Path: utzoo!attcan!uunet!aplcen!samsung!usc!elroy.jpl.nasa.gov!aero!orc.olivetti.com From: jan@orc.olivetti.com (Jan Parcel) Newsgroups: soc.feminism Subject: Re: Feminism's ill effects on men? Message-ID: <89657@aerospace.AERO.ORG> Date: 25 Oct 90 17:54:17 GMT References: <11109001:30:33RA04@lehigh.bitnet> <1990Oct18.154041.6433@ora.com> <4955@watson> Sender: nadel@aerospace.aero.org Reply-To: jan@orc.olivetti.com Followup-To: soc.feminism Lines: 51 Approved: nadel@aerospace.aero.org In article <4955@watson> uunet!mitel!watson!watson@ncar.UCAR.EDU (Steve Watson) writes: >Last year the Ontario College of Art instituted a policy according to which >teaching vacancies will only be available to WOMEN. This will continue >until the faculty is 50% women. At current turnover rates, this should >take 10 or 20 years. (I may have some details wrong, corrections welcome) >2) I'm not saying all feminists, or feminism-in-general are doing this: I >take it as an example of feminism gone crazy. This reminds me of stories I hear from my sister. My sister knows of organizations that put off and put off their self-examination as to why they're not getting minority applicants until 9 out of 10 positions are filled, just like my kids put off starting their term papers. Then, at the 11th hour, they start telling whites that they can't be hired *because* they are white, when a large part of the story is that they have been ignoring AA methods such as posting and advertising fairly, have been hiring through the old boys' network, and only because of AA do they have to even make an effort to find 1 minority applicant. If they had been doing their job all along, the "minority" position would have been filled along with the first 9, by interviewing a varied pool. And they would have already found enough variety that that 10th position would be "available for" whoever came along, regardless of race and gender. AA is supposed to be a committment to tracking one's progress in overcoming conscious and unconscious institutional discrimination. When institutions start telling white males "sorry, we're only hiring women and minorities now" they are usually trying to INCREASE sexism and racism, not overcome it, IMHO. If the org you mentioned only gets 1 opening every 5 years, and has an all-male staff, and is looking for a woman to round it out *as* a *teaching* institution, then only considering women might be fine. If it has 100 positions, 99 male, and interviews for, say, 8 positions a year, then they should recruit like hell for the qualities they need, including an insider's expertise on women's art (which is not a given just because the teacher is female), and if they find exceptionally qualified men occasionally, then hire them. I would expect this to yield at least 50% women new-hires for quite awhile without having to ban the hiring of men. The problem is often that the old order *defines* qualified as "has the same viewpoint and information I have," which makes it a catch-22 for obtaining people with diverse viewpoints and knowledge. ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ jan@orc.olivetti.com ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ We must worship Universal Consciousness as each of the 5 genders in turn if we wish to be fully open to Yr glory. -- St. Xyphlb of Alpha III