The Student Room Group

HELP! friend gender identifying taking advantage of women's only scheme

A friend is applying for an engineering job with "women in STEM" scheme.
They were not biologically assigned that way at birth (not suggesting that matters). But is this undermining the support that other women were supposed to get to work in STEM?

Is this illegal?

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Original post by anonymouse200
A friend is applying for an engineering job with "women in STEM" scheme.
They were not biologically assigned that way at birth (not suggesting that matters). But is this undermining the support that other women were supposed to get to work in STEM?

Is this illegal?


I call it taking advantage of the new addition to the system, that bro has my respects.
is it a good thing?

or is it illegal? and denying other women opportunities ?
I think such "women's only schemes" are completely unfair in the first place.

Does a privately-educated upper-middle class woman whose parents are lawyers need an extra "helping hand" over a working-class man from a council estate whose parents didn't attend university?
modern problems modern solutions etc
I'd stay out of it.
Original post by anonymouse200
is it a good thing?

or is it illegal? and denying other women opportunities ?


Speaking from a moral standpoint, no.

Is it illegal, no.

Is it denying other women opportunites, yes.
Original post by Chief Wiggum
Does a privately-educated upper-middle class woman whose parents are lawyers need an extra "helping hand" over a working-class man from a council estate whose parents didn't attend university?


Good point. But what about working class women from a council estate whose parents didn't attend University?

Or maybe such schemes don't care. They just want women. And to be fair, if diversifying a white male workforce is the goal I think it fair to say that trans people fit the bill perfectly.

I think in our red outrage we don't often see the bigger picture. There is a shortage of engineers. There is room for all.
See I TOLD you stay out of it.
Original post by ByEeek
Good point. But what about working class women from a council estate whose parents didn't attend University?

Or maybe such schemes don't care. They just want women. And to be fair, if diversifying a white male workforce is the goal I think it fair to say that trans people fit the bill perfectly.

I think in our red outrage we don't often see the bigger picture. There is a shortage of engineers. There is room for all.

I suspect that OP is a troll.

But recruitment/academia should always revolve around applicant skillset, ambition, dedication, personal work ethic and any other positive achievements of the individual in question.
Not demographics or identity politics- which often turn out to be little more than a game of playing favourites to socially engineer in reverse to tradition.

I'm female and avoid all 'female only' programmes or extra help for the girls schemes.
It was deeply humiliating to discover that my undergrad application was parachuted for admissions approval solely because of my biological sex, for a programme where I didn't even meet the basic requirements.
Original post by londonmyst
I suspect that OP is a troll.

But recruitment/academia should always revolve around applicant skillset, ambition, dedication, personal work ethic and any other positive achievements of the individual in question.
Not demographics or identity politics- which often turn out to be little more than a game of playing favourites to socially engineer in reverse to tradition.

Completely disagree. Tech and engineering need more women for the simple fact that the company that achieves diversity stands to create revolutionally products and hence cash in. Why? 50% of consumers are women. Yet all products, by and large are designed by white men. I wonder what a phone designed by women would be like? Why do you want to live in a mans world designed by men for men? I mean - name one car designed by a woman. Would it look like the penis extensions women are forced to drive?

Women choose none tech jobs because they are put off by the male culture. Ability has nothing to do with anything. Of course women are able. And in terms of skill set are you telling me that women aren't creative and able to work in a team and solving problems? The problem is that they don't apply in the first instance.
Original post by ByEeek
Yet all products, by and large are designed by white men. I wonder what a phone designed by women would be like? Why do you want to live in a mans world designed by men for men? I mean - name one car designed by a woman. Would it look like the penis extensions women are forced to drive?

Women choose none tech jobs because they are put off by the male culture. Ability has nothing to do with anything. Of course women are able. And in terms of skill set are you telling me that women aren't creative and able to work in a team and solving problems? The problem is that they don't apply in the first instance.

I have female friends who used to work at vertu, one was the main designer of the limited edition versace and cartier models.
They both looked fantastic and sold out within days of release.
But the versace one had a terribly short battery life, on my sample the battery died after 9 days.

I think the tech and engineering environments are very different.
I often have to liaise with tech organisations and I dread going to their premises- not because of the male culture but the criminal culture.
Many of the guys who work in tech deserve to be unemployed, their attitude is that awful and this also applies to a few female managers too.
Many more still should be in jail- they have got into the habit of committing crimes at work and being abusive to colleagues, believing that they can hide behind a prevalent secrecy culture.
Open cocaine use, bullying is endemic, harassment of gay male coworkers and a massive amount of unwanted sexual groping.
From what I've seen, it's worse than the bathrooms of investment banks.
The Chinese and Israeli tech industries seem to have none of it.
Criminality is the severe issue, irrespective of the ethnicity and gender of the perpetrators who appear to come from a variety of backgrounds.
It is practically endemic in tech as a sector, senior management need to stop turning a blind eye and start rooting it out.
Or else there will be a american scandal like enron that will collapse international confidence in tech as a whole.
Original post by Chief Wiggum
I think such "women's only schemes" are completely unfair in the first place.

Does a privately-educated upper-middle class woman whose parents are lawyers need an extra "helping hand" over a working-class man from a council estate whose parents didn't attend university?

Not everybody who a lawyer went through university there also law apprenticeships it a myth that most lawyers are middle class university graduates. Working class men from council estate might go the apprenticeship route.

Also with STEM a lot of working class men from council estate might choose the apprentice route over university because to fear of debt and unemployment when they leave university.
Original post by londonmyst
I have female friends who used to work at vertu, one was the main designer of the limited edition versace and cartier models.
They both looked fantastic and sold out within days of release.
But the versace one had a terribly short battery life, on my sample the battery died after 9 days.

I think the tech and engineering environments are very different.
I often have to liaise with tech organisations and I dread going to their premises- not because of the male culture but the criminal culture.
Many of the guys who work in tech deserve to be unemployed, their attitude is that awful and this also applies to a few female managers too.
Many more still should be in jail- they have got into the habit of committing crimes at work and being abusive to colleagues, believing that they can hide behind a prevalent secrecy culture.
Open cocaine use, bullying is endemic, harassment of gay male coworkers and a massive amount of unwanted sexual groping.
From what I've seen, it's worse than the bathrooms of investment banks.
The Chinese and Israeli tech industries seem to have none of it.
Criminality is the severe issue, irrespective of the ethnicity and gender of the perpetrators who appear to come from a variety of backgrounds.
It is practically endemic in tech as a sector, senior management need to stop turning a blind eye and start rooting it out.
Or else there will be a american scandal like enron that will collapse international confidence in tech as a whole.


Criminal? Come off it. Your pist is rather vague on detail. If crimes are being committed why didn't you report them?
Good for them.
Original post by ByEeek
…show moreCriminal? Come off it. Your pist is rather vague on detail. If crimes are being committed why didn't you report them?

My post made very clear the types of brazen illegal activity I have seen firsthand within the uk tech sector- when visiting their premises.
I live in England not Northern Ireland.
None of my current jobs involve the duty to: notify the police of all the illegal drug taking people who bring a bag full of white powder into work, who the most vile gay hating bully in the office is or which scumbag has wandering paws (the sexual assault culprits I saw included both males and females).
The duty of care to keep staff safe and all employee/premises based activity on the right side of the law falls upon business owners and their senior managers- with legal liability for significant failings as regards breaches of that duty of care.

I am not suggesting that the uk tech sector is alone in having these issues with illegality or failing to remedy them.
I've worked at many non-tech businesses where management tolerated widespread bullying, sexual assaults were frequent and the abuse/harassment of LGBT community member staff was a daily occurrence.
A few firms that turned a blind eye to open drug possession and class a narcotics dealing at work.
I've been groped at work a few times over the years and spent this morning working alongside an obnoxious bully of a senior partner with wandering fingers who is in the habit of making a frequent supply of sordid remarks about various female staff members.
If I tried calling the police on him or video-recording his antics, I'd be fired and minus a reference.

