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Path: utzoo!watmath!clyde!burl!geoff
From: geoff@burl.UUCP (geoff)
Newsgroups: net.women
Subject: Re: Discrimination
Message-ID: <729@burl.UUCP>
Date: Wed, 5-Jun-85 17:25:04 EDT
Article-I.D.: burl.729
Posted: Wed Jun  5 17:25:04 1985
Date-Received: Thu, 6-Jun-85 08:12:47 EDT
References: <354@iham1.UUCP> <25954@lanl.ARPA> <2896@drutx.UUCP> <715@burl.UUCP> <783@mtgzz.UUCP>
Reply-To: geoff@burl.UUCP (geoff)
Organization: AT&T Technologies, Burlington NC
Lines: 57
Summary: 

In article <783@mtgzz.UUCP> seb@mtgzz.UUCP (s.e.badian) writes:

>	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.

I think this is two separate issues.  Firstly, whether competant or incompetant
people are being promoted, and secondly, whether women and minorities should
be given preference.  Promoting is (to say the least) an inexact science.
I bet most managers out there would *love* some fool-proof method of
determining the most qualified candidate.  In the main, they do the best job
they can (they are probably not the best qualified people to do the choosing,
anyway).  Some also promote yes-men who are no where near the best qualified.
No argument.  I don't really see a solution, though.  It is their *job* to
promote someone.  They have more facts than anyone else.  They have to live
with the results.  And the person(s) who own the company WANT that person
doing that job (or she wouldn't be there).  Incompetant people will slip
through the cracks and get promoted anyway.   I do not consider this
justification for promoting women/minorities who are incompetent, or just
less competent than their white male peers (obviously, I don't feel that
it is justification for promoting while males who are incompetent, or just
less compentent than their women/minority peers).

The second issue is one I have pondered over.  I don't think it happens very
often (there is always *something* different between the candidates) and so
I don't think the outcome is that important.  I would probably hire the
woman/minority candidate for all the reasons I usually oppose (i.e.,
affirmative action) because here I am *looking* for some way to discriminate
between the two, and that seems as good a razor as flipping a coin.

>	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

I hate to waffle out of your last question, but it would depend on the
situation.  There could be so many different factors I could not begin
to go into them (sorry).  Some would make sense in one situation, and
yet be ludicrous in another.

	geoff sherwood