Do you believe equality is beneficial or detrimental to society?

[Myka]

Originally Posted by marie

Myka, just because you can't keep up with your job does not mean another women couldn't do the same job "working that hard" and be happy.

That's not what I said at all. I said:

Originally Posted by Myka

I can keep up to the men (and outwork many) I know I can't work this hard for many more years.

My body has worked very hard. Take a look at the size of my biceps, my "6-pack" abs, and the callouses on my hands (all of which I find embrassing btw). I don't go to the gym to get that. I have been in male-dominated industries for 10 years. I have done forest fire fighting, carpentry (I'm 6 months away from journeyman), and now I drive a vacuum truck which involves more heavy work than driving. I have always preferred to work a physically strenuous job to keep myself in shape, and maybe I've taken it a bit too far.

There are other women doing jobs I have done (I haven't seen or heard of any vac hauler women though), but there are few, and even fewer of them can keep up to the guys. I'm a perfectionist, and can't handle not being the best at what I'm doing. Keeping up isn't good enough. I will outwork most men at my job, and my body now feels that. I'm 5'8" and a petite 120 lbs, no butch here. My body is not made to work as hard as it has for an entire lifetime, and both my chiropractor and my doctor have told me I should find a less strenuous job for the future because the wear is starting to show, and I'm only 27.

Sure I'm only one woman doing a man's job, but I'm still part of the statistics. When the time comes that I can't keep up anymore, I will find a new job because I don't feel it's fair or safe for me to have a position where I can't keep up. I'm sure that time will be well before I hit 40, which is also well before retirement.

[mark]

to bring this thread back up, here what I was told today is needed for a position I'm doing.

.... is committed to having a skilled and diversified workforce representative of the population we serve. In support of our Engagement Strategy to achieve employment equity goals, selection may be limited to candidates self-identifying as belonging to one of the following Employment Equity groups: Aboriginal peoples, Persons with a Disability, Visible Minorities and Women.


Basically raise your hand and you go to the top of the list.

[StirCrazy]

Originally Posted by mark

to bring this thread back up, here what I was told today is needed for a position I'm doing.

.... is committed to having a skilled and diversified workforce representative of the population we serve. In support of our Engagement Strategy to achieve employment equity goals, selection may be limited to candidates self-identifying as belonging to one of the following Employment Equity groups: Aboriginal peoples, Persons with a Disability, Visible Minorities and Women.


Basically raise your hand and you go to the top of the list.

I get a kick out of these.

so disabled = 14.8% or alberta population
Visible minors = 11% (which includes Aboriginal people)
Statisticly there are more women in the world than men, so we will say 55% so that = a total of 80.8% of workforce must be from these groups so they can only hire 19.2% white males..

My sugestion is to have a sex change

Steve

[Ian]

Well I voted on this a while ago but now I want to comment
1st- Stircrazy I agreee with most of what you said with the exception of one point
14. Men have better distance vision and depth perception, and usually better vision in lighted environments. Women have better night vision, see better at the red end of the light spectrum, and have better visual memory.

When I work in the neruoscience lab one of the things I remember clearly is that men have a higher density of rods in there eyes which allows for greater acuity in vision including low light situations but are not sensative to light. woman have more cones which gives them far greater color awareness ( GO CLOTHES SHOPPING WITH A FEMALE FOR PROOF) but lower detail ability and night vision

Now back to the topic at hand, equality.
It has been and always will be nothing but wishfull thinking. In society we have selective breeding and that is the start. it is known the we are drawn to certain persons who have a set of traits that will compliment our own, producing offspring that are better ( more fit) able to survive. we also tend to pick mates that are at or very near our own social class, some factors can allow us to move up or down such as wealth, percieved power, or great beauty but for the most part we stay close to our own level like it or not. So from a societal perspective equality is very unlikely.
From a workforce standpoint I think equality is not only a bad idea but has actualy deen detrimental in many ways to the progress of minorities. Do you think that any employer forced to hire the 2nd or 5th best applicant simply because of a forced quota system will be happy about it? That same employer may then decide that he/she will only hire to fill the quota and then not consider any more minorities. Also in jobs where a very specific skill set is needed changing requirements to " level the playing field" is counter to simply selecting the best person for the job and could end up being dangerous depending on the job.
As a 6'4" 300 pond man I know that there are jobs out there that I cannot do based purely on my sizebut I also know that my 5'5" 120 pound wife was not the person I wanted watching my back when I worked as a bouncer in some very nasty bars.
later
Ian