Is Equality Between the Two Genders Fair?

Sadly, that was the case until very recently when standards here in the UK were lowered to allow female "firemen" to join the force.

http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-1375381/Fire-service-strength-fitness-tests-relaxed-allow-women-firefighters.html

You're still confusing equal opportunity and equal outcome.

Equal opportunity is allowing women to undergo the same physical training and tests that would be required of a man to become a firefighter, if they cannot keep up with the men, then they cannot do the job. Equal outcome would be something like lowering the standard of physical strength required from the women entering just so that there's women in the profession, this is not the route we should be going down, we should however give women the chance to become firefighters, even if most of them fail in the end.

Also, men don't have equal responsibility over the child? I beg to differ. The situation involves both parents and it should be a joint decision, it's his child too, regardless of whom it happens to be growing inside of.

Some mechanisms which aim to achieve equality of outcome, but do not force it, create socially optimal outcomes.

For example, doing more to encourage women to enter STEM. I never really got why people are against this.

As long as equality of opportunity is preserved (i.e. no positive discrimination), getting more women to apply for STEM subjects as opposed to arts/humanities merely increases the pool of talent from which universities and institutions can pick from. And since supply tends to exceed demand when you move down past the top 15 or so universities, this increases the skilled labour pool in aggregate.

Merely encouraging and incentivising men to apply for courses in nursing or education can only be a good thing. These policies only seem to be pushing for equality of outcome on the surface.

Why don't you apply this same logic to road sweeps and refuse collectors and other low paid jobs like this that are almost entirely dominated by men? Because this is not about equality....this to women, to feminists, is pursuit of privileged treatment and using any argument to justify this pursuit. Women outnumber men in universities in the UK and across the globe...here in the UK by a ratio of 4 to 1 in some universities....I don't hear any feminists nor women crying to encourage more men into university or more women into refuse collection jobs....because it isn't about equality...its all BS aimed at giving women privileged treatment in society ...

Feminists in the GMC have done their utmost the past ten years to prevent any quotas being given to men in medicine despite the fact that women now outnumber men in this profession thanks to quotas introduced in this country back in the 40s.

...despite being outnumbered at university in almost all fields STEM and non-STEM there is nothing on offer to help more men into higher education...NOTHING....why? because this is not about equality...it is not about equalising numbers between men and women in society...its a campaign that is all about giving women special treatment in society...getting women unfairly and through non-democratic means into positions of power and control.

They have tried encouraging more men into low paid professions such as nursing for 50 years now.....and failed miserably at it year after year.....Men and women make very different choices in life. That is as obvious as obvious can be. We have different strengths and different limitations and we make our choices in life based on these strengths and limitations. ...there are fewer women in engineering not because of sexism but because this profession is very hands on and physical....men pursue it because they are physically superior. There are more women in nursing than men not because of sexism but because it plays to the strengths of women and limitations of men. This is all common sense.

We don't encourage women to become refuse collectors for the same reason why we don't encourage men to become refuse collectors. Yes, they're fairly unpleasant jobs which is why we don't tell 18 year old men or women that that is the best they'll get in terms of their career.

Furthermore, it is your own argument that men are simply more capable than women on average when it comes to manual labour which the jobs you've mentioned tend to involve. Getting more women to apply to be road sweeps probably won't cause productivity to rise whereas encouraging more women to develop key quantitative skills would.

I also never said that we shouldn't do more to correct the gender imbalance in higher education. We can tackle that as well as encouraging more people (both men and women) to go into STEM. These things are not mutually exclusive.

Firstly, attempts to get more men into nursing have not all been failures. Queen's University Belfast had the proportion of men on their nursing course increase from 6% to 10% in 3 years after a targeted drive. I would never expect there to be a 50/50 split in areas like nursing and nor should there be but being cynical about something that doesn't really cost anything and has good outcomes is rather short-sighted.

I'd also dispute the idea that engineering is actually that hands-on when it comes to degrees. Yes there is lab work but a lot of their work is conceptual, especially when comparing different types of engineering. Regardless, there are areas in STEM that don't require any difficult hands-on work whatsoever.

we can encourage people to consider things that they may not have originally, especially those which ultimately benefit society. This does not infringe on their freedom of choice.

I'm suggesting that women should be measured against a standard which reflects their potentials as men are measured against a standard which reflects their potentials.

You've made it quite clear that you prefer equity over equality (of opportunity) but I'd like to ask you this.

When women return to work after being on maternity leave and as a result have lower pay or fewer opportunities than their counterparts, is this equality or equity? Say raises or promotions are based predominantly on recent performance, is it not equality of opportunity that says 'You decided to get pregnant and as a result, the performance of your colleagues have surpassed yours'? Conversely, wouldn't 'equitable treatment' mean that women with families need extra help to get back on track?

people should be rewarded according to their level of contribution as measured against their actual ability/potential. If you and I work equally as hard (and let's assume with equal competency) then on the basis of equity we should be equally rewarded, even if our individual limitations mean our productivity levels are different.

We don't encourage women to become refuse collectors for the same reason why we don't encourage men to become refuse collectors. Yes, they're fairly unpleasant jobs which is why we don't tell 18 year old men or women that that is the best they'll get in terms of their career.

Furthermore, it is your own argument that men are simply more capable than women on average when it comes to manual labour which the jobs you've mentioned tend to involve. Getting more women to apply to be road sweeps probably won't cause productivity to rise whereas encouraging more women to develop key quantitative skills would.

I also never said that we shouldn't do more to correct the gender imbalance in higher education. We can tackle that as well as encouraging more people (both men and women) to go into STEM. These things are not mutually exclusive.



Firstly, attempts to get more men into nursing have not all been failures. Queen's University Belfast had the proportion of men on their nursing course increase from 6% to 10% in 3 years after a targeted drive. I would never expect there to be a 50/50 split in areas like nursing and nor should there be but being cynical about something that doesn't really cost anything and has good outcomes is rather short-sighted.

I'd also dispute the idea that engineering is actually that hands-on when it comes to degrees. Yes there is lab work but a lot of their work is conceptual, especially when comparing different types of engineering. Regardless, there are areas in STEM that don't require any difficult hands-on work whatsoever.

Finally, I'd reiterate that I would never in a million years want to strive for a 50/50 split in imbalanced courses. Why? Because you're right, men and women are different. However, we can encourage people to consider things that they may not have originally, especially those which ultimately benefit society. This does not infringe on their freedom of choice.

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There are barely any efforts to encourage men into nursing. It isn't seen as a problem that nursing is 90% female.

Compare that to women in medical careers. There are huge initiatives to increase the representation of women in things like surgery and academic medicine.

These things are only seen as "problematic" when women are "disadvantaged". Nobody cares when men are in a minority.

As a potential fire victim I'd rather both individuals were measured against criteria that mean they could save my life. If that means that only big strong blokes capable of carrying a ten stone weight, controlling a power hose, dragging an unconscious body running towards a burning building at fifteen miles an hour in full gear or lifting a long ladder into position can become firefighters then so be it.

What if, for whatever reason, there was a dearth of 'big strong blokes' choosing to be firefighters?

So someone who achieves twice as much as someone else would nevertheless be paid the same? Good luck arguing that in the real world. No employer would expect to keep his best employees if they took that attitude, and no high-achieving employee would stay with them.

Then we are buggered.

You've got me thinking, though, it would be interesting to know exactly how much of firefighting activity involves such 'big strong bloke' actions. I'm not suggesting that it would make any difference to the argument, but it would be interesting to know how routinely or rarely it is required.

I would imagine moving people and lifting/controlling those hoses is pretty difficult for someone who isn’t pretty strong

Why can't we do both? That's my point here.