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From: cramer@kontron.UUCP (Clayton Cramer)
Newsgroups: net.women
Subject: Re: Discrimination
Message-ID: <194@kontron.UUCP>
Date: Mon, 3-Jun-85 12:08:52 EDT
Article-I.D.: kontron.194
Posted: Mon Jun  3 12:08:52 1985
Date-Received: Wed, 5-Jun-85 00:37:17 EDT
References: <354@iham1.UUCP> <25954@lanl.ARPA> <2896@drutx.UUCP>, <715@burl.UUCP> <783@mtgzz.UUCP>
Organization: Kontron Electronics, Irvine, CA
Lines: 64

> 	Given the case where a white male and a woman are equally
> qualified for a job, who should get the job? Should we flip a coin?
> No, I don't think so. Women and minorities have been passed over in
> promotions for years. What's wrong with tipping the scales in their
> favor a little? Considering the number of women and minorities in the
> workforce, that should still leave lots of promotions for white men.

If two candidates are equally qualified for a job, it doesn't bother
me to give the job to a candidate because they are from a group that
has been discriminated against in the past.  Note: *equally qualified*.
When I worked as a employment agent, I saw a bit of how affirmative
action is actually done.  I remember one job requisition from one of
the big aerospace companies out here that said, "Because this position
is currently filled by a minority female, it must be filled with same."
As it happened, we had two candidates to show them, one an Asian female,
fresh out of school, with little applicable experience, and the other
a white male who had *exactly* the experience they wanted.  They reminded
us that white males need not apply, and hired a candidate who the company
acknowledged was *much* less qualified than the white male.

> 	Should women and minorities being promoted over white males
> that are more qualified? Ideally, no. But since when do promotions
> always go to the most qualified person? Like it or not, there are a 
> lot of politics involved with promotions. People get promoted be-
> cause they kiss up to the boss, or have the same philosophy as the
> boss. They may not be qualified for the job, but politically they
> are the right person for the job. So now the politics have changed
> a little. It is politically correct to promote more women and minorities.
> Some of them will be incompetent. But they've been promoting incompetent
> white men for years now. Are we going to attack all the political
> reasons for promoting people? You have your work cut out for you,
> particularly since a lot of the reasons are unspoken(and most discriminate
> against women and minorities, I would guess). Life is not ideal.
> If you want to stop promoting incompetent women and minorities, over
> white men then you'd better stop promoting incompetent white men, just
> to be fair.

This argument seems to be in essence, "Things have been done very
badly in the past --- let's keep doing things badly in the future."

> 	 I think that the argument that incompetent people are being
> promoted is tossed about to cover up what really is going on. Men
> don't like playing second fiddle to women and minorities. Everyone
> wants you to believe that lots of incompetent people are being promoted
> because it adds fuel to their argument. Not only are we practicing
> discrimination, but we're getting boobs to do the jobs also! How can
> we stand this! I doubt it's the problem some people seem to make it
> (don't try telling me I'm making this up. I have lots of friends who
> tell me all about the incompetent women bosses they have, or how
> this black person is incompetent but got in the program because the
> person is black).

It doesn't bother me when someone who is a minority gets a better job
than me.  I bothers me when an incompetent gets a job over me.  It
bothers me *a lot* when an incompetent gets a job over me because the
government *insists on racism and sexism*.

> 	So back to my original question - should equally qualified people
> be promoted on the toss of the coin or on sex? I doubt that equally
> qualified people were chosen on the toss of the coin before.  So what
> criteria would you use to discriminate between two equally qualified
> people? 
> 
> Sharon Badian	ihnp4!mtgzz!seb