One female executive working in another department to me has been described as "a class action time-bomb" by multiple members of in-house legal counsel. She is a sex pest on a six figure salary; sexually attacking much younger men on a regular basis- in full view of the cctv cameras.
There have been dozens of complaints about her, every employee has seen her in action and she has been warned that her sexual assault spree is unacceptable.
But she won't stop and when confronted apparently always responds along the lines that there is nothing objectionable in her conduct.
Legal department and the other executives whisper constant complaints about her actions but nobody even tries to initiate disciplinary proceedings against her.
I warn all my male friends to stay away from that building, unless they are willing to risk being her new victim.
One male friend wanted to "check out the cougar" and suddenly turned up pretending he wanted to have lunch with me.
He's still got the bites marks almost 6 months later, souvenirs from his 20 mins of being "eaten by the craziest cougar on planet earth".
Original post by ByEeek
Completely disagree. Tech and engineering need more women for the simple fact that the company that achieves diversity stands to create revolutionally products and hence cash in. Why? 50% of consumers are women. Yet all products, by and large are designed by white men. I wonder what a phone designed by women would be like? Why do you want to live in a mans world designed by men for men? I mean - name one car designed by a woman. Would it look like the penis extensions women are forced to drive?

Women choose none tech jobs because they are put off by the male culture. Ability has nothing to do with anything. Of course women are able. And in terms of skill set are you telling me that women aren't creative and able to work in a team and solving problems? The problem is that they don't apply in the first instance.


Do you have any evidence for that claim?

The evidence seems to suggest that the main reason that women don't go into tech is because they don't want to/prefer other fields.
Original post by londonmyst
My post made very clear the types of brazen illegal activity I have seen firsthand within the uk tech sector- when visiting their premises.
I live in England not Northern Ireland.
None of my current jobs involve the duty to: notify the police of all the illegal drug taking people who bring a bag full of white powder into work, who the most vile gay hating bully in the office is or which scumbag has wandering paws (the sexual assault culprits I saw included both males and females).
The duty of care to keep staff safe and all employee/premises based activity on the right side of the law falls upon business owners and their senior managers- with legal liability for significant failings as regards breaches of that duty of care.

I am not suggesting that the uk tech sector is alone in having these issues with illegality or failing to remedy them.
I've worked at many non-tech businesses where management tolerated widespread bullying, sexual assaults were frequent and the abuse/harassment of LGBT community member staff was a daily occurrence.
A few firms that turned a blind eye to open drug possession and class a narcotics dealing at work.
I've been groped at work a few times over the years and spent this morning working alongside an obnoxious bully of a senior partner with wandering fingers who is in the habit of making a frequent supply of sordid remarks about various female staff members.
If I tried calling the police on him or video-recording his antics, I'd be fired and minus a reference.

One female executive working in another department to me has been described as "a class action time-bomb" by multiple members of in-house legal counsel. She is a sex pest on a six figure salary; sexually attacking much younger men on a regular basis- in full view of the cctv cameras.
There have been dozens of complaints about her, every employee has seen her in action and she has been warned that her sexual assault spree is unacceptable.
But she won't stop and when confronted apparently always responds along the lines that there is nothing objectionable in her conduct.
Legal department and the other executives whisper constant complaints about her actions but nobody even tries to initiate disciplinary proceedings against her.
I warn all my male friends to stay away from that building, unless they are willing to risk being her new victim.
One male friend wanted to "check out the cougar" and suddenly turned up pretending he wanted to have lunch with me.
He's still got the bites marks almost 6 months later, souvenirs from his 20 mins of being "eaten by the craziest cougar on planet earth".


I'm just surprised that's all. Having worked in tech for 17 years I haven't seen any of what you describe. That said, by turning a blind eye, obligations or not, you are supporting such behaviour despite your outrage on this forum.
Original post by limetang
Do you have any evidence for that claim?

The evidence seems to suggest that the main reason that women don't go into tech is because they don't want to/prefer other fields.


Clearly. But the big question is why? Mine was a hypothesis but I think it is reasonably well supported.
Original post by ByEeek
I'm just surprised that's all. Having worked in tech for 17 years I haven't seen any of what you describe. That said, by turning a blind eye, obligations or not, you are supporting such behaviour despite your outrage on this forum.

I have a friend who work in tech for ten years in a well know company he said people were having affairs taking drugs at parties and basically being not very nice human being male/female. He was made reduction so it could just be that he was upset at his employer and not truth.

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