Postal Letter

why is it improbable to achieve equity in opportunities for employment for women?

i'm doing a paper for my school. we're discussing whether gender equality is possible. someone brought up that although gender equality can be achieved through equity in, for example, employment opportunities, it is not very probable to actually achieve this in some cases, especially in developing countries. the reason given was that because there is a cost incurred when these "extra opportunities" are presented to women, and because there are certain jobs that are "generally not suitable for women due to fundamental biological differences", it's actually extra cost that is "wasted', and this is why companies are unwilling to offer women the same opportunities. Is there any example to this? also, is there also other reasons as to why companies are unwilling to offer equal job opportunities for women? (traditional thinkings/cultural influences was already brought up)

Public Comments

1. 'the reason given was that because there is a cost incurred when these "extra opportunities" are presented to women' - Makes sense. The recent Lily Ledbetter act is good in sense since it promotes fair pay, but one of the facts that is being overlooked is that, by increasing the statute of limitations to practically 'forever', corps will now be forced to record and save records/documents for forever. This involves media and mechanisms to store and retrieve such media for forever, and media is expensive. Small business owners may never even survive enough to support such systems. The employee may wait out the employer to make sure the employer disposes off his records before filing a discrimination law-suit. This can have a counter-productive effect. Small business owners can now be entirely discouraged to employ women knowing that they *can* get in trouble later.
2. Women do not make good employees: Gossip too much bitchy one day ever month or of sick Have to stay home with sick kids complain
3. because, as long as people feel they are not equal, they never will be. when women set up laws and all that for women to have equal opportunity, employers feel OBLIGED to employ them. that means that some people who may be even more qualified than the said woman miss out on getting their equal opportunity. its a win-lose situation.
4. sweetie, have you been introduced to the real world, yet? women are senators, fire fighters, mechanics, nascar drivers, you name it. real wages for women are rising while real wages for men are falling. you guys are discussing gender equality in employment OPPORTUNITIES?! If a woman isn't hired because of her sex, she can sue for discrimination. Come on, gender equality is possible, duh, because it's already here. Edit: answer #2- Rereading your post, I see that you also suggest that in some cases (ie. patriarchal 3rd world countries like Iran), it might not be possible to achieve gender equity. Short answer is: yes, this is true. Some countries, for whatever dumbass reason (culture, tradition, whatever), still refuse to allow women to partake in certain professions (even going so far as to make it illegal). You might say that companies in such countries would be unwilling to offer equal job opportunities to women because women in these societies tend to be very poorly educated; pretty much insert any obvious reason why women in patriarchal societies are at certain disadvantages. Are these things going to change? Well despite notable publicized cases of women defying the system, so-inclined women are generally f***ed in terms of seeking reform until/unless they can make the best of a chance revolution. The current president of Iran champions the non-existence of the holocaust, so I wouldn't expect much in the way of progressive reform from him. There are also cases of 3rd world countries employing women to great effect, such as kurdistan (technically not a country), that requires military service of women and men equally. Smart move for an ethnic group practically at eternal war with 3 much larger countries.
5. It's already there, in fact Harriet Harman is trying to encourage blatant sexism in favour of women.
6. Your assumption is flawed. Actually, there are more women in professional positions than men in many cases. There are more women CPA's and accountants than men in the work place today. There are more financial women managers than men in the work place today. There are more women in advertising agency positions than men in the work place today. And many more examples. It is flawed and simply not true that women are treated differently than men in our era. Terribly flawed.
7. The biggest cost of providing equal opportunities to women is maternity leave. I don't know if anyone has done a proper cost/benefit analysis on employing women who want children. My guess is that the contribution they make to an employer over a typical employment contract is much less than a typical male employee. The government (tax payer) makes up some of the loss. I believe that parenthood is a personal lifestyle choice that should not be subsidized by the taxpayer. My suggestion for making parenthood affordable is that fathers recieve a huge reduction in their income tax when their partners have babies. This would work but because it involves a woman being financially dependant on a man rather than the government the feminists wouldn't accept it! Feminists say dependent on man= regressive, dependent on government = progressive!