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United States24745 Posts
In most of the countries TL members are from, women have achieved equal (or nearly equal) rights to men. For example, they can apply for the same jobs; men also can hold jobs that historically were considered women's jobs without as much scrutiny. There is still talk about a glass ceiling, and there are still jobs where men greatly outnumber women (or vice versa), but we have come a long way from the days men had one socially acceptable role and women had another.
The issue I have been thinking about is how to handle applications from females for jobs that have difficult physical requirements. On average, women are physically weaker than men in certain ways (and probably stronger in others). Of course, there are women who are much stronger than the average man as well. My initial position was that women should be allowed to do the same jobs as men as long as they can meet the same physical standards (and men who can't meet those standards can't have the job either).
I think the most typical example given of this is a firefighter who needs to carry X kilograms of gear when entering a burning building. When candidates are training to become firefighters they need to be able to demonstrate whether or not they are fit/strong enough to carry that gear and do the job. Whether that person is a women or a man should not matter. If long hair is incompatible with the equipment, then men and women firefighters both need to have shorter hair.
However, I think there are those who feel such a seemingly fair policy is unfair to women. It's 'easier' for a man to have short hair than for a woman. Perhaps we should make some modifications to the equipment women wear to make it safer for them to have longer hair. In fact, not every firefighter needs to carry the same exact equipment... maybe we could have the male and/or stronger firefighters carry the heavier gear, and the weaker firefighters carry the lighter gear. If this is the case we can afford to lower the physical entrance standards for women slightly. This makes the job more inclusive instead of having 20 male firefighters for every 1 female firefighter, without necessarily endangering anyone so long as there are still enough people meeting the original, more rigorous physical requirements. Note that the last two paragraphs are just an example, and that I do not know the details about being a firefighter.
To me, the latter argument sounds a bit ridiculous. However, take a look, for example, at the physical requirements to be in the US Military (putting aside any irrelevant/tangential thoughts you may have about the military):
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/United_States_Army_Physical_Fitness_Test#Standards
![[image loading]](http://i.imgur.com/PuwbbSL.png)
Just look at the 2 mile run standards (the situps apparently are the same although pushups are not): a 22 year old male needs to run it three minutes faster than a female... that is a pretty significant difference. The physical requirement for entering and staying in the military are lower for women than for men.
Look at how a 21 year old male's standards compare to a 32 year old's standards: 15:54 VS 17:42. The difference isn't as big as between 22 year old males and females, but it's still there. Why are the standards lower for older people?
The obvious answer is that older people generally are weaker than younger people. If you are in top shape at 20 years old, you will perform better at most of these fitness tests than at 40 even if you keep up with your training. The human body physically peaks, and then it's all downhill from there (although you can still be in 'very good' shape until you are much older if you work at it).
Basically, getting weaker is out of your control as you get older. Then again, being born male or female is also out of your control. Would it be right to say that females need to do the two mile run in the same time as men, but that 30 year olds can take more time than 20 year olds?
One argument I can see is this: as you get older (at least in the military) your job will shift from being a more physical one to a more spoken/written leadership role. The decreasing physical abilities and standards for aging employees is not problematic, as long as the person is still decently fit. However, women do not typically enter as supervisors any more than men do, so they need to be just as fit as the newbie men.
The problem I have with this is that the lowered standards are not only for people who have moved up in rank. If you try to enter the military at 30, you will be starting at the same rank/rate/etc as a 22 year old entering at the same time. Your lowered entry standards can't really be justified by saying that you don't need to be as strong.
For what it's worth, I looked into it an found out that officers in training get their heads shaved if they are men, and get their hair trimmed to their shoulders or chin if they are women. I also found out that certain jobs (such as working on a submarine) are much more available to men than women (although the US is starting to work on integrating females), a vice versa (it's harder for men to get the jobs that women go into since they can't go into subs).
Since giving this more thought I'm not as confident in my original position that we should just always have equal physical standards for men and women. On the other hand, I don't fully side with the way the US military handles gender either. I feel like this a tricky nuanced issue that is made out by many to sound simpler than it is.
 
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Being honest with ourselves, women and men won't perform equally in all areas because of evolutionary differences. Therefore there shouldn't be an expected equality in the jobs they can perform. This leads to more men doing some jobs and more women doing other jobs.
I do not think this is a bad thing, just a reasonable and logical thing.
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women are naturally better looking and more affable than men so get a huge advantage in many job roles. you see women dominating all highstreet stores, all supermarkets, all office jobs, hotel jobs, reception, office, admin and secretary jobs and many catering roles (restaurants/cafes). you dont see women cleaning caravans as much because they dont need to do that
where i work, there are ~10 men who do the "labour" jobs such as cleaning caravans, litter picking, and ~10 women who do the "sitting down" jobs such as reception, office, admin. do men have any sort of advantage over the women here, get paid as much, have breaks (we dont get breaks), have an easier job or time doing their job, or have any option of switching to a different role if they want to?
just another perspective
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Honestly, I don't understand any of the reasoning for the army having different physical requirements based on age and/or gender. If you need to have a certain level of fitness, that should be the same minimum for everyone. Period. I can understand if say the physical requirements are then higher to join the rangers etc. If you have a minimum, it should be the minimum for a good reason and apply to everyone.
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United States5162 Posts
It's definitely a tricky issue with no ideal situation.
It's an inherit unfairness in life that we're not all born exactly equal. Some are more apt to be strong, smart, athletic, ect, and the gender difference is a major component of those aspects. I'm not sure it's possible to overcome that unfairness without creating additional unfairness, as I see only a few way to handle this.
We can lower standards for women while giving them the same opportunities as men. This seems just as unfair to men, who would be more qualified for the more physical positions, while also creating a potential issue where women aren't physically able to do what is needed.
We can lower standards for women and only give them positions where physicality isn't as important. This still has a lot of the same discrimination, except instead of being completely excluded, women are only excluded from certain positions.
Or don't lower standards. The small amount of women able to compete with men can do it, while the rest are excluded mostly due to biology.
Personally, I think gender should be irreverent and you ability to do the job should be most important. So positions that are very physical should have high requirements, and probably exclude most women. It's a shame we all don't have equal opportunities based almost solely on our biology, but I don't see how we can rectify that without putting people in positions based essentially on affirmative action, and lowering the effectiveness of said positions.
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On September 15 2013 00:30 micronesia wrote:
Perhaps we should make some modifications to the equipment women wear to make it safer for them to have longer hair. In fact, not every firefighter needs to carry the same exact equipment... maybe we could have the male and/or stronger firefighters carry the heavier gear, and the weaker firefighters carry the lighter gear. If this is the case we can afford to lower the physical entrance standards for women slightly. This makes the job more inclusive instead of having 20 male firefighters for every 1 female firefighter, without necessarily endangering anyone so long as there are still enough people meeting the original, more rigorous physical requirements. Note that the last two paragraphs are just an example, and that I do not know the details about being a firefighter.
Is it really worth it for an employer to change a job to make it more inclusive to both genders?
In principle the hiring decision is based on the expected performance versus the cost of hiring someone. The gender bias comes into play when an applicant's expected performance is misjudged due to cultural preconceptions. Therefore, I think that the area for change is in the evaluation of job applicants, rather than the job itself.
Also firefighter is a weird example because in some areas it's more like a volunteer position while in others it's a dangerous necessity. The job requirements can differ greatly for residential vs rural firefighters (for example forest fires require specially-designed equipment; if someone can't use it they should really reconsider their career path).
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If the physical standards are necessary and there for a good reason (threatens peoples lives if not met), then I don't see any justification for altering them to adjust gender ