[comp.society] Affirmative Action

julie@comp.vuw.ac.nz (Julie Harris) (05/30/90)

Kia Ora (Greetings),

I have just caught the tail end of this discussion because I have had
terrible trouble keeping up with all the groups I wish to read as well
as doing full-time study and having a 14hr/wk part-time job.

This is also a sort of followup to the Gender bias/technology
discussion that is/was also going on in this group.  Gender bias and
science is a particular interest of mine but I have only just started
researching it.  I would be interested in getting a copy of all the
preceding discussion on this topic if anyone has saved it.  There is
also a discussion in sci.psychology about "Does Sex Bias Affect
Science?"

Someone described equal opportunity using the following analogy:

   "It's all very well having the door finally being opened to women
   but there are still steps up to the door and many women are in
   wheelchairs."

This means that equality of opportunity is not enough in a patriarchal
society were women still have the odds stacked against them.

Positive discrimination is really a way of legislating against
discrimination because many employers will not stop discrimination
voluntarily.

In New Zealand legislation was passed in 1972 (phased in over 5yrs) to
enforce mandatory equal pay for the same work.  Employers got around
this by giving different job titles to men and women for doing exactly
the same job!

Another problem is the under valuing and under paying of female
dominated occupations.  The most common example is the difference in
pay between nurses and police although (in NZ at least) they are
equally stressful and physical jobs and in NZ nurses get at least
three years training whereas police get six months!  (Patricia Evans
also made some comments about the under valuing of nurses' knowledge
in a previous article.)

To combat this the Government is now considering the "Employment
Equity Bill".  It legislates for the removal of barriers against equal
employment opportunity for disadvantaged groups such as women, Maori
and Pacific Islanders, and less abled people.  It also legislates for
equal pay for work of equal value.

In one of the Women's Studies classes one assignment is to practise
writing a Parliamentary submission, this year it was on this Bill.  We
got to read the real submissions and the ones against the Bill from
the employers showed that they are unlikely to do anything without
being forced to by legislation.

Another (non-US) example, where equality of treatment is not equity of
treatment, comes about from our state funded school system.  Is it
fair for the Government to give the same amount of money to single-sex
girl's schools as for single-sex boy's schools for buying toilet
paper?

Sorry if this has been said before,

Julie Harris