"Yes studies statistics blah blah blah. "

Yes, who needs actual data when you have all powerful personal anecdotes instead. Seriously, people can come up with personal stories to justify any ridiculous belief. It's non-falsifiable and completely unaccountable.

"That is the education, not some silly seminar to teach, no means no, and good touch vs bad touch. "

So you preach education but then mock efforts to educate, even seminars on what constitutes sexual violence. Good grief.

She wasn't allowed to ask him technical questions or question his credentials. HR policy.

"You have to admit, the populace as a whole is still better in terms of racism/sexism than it was 100+ years ago. "

Well, yes people aren't lynched anymore and employers can't get anyway with forcing female employees to have sex with them. So obviously means we're completely civilized and the government needs to get out of the way. I hate the "we've come so far so let's pretend race and gender don't matter" crap. It's an excuse to preserve the good ol' boy network.

@SD - That is bizarre. I was teched over the phone by someone who became my coworker before I ever interviewed with my future boss for this position.

@abgemacht - Software developer, so I know what you mean. Give me a loaf of bread, a jug of wine, and a laptop with two dual-core processors, 4 Gig of Ram, a good mouse, keyboard, and a docking station with three monitors and make certain the pizza guy can find me to deliver lunch and I'm good to go.

@SD

That is odd. In all of my internships, I was interviewed by a technical person, and that was before I even had my degree.

Are you sure you have the story completely right? If he worked for DoD, he may have not been able to answer questions for security reasons. I hear the DoD is a bit of a resume killer.

@ Putin33

"I hate the "we've come so far so let's pretend race and gender don't matter" crap."

I do not know if you are in favor of or against affirmative action, but I can see that this discussion is starting to head in that direction. What do you think about affirmative action, Putin33?

I thought I had indicated my support for it earlier. Anyway, I support it. As I said, all affirmative action demands is equal consideration of different demographic groups. It is not a quota system, as quotas are illegal. Michigan's admission policy was struck down because it was considered 'too close' to being a quota system (even though I disagree). Without some government insurance that hiring practices are fair the gap will increase between the privileged and disadvantaged groups. We cannot simply rely on the 'good will' of employers or university administrations. We've seen that that doesn't work.

Yup. I actually used to work for this employer (in a lesser position) and it seems their policy is to let the resume and credentials speak for themselves following a background/reference check. They did sneak in technical questions, though, by making him give a presentation on some technical things.

@Putin33 - Either you are not understanding my intent or you're a silly troll.

"Yes, who needs actual data when you have all powerful personal anecdotes instead. Seriously, people can come up with personal stories to justify any ridiculous belief. It's non-falsifiable and completely unaccountable. "

My point was that you can't use a statistic and apply it to an individual. They are meant to see the populace as a whole. Individuals are on a contextual basis.

"So you preach education but then mock efforts to educate, even seminars on what constitutes sexual violence. Good grief. "

-So you feel that a sexual harassment seminar is effective? You honestly think that they are simple people that go, oh shit. they don't like that? No they are dicks and will just suppress their dick nature. Some change, good for them but no seminar does that.

"Well, yes people aren't lynched anymore and employers can't get anyway with forcing female employees to have sex with them. So obviously means we're completely civilized and the government needs to get out of the way. I hate the "we've come so far so let's pretend race and gender don't matter" crap. It's an excuse to preserve the good ol' boy network. "

You quoted the part where I said we progressed but not the part where I mention it's essentially been very little. Can you not read that much at once? Or do you like misrepresenting who I am?

Affirmative Action is a short cut to tell people, you're dumb, gotta do it this way. It's not ideal. It is forcing people to be held accountable, thank god.

@ Putin33

Affirmative action is wrong. Whoever has the best combination of credentials and experience should get the job, regardless of race, gender, or anything else.

You said "I hate the 'we've come so far so let's pretend race and gender don't matter' crap."

That is not "crap". Race and gender do not matter. That is the way things ought to be.

That's the way things ought to be.

It's far from the way things are.

@ Sayjo

Ok here is what you said, I'll re-read and see if I got it wrong.

"You have to admit, the populace as a whole is still better in terms of racism/sexism than it was 100+ years ago. We aren't remotely close to eradicating it but people speaking out and fighting the oppression is the most effective."

I interpreted this to mean that we've progressed a long way so we don't need a strong policy to intervene and make sure hiring practices are fair, that we can simply say that education will take care of it and we just have to wait until attitudes change. Meanwhile the people who run up against glass ceilings and other barriers will just have to suck it up.

If I misinterpreted that I apologize, but I think I got it right. You didn't say all discrimination was eradicated, that is true.

"My point was that you can't use a statistic and apply it to an individual. They are meant to see the populace as a whole. Individuals are on a contextual basis."

But if we're discussing what policy should be, we cannot base it on what happens to an individual here or there. There will always be outliers.

"So you feel that a sexual harassment seminar is effective? You honestly think that they are simple people that go, oh shit. they don't like that? No they are dicks and will just suppress their dick nature. Some change, good for them but no seminar does that."

Then I'm perplexed at your proposal that education solves all problems on this issue. If people are just jerks, then why will education solve the problem in your view?
I do think that in some cases people do not know what the lines are, and that a seminar can clarify this. Just like students in school need to know what consent actually means.

@Gunfighter06

"Affirmative action is wrong. Whoever has the best combination of credentials and experience should get the job, regardless of race, gender, or anything else."

And affirmative action doesn't change that. It simply mandates that you actually bother to consider people of all demographics so you get the most qualified candidate.

"Race and gender do not matter. That is the way things ought to be."

You cannot have hundreds of years of racial and gender hierarchy and discrimination and then all of a sudden declare a color and gender blind society and expect problems to go away. If you give certain groups a 400 year head start and then "OK, past inequalities don't matter, demographics don't matter", then of course you're going to have a huge gap between groups. It's a convenient way to prevent inequality in opportunities from being rectified.

A good example is the New Haven firefighter case. Tests were thrown out because the white candidates all scored much higher than the latino and black candidates. People said throwing it out was 'reverse racism'. No, the firefighting unit had no history of non-white firefighters. All the white candidates, or at least many of them, had greater access to the books to study because they had relatives who were firefighters. When you say each person should be considered on their merits, I agree, but we need to make sure people have equal opportunity to succeed on the merits, and aren't getting special advantages compared to other candidates.

"You didn't say all discrimination was eradicated, that is true."

**I meant to say you *did* say all discrimination was eradicated.

"And affirmative action doesn't change that. It simply mandates that you actually bother to consider people of all demographics so you get the most qualified candidate."

If that is true, then I support affirmative action. However, I do not think your definition of affirmative action is the same as most people.

"we need to make sure people have equal opportunity to succeed on the merits, and aren't getting special advantages compared to other candidates."

I agree. But how are we supposed to make sure that white firefighters don't get any help from relatives? The government cannot be that oppressive. Likewise, we cannot give the black and Latino firefighters special assistance not given to the white firefighters.

I do not think affirmative action is nessecary. This is going to sound harsh, but the other races will eventually catch up without assistance. If we start boosting people up or dragging people down, where will it stop? If you have not read the short story "Harrison Bergeron" by Kurt Vonnegut, I recommend that you do so.

"This is going to sound harsh, but the other races will eventually catch up without assistance. "

Well I've never been of the suck it up and wait out the discrimination, crowd. This argument was used against the Civil Rights Act of 1964. It was used against Brown v. Board and to support 'separate but equal' schools, etc. I'm not saying you're a segregationist I'm just saying the logic of the argument was the same. That you can't force these things, you have it wait out. Eventually black schools will be just as good as white schools, etc. That proved to be false then, and I think it is false with hiring and admissions practices now. There's plenty of evidence to suggest this is true.
http://research.upjohn.org/cgi/viewcontent.cgi?article=1185&context=up_workingpapers&sei-redir=1#search="effects+of+affirmative+action+bans"

I think the argument could be made both ways now, that hiring practices and people's point of views have changed in most areas of the country, but that there are still some places (deep South, Texas, the same places where voting intimidation still occurs) that still needs affirmative action. However, the way affirmative action has been implemented is, in practice, reverse discrimination forcing the white male to be better to compensate for the bonus points the minority individual gets. This can also be seen in government contracts where minority owned businesses get preferential treatment, coming in with higher bids that fulfill fewer of the contract requirements yet getting the business contract because they are needed to meet a quota. Of course, I know some businesses get around this by taking advantage of having a minority board memebr who becomes the "face" of the business for government contract work.

Sayjo-“most of us believe the similar premises but are disagreeing about inane details that were probably just misrepresented haha” Is that to be my signature? Haha It seems to be mostly representative to how Putin responds to my posts. God I hate English.
@Putin33 "We aren't remotely close to eradicating it " is what I said... Why the fuck do you keep reading that I said we are instead of aren't is it because you keep misinterpreting me the entire thread like I mentioned? I do not have a strong English background like most of you English natives and I do word things outside the norm but they are still correct. (I do mistype but I work extra hard to correct them than most)
Putin-"**I meant to say you *did* say all discrimination was eradicated. " See above
Putin-“I interpreted this to mean that we've progressed a long way so we don't need a strong policy to intervene and make sure hiring practices are fair, that we can simply say that education will take care of it and we just have to wait until attitudes change” See above and I’ll add my quote
Sayjo- “people speaking out and fighting the oppression is the most effective. That is the education”
Why do you keep responding to me when your responses and interpretations are not what I said?
Putin-“I misinterpreted that I apologize, but I think I got it right” Like I showed above, you weren’t even close do I get a real apology now? If not please stop responding to what you think I said instead of what is actually there.
Putin-“do think that in some cases people do not know what the lines are, and that a seminar can clarify this. Just like students in school need to know what consent actually means.”
I agree and on point. I still think most people aren’t benefiting because adults on average know basic good and bad, they just try to get away with it.
Putin-“You cannot have hundreds of years of racial and gender hierarchy and discrimination and then all of a sudden declare a color and gender blind society and expect problems to go away. If you give certain groups a 400 year head start and then "OK, past inequalities don't matter, demographics don't matter", then of course you're going to have a huge gap between groups. It's a convenient way to prevent inequality in opportunities from being rectified.”
+1
Gunfighter-“Likewise, we cannot give the black and Latino firefighters special assistance not given to the white firefighters.” Yes we can, it’s called. I’m so fucking sorry our ancestors/relatives were so dumb. At this day and age we still start out ahead, but please accept these opportunities to catch up.

.. omg I apologize for the atrocious font >.<

Silly silly me, on a public computer on not used to how absurd this looks haha

*and not on... sigh

Gender-based wage gaps in pay can only be justified in the most manual of jobs. For example if the job is to use a logging machine the output isn't based on physical capacity. This would strictly prevent a wage gap unless it was sexism. Now if it was manual logging a wage gap can exist; however the gap would exist due to less physical strength which could/should be the reason for an output gap. That reason would be the basis for a wage gap. By extending the argument to "she's a woman, therefore less strong, less productive" is pre-judging. Now if that is borne out, and an output gap occurs than pay them less, but have an output-based pay for everyone in the field.

Sidenote, the key takeaway is that the primary point is that output-based pay is just, and should be the pay system for manual labor fields. The same holds true for non-manual labor fields, productivity/quality of work should determine promotion/raises, and bonuses. The sticky situation is when gender is used to discriminate at the hiring level, I can't not hire you because you're a woman, and cutting logs is physically straining. I can decide to not hire you because you have no experience in the logging field, and the same reason is used to not hire men.

Speaking as someone who has had experience working physical labor (I grew up on a farm), output based is trickier to nail down than you'd think.

Let's take two people picking up bales of hay in the same field at the same time. One places more bales on the wagon than the other. More output, right? So more money. But. What if that person is able to do so solely because they are only picking up the bales closest to the wagon, whereas the other worker is going further into the field to get bales, thus reducing your total time spent on the field? The person going further in is actually doing equivalent amounts of work, and equivalently valuable, but in output based, would be getting less, which would encourage all workers to just stay by the wagon, grab the easy ones, and take more time doing it because you now have two people competing for all the ones that the "more productive" person took the first time. Not the ideal.

And now you have one field that's well drained at a high elevation, and a second field that borders a swamp where the hay tends to be wetter. Those wet bales are much heavier, so if we're counting pure bales, the person working a higher elevation field with lighter bales is going to lift more of them...but definitely do less work.

The same is true with lumbering. Not all trees split just as easily. If you're looking for a specific type of wood, not all assigned plots have the same quantity of it.

Ditch digging. The depth of top soil can vary, and the make-up of the underlying soil as well.

Pure output isn't pure in manual labor, because it assumes all other things are equal, and I know enough about manual labor to know they aren't. Sure, you can get a general idea of who is better than who, but only through observation over time, not really by counting exactly what they bring in.

@SacredDigits-You are right, output isn't always so contrasting. The job of a supervisor and the like is to measure such factors. I notice more and more personal responsibility taken away recently, not that it has happened recently just my observation has been recent.

I like the way my employer does it...

Each year, a percentage table is released. Based on what your review was and where you are in the pay range for your position determines your percentage, that way the people at the bottom of the scale get a larger percentage and the ones at the top still get something for a job well done and it is regardless of age, sex, sexual-orientation, race, religion, or any other factor.

And when they make you on offer of employment, they look at your current position and past history and experience to make an honest and fair offer.

@Draugnar, that is not bad actually. It let's you know on a peer level how you are doing and for me at least would add a lot more drive to improve.

I like it. It's fair and performance based.

I still don't get how I misinterpreted you Sayjo - are you an advocate of government measures to address the wage gap and gender discrimination or aren't you?

Putin, I posted what I said. Next to that I posted what you said I said. They don't match up. Do you see how you constantly didn't properly perceive my message?

I said it isn't ideal, I never said I was against doing something that sped up the process of removing discrimination and/or creating areas that held business and people accountable for discriminating.

I don't know a better solution, I just feel too much personal responsibility is taken away (In many areas, not just this topic) to prevent out dated thinking from affecting others.