base. Gender, race, sexuality…

In my opinion, everybody must have the same opportunities, without even looking at whatever they are.

But (and nothing good ever comes after a “but”), sometimes we’re doing an overkill.

Equality

I’m 100% pro equality. And I think there should be laws to make gender-based discrimination (or any discrimination) impossible. But currently, they’re saying that you need to have as much women as men in a executive board. There should be as much female politicians as male politicians. But what if you just don’t have enough female (or male) people to make that happen. What if the most capable people in your political party are male, and you just don’t have the woman to fill half of your voting list. Should you just appoint a less capable female (or male)? I’m sure there are a lot of women who make better politicians, managers, directors… than men. But this works also in the other direction. If there was a list completely filled with women, no one would bat an eye. On the other hand, in the other way…

Another example. In my time as a student at the university I was active in a lot of councils, boards… I had a seat in the board of directors of the student services of the school. To be in that board, you needed to be elected by the student council. There were 2 free seats, and 3 candidates. As you can guess, there were 2 guys (including myself) and 1 girl. Because the rule that the board needed to have as much male as female members, we needed to elect a man and a woman. So, only one was sure of her spot, even before the actual election. But everybody knew that my male colleague had much more capacity than my female colleague. Nevertheless, she was elected, next to me. But this isn’t really the great issue. The issue came after a few months, when she was replaced with my male colleague. She just couldn’t do it. She wasn’t capable enough to understand what we were saying during meetings. Was this discrimination based on gender? Of course not. A less capable person was replaced with a more capable person. If we just ignored the parity rules the first time, during the elections, we had been better of in the first time.

Of course is this an example of a male who is stronger than a female. But I’m sure there are a lot of examples where the other is happening. Just comment!

At last I want to talk about the division of roles based on gender. A woman who takes her “primitive” role in the household, becomes more and more not-done. Men have to take their responsibility in the household. And of course, I think that is true. If I see my father lie down in the couch, while my mom is stressing about how to get it all done, I don’t think “yeah, that’s how it should be”. If you’re both working a full-time job, it can’t be that the household is only done by the woman (unless you made a deal, than go on). But there’s a limit. If you work in the garden from march till November, for hours a week, you shouldn’t be obliged to do half of the work inside the house. You do your part in the garden, your significant other does her (or his) part inside. Otherwise it isn’t fair anymore. In my marriage we’re both happy. I’m a much better cook than my wife. So, 9 of 10 times, I’m the one who cooks. Meanwhile, my wife is busy with the trash, watering the indoor plants, brushing the dog… things I don’t like to do. As you can see, this aren’t the gender roles like they were until a few decades ago. But we are happy. To end this part: If you’re both happy about the role you play in your marriage, relationship, household… just go on. But never ever judge a person who does a role which is, in your opinion, to feminine or masculine, because it just could be that they are much more happy then you.

Summary

So, a short summary. You shouldn’t discriminate based on a difference someone is born into. If someone is male, female, black, white (or anything in between), straight, gay… just look at what they can do, and not who they are. If there is a black, gay, Muslim girl who would bring a great value to your company, why shouldn’t you hire? But if there’s a straight, white man who would bring a greater value to your company, why should you hire the first? Because you have to? I think you get my point.

Next time I’ll write about sex in and outside a relationship. Unless I want to talk about anything else. Then I write about that. Or not.

Sincerely

JH

[jhemelman-blog]

Gender-based Discrimination

Intro

Hello reader

The purpose of my blog is to give my honest opinion about the actuality and about some taboo subjects. Sex, drugs, LGBT… Everything will have to deal with my opinion. So, if you don’t like other people’s opinion, then don’t read this. You only will get annoyed by me.

I’m not native English. So if I make some mistakes (or many, whatever), please let me know, so I can improve my English writing skills.

So, this time: Gender-based Discrimination

This first time I will talk about gender-based discrimination. In the last minutes of international women’s day, I think this is appropriate. 

A while ago I encountered a really good example about what gender-based discrimination is. Me myself belong to the “most privileged” of people. I’m a Caucasian, university-schooled, first world, straight male. So, I must be privileged, right? Well, I don’t think so, but I will come back on that later.

Now, I work in a typical male environment. I’m a process engineer. If I tell you that in the 100 people who work do the same job as me in my company, there’s not a single woman, I’m not telling a lie. And not only in my company. At my previous job (similar to my current job), there also were no woman active. My wife has the same schooling as I did (Bachelor of Science, Chemistry). She had about the same scores as I did. And she certainly has the same capacity as I. And still, not a single company would hire her in my type of job.

A little bit more then a year ago, my former employer had a vacancy. And of course, she applied. After about half a year she got the message that she didn’t get the job, because her husband works in the same department as where she would work. And I can accept that reasoning. Really, I do. But they knew this the moment she applied. I worked there for more then two years. My wife did an internship at the company. In the same department. And yet, they kept her in suspense. I already hear you thinking: “where’s the gender-based discrimination?” Well, here it comes.

Because I work “behind the scenes”, I had some other information. On the floor, there was already the rumour that they would never hire a woman. They already had enough trouble with “that kind” in the past. And a short period after her rejection she got confirmation. A supervisor, personally known to us, mailed her that it looked like the company was scared to hire a woman. After we received that mail, we had prove to prosecute, but because it was my employer, there was to big a risk. So we didn’t. When they hired two other people (two males of course), both less experienced and  lower graduated, our suspicion was confirmed.

To end this point, I will explain my job as short as possible. As process engineer I’m responsible for the proper functioning of a chemical installation. At my former company for the production of plastics, current for the production of some base-chemicals. Once there was a time that you didn’t had to have a schooling to do that, and it was very hard work that a lot of woman couldn’t do. Nevertheless, I can confirm that I know men who couldn’t do the work either. But I think you get my point. There also was a time that woman in Belgium where banned of working night shifts. So they just couldn’t do the job. But times have changed. The job evolved from hard physical work to hard mental work. The valves are automated, the process works itself. There are only the upsets, and they got more complicated during the automation of the process. Maybe putting a woman in between the harsh men isn’t always the best solution. But I think that with the right woman on the right time, there would not be any problem. As I look at my (ex-)department, I think that of the 30 people who work there, maybe 5 would “misbehave” in the face (or behind the back) of a woman. So, discrimination.

But there’s also the opposite. Gender-equality. I am a fan, but (and nothing good ever comes after a but) I think we’re sometimes doing an overkill. But that’s for next time, if there’s nothing else to talk about.

 Sincerely

JH