Should Gender Equality mean 50/50?

Should all jobs be split down the middle at 50/50?

 

depends if you mean equal opportunity or equality of outcome. As someone who took an equality and diversity qualification through work (after I was offhandedly told by an employer I wasnt picked for a sales job because of my sex) I used it to brush up on UK law and what equality actually means. Turns out it's as messy as the question you just asked.

 

Do you mean should all jobs have a fifty fifty split between the two sexes?

Not necessarily, however where there isn't a fifty fifty split, it's worth looking at the reasons why, if it's due to hiring practises etc then they should/could be changed, if it's due to wider social issues, (like lower rates of education for men) then the reasons why should be investigated.

Equality of opportunity doesn't always mean equality of outcome.

The reason for equality is simple, under utilisation of half of the workforce means financially countries are less competitive then more equal societies, however they're are knock on effects to this, access to childcare is essential if you don't want a shrinking population , which again leads to financial problems for a country.

Wierdly this is one of the issues that's powering the brexit debate.

Both sexes work, so house prices go up, nobody had the money to have many kids, we import workers from the EU, and the UK born population feels hard done by because people from abroad with a good work ethic are sometimes doing well.

 

Lets not forget who the EU or foreign nationals are and what roles they are taking.

 

Yes, I would like someone to do half my job for me, preferably a lady, and preferably redhead.

 

I know a few doctors, and pharmacists, nurses, paed nurses, nursery workers, shop owners, and builders.

But that's only my limited skewed experience.

Freedom of movement for workers doesn't seem like a bad think overall, quite a few friends of mine are/were working abroad.

 

steady on I charge for most of those 'jobs'

 

A key thing people forget is how many Britons actually leave to live abroad and work/stay there

 

Imagine they're suprise when all the retired people from Spain come back, and find out they may not be eligible for free NHS care!

 

LOL careful, MAP is a family friendly site.

Ribaldry seems to be OK, but should be delivered with James Bond style innuendo. Like the dirty jokes they sneak into family films and kid's movies.

 

My cousin lives in Spain (illegally) and is probably going to get sent back when he's caught post brexit

 

*renames account into a cheap innuendo*

 

Way ahead of you.

 

I mean, should all things in society be 50/50. I mean for instance, (anecdotal evidence but I'll try and back it up later) every time I walk through a local uni next to my college, it's is easily 95% female. Men are very few and far between in the extreme. It sort of got me thinking. Should there always be 50/50 split in all aspects of life?

I know for instance that my college is always looking for women to get into the motor vehicle courses. They stand a very good chance of getting on the course as long as they meet minimum requirements. One of my lecturer's says the industry is still quite sexist (he's older though). My younger lecturer says that's nonsense and garages everywhere are hiring whoever and it actually looks better for them to take women too.

It's not equal though. There are three women on the course I attended last year and around 12 men/boys. I would bet that ALL the women that applied for the course got on but I would doubt all men did (it's a popular course). That said I'd understand that they would want more women just to pump numbers up. There are very minimal requirements and sometimes it just comes down to the discretion of the lecturer.

So even with all the women that applied there was only three. Which tells us that if it's us being taught that it's happening way before college level.

Anyway I'm just rambling but I'll see if I can find statistics about higher education at that uni.

 

The thing is, if he's not been a resident for one/three (I can't remember but it's not long) years, he won't be able to claim anything much, and he'll have to pay for NHS non emergency treatment.

Will Britons in the EU still get free NHS treatment?

 

The problem is is that because of centuries of gender stereotyping, expectation, restrictions, ridicule, etc we've no real idea what a "natural" gender employment split actually would be like.
For example being a nurse verses being a doctor. Both jobs were heavily gender biased one way or the other but there's no real reason that couldn't be a more even split for both.
At a push I might gently posit that women might tend towards being more empathetic and "caring" (however you can even quantify that) that might explain more of a tendency towards the hands on nursing role but not to the extent of years ago when nurses were almost exclusively female and doctors male.
Aside from the physical side I can't see any reason why most jobs can't reflect the gender split of the wider population.

 

Is that innate or learnt behaviour though?

 

Well therein lies the rub. No one gets brought up in complete societal isolation so unpicking what's innate and what's learnt is nigh impossible.
And yet people seem so certain that "boys will be boys", "girls like pink" and other cliches.

 

Although given the level of emotional games and politicking my 10 year old daughter has to put up with from her 'friends' I'm beginning to think girls being "nicer" than boys is a big con job.