Some evidence please? You cannot just throw out statements like that without something to back you up.
Actually I can make exactly that kind of statement without data because I my reference was to what I've seen. Yet again, read for content in context.
But if you want to know what it was that I saw...many times I was involved in the process of hiring engineers, technicians, designers and even administrative asssistants.
I spent quite a few years at the devision headquarters of a large devision of a major corporation located in the Chicago area.
In theory, the human resources department would sift through the applicants and pass along the resumes of the ones they thought met our criteria....or sometimes they just went ahead and scheduled interviews.
Would you expect that there might have been english speeking engineers looking for work in the Chicago area? I'll bet there were and are LOTS of them. LOL
I won't get into the mix in regard to gender or race other than to say that rarely did a white english speeking person get in for an interview. I could fight HR on the english speeking part but that's where my influence ended. As hard as they tried, they couldn't make me approve the hire of an engineer or technician that we couldn't talk to.
I've worked for six years in corporate life in two male-dominated industries, and have found that women are more discriminated against in my own experience. But I wouldn't consider my own experience as evidence of systemic discrimination. Although there have been some studies into IT in Australia recently, which have found that women are often paid less for the same type of work. But I think there needs to be more research before I would go around claiming that.
Not all of the gender or even race mix that we see in various professions has anything at all to do with discrimination. When I was in school, there were VERY few woman in that course of study. It was no surprise that when I got on the job, there were very few female engineers.
However, that will not stop an HR department from trying to bypass many well qualified and experienced male candidates in order to find that one female applicant and force her hire even if she isn't a very good engineer.
As far as pay...I don't know. I've seen several methods used for determining pay scale, salery increase ect. I have never witnessed gender OR race influencing the decision. What I will tell you is that you always make more money if the boss likes you and wants to keep you. If the boss is a good manager, that works just as it should. If the boss isn't a good manager, nothing is going to work anyway so it doesn't matter.
It's a tough world. I've seen many many professionals that didn't make what they thought they should make...get slighted on a review or passed over for a promotion. It's very common for them to have some excuse and think it isn't their fault. If that person happens to be of some "minority" they can scream discrimination...but maybe they just aren't very good at what they do.
I've probably worked with hundreds of engineers but only a handful that I thought were really talented. As a matter of fact, and maybe it's simply because there are fewer female engineers (I only worked with a few as apposed to many males) but I never worked with a female engineer who was any good. In fact, working with them was like having a baby-sitting job. They couldn't hold up their end AND it was taboo to force them to. You pretty much had to just do their work for them. They were kept like pets. They weren't expected to do anything other than look the part and keep the seat warm...I guess because they were female and the company was afraid to discipline them. If they were male, they would have been made to do their job or they would have been replaced.
I think the term for much of what I saw is reverse discrimination.
But I don't mind at all where you get your principles from - I'm just not that good at watching people try and foist them on to others.
