Kallasilya t1_itpagz5 wrote
Reply to comment by hellraisinhardass in Women will have equal share of seats in [New Zealand] Parliament with Soraya Peke-Mason's swearing-in by giblefog
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.)
anto2554 t1_itpf9te wrote
>Why is a male quota acceptable but a female quota isn't?
Because one might be based on men getting more votes from men, and men liking men more, (?) or on men statistically pursuing something harder for various reasons.
The other is a blatant "you may not do this because of your gender" in black and white
Kallasilya t1_itpfkms wrote
The word 'might' is doing a heck of a lot of hard work in that sentence there, lol.
anto2554 t1_itphthv wrote
Okay, so am I understanding correctly that this is your opinion?:
Men vote more for men, because they're men, and women vote entirely based on merit
laukys t1_itpbcz2 wrote
I think you overestimate how much privilege matters. If person A can do the same job at half the cost that person B can, in a capitalist society person A will get hired significantly more often.
Kallasilya t1_itpbl4d wrote
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.
laukys t1_itpe5z1 wrote
No, I think it's more complicated than that. Sociological forces exist, but so do other factors. There is the greater male variability hypothesis for example. There is also evidence to suggest that in general women tend to gravitate to jobs that deal with people and men gravitate towards jobs that deal with things. There is also the gender equality paradox - as countries become more egalitarian (like Scandinavian European countries for example), the gender gap actually increases.
I am not saying any group is better than any other group, and I am not trying to pigeonhold anyone either - the in group variance is actually higher than the variance between groups, so there are women qualified for any position. Equality of opportunity should be one of the main goals of our society, however expecting an even 50/50 split in anything is ridiculous.
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