NY Times writer refuses to hire superbly qualified babysitter, because he's male

It is a shame, although I noticed that when I was in hospital in Preston they were very good at it and in the section I was in, all the male rooms had male nurses. Isn't it because of the lack of male nurses though?

Yes, precisely because of the kind of discrimination we are talking about here.

What the hell are you talking about? I said companies (employers) cannot hire and fire at will. Fact.

You are clearly not studying employment law because your understanding on it is abysmal.

Only people can hire and fire, obviously you are missing a few brain cells if you think brick and mortar can hire and fire. The company is subject to company house rules, which the employers and employers have to follow. But the company itself can not. Your knowledge of business is abysmal.

I think you are rather dense for taking the word 'companies' literally. Seriously.

No it's not; boys can choose to become nurses if they want, and the reason they can't have all male nurses on the wards is because there wouldn't be enough of them unless they work longer shifts than the girls, which doesn't really seem fair to me.
The woman has the right to choose her child's babysitter depending on what she feels comfortable with. If she doesn't want a male babysitter for her female child, fine, and vice versa.

I presume it wasn't Nature or Science.



Tolerant? It's just a total non-issue.



That what happens when social norms are challenged, without people doing this we wouldn't have progress at all on issues such as racial and sexual inequality. How you feel now is how men in the early 20th century felt about women voting or working the professions. Therefore I'll have no truck with your reactionary views, thank you very much.

Betting the same people who are saying this is outright unacceptable discrimination are the same people who were defending the casting person for the whole dark skinned hobbit episode.

First of all, understand that it is ultimately the womans choice and that she is under no obligation whatsoever to accept any candidate regardless of their qualifications.

Secondly do any of you people have a young child, niece or nephew etc? While I know it's unlikely that a babysitter is going to end up being a pedophile but I'm sure people who have had their children abused never, ever thought it would happen to their child. Also, don't most pedophiles act from a position or trust/power?

While it is unfortunate that the media has created this culture of fear you have to understand that parents are vulnerable to perceptual fear when it comes to their young children. This isn't a bad thing. Vigilance and cynicism is not a bad thing although you ultra left liberal Utopians would have us think otherwise.

And finally when you hire a baby sitter you do it so you can be elsewhere and function knowing you can trust in your own decision as to who you have hired. Why should she hire the male if she's going to work/going out or whatever and spending the whole time worrying where as she can hire a female (with lesser but albeit acceptable qualifications) and have the peace of mind?

People have the choice of gender when using plenty of services like the doctors, counselors etc. When a person says they want to see a female doctor instead of a male, about a problem not exclusive to females, do you people start screaming "but the male doctor is equally qualified *get the pitchforks*"?

No you don't because it's all about making the service user comfortable and if in your world that's discrimination then you must spend all day complaining about anything and everything.

What is the reason there aren't many male nurses? Because it is perceived as a female job (just like childcare) by society and there are many active social pressures against men choosing this profession. It is exactly the same as this issue. You can't just isolate this woman's actions and judge them, you have to put them in context and realise that there are probably hundreds if not thousands of women doing this at the same time. Individualisation is the ploy of the conservative to try and make this behaviour acceptable.

It was either New Scientist or scientific american. I'm not subscribed at the moment so I can't search their databases and give valid links. Please do not be condescending.

I don't understand how I'm arguing against racial and sexual inequality. It's normal for all people to have equal rights but inequalities still persist and cannot simply be wished away. On average (yes there are splendid exceptions) women are less physically strong and better communicators, to name a few. Men are on average more competitive. Short people are on average worse at basketball. Yet no one deserves to be campaigned against. However from an economic or personal point of view, it makes more sense to send on average more men instead of women to their deaths in Afghanistan, or to hire more women than men in a cheerleading team. (those are perhaps not the best examples, but I'm sure you can find your own) Whether or not positive discrimination is actually useful is a different point altogether that remains to be debated.

You speak of challenging social norms, but today's norm is to be hip, cool and progressive (a word that has almost no meaning but that everyone uses). Today's rebel is the chaste catholic nun or the Archie Bunker who doesn't care for PC.

Deep down, I wish everybody had the same opportunities and possibilities, but I know that in reality life is unfair and there are things which the vast majority of people will be better at than you from birth, and no social progress or will change that. Promoting diversity for the sake of diversity is cruel to those it penalizes and patronizing/humiliating for those it benefits.

there was a facebook campaign to oust the female Match of the Day commentator when she wasn't bad at all.

There are plenty of jobs perceived as being male jobs, but it doesn't stop women doing them if they want to. The same applies to men who want to train to be nurses. The woman wasn't discriminating because she didn't think he'd be good enough, she chose a female babysitter because to a lot of mothers their child is the most important thing in their world and they need to entrust their care to someone that they feel totally comfortable with.

I'm sorry I'm really struggling not to get frustrated here. Are you really that ignorant of the massive differences in jobs and earnings between men and women and the huge barriers presented to women in many professions, such as engineering, that are still causing problems today?

As a poster below has said - if every woman did that then we have a problem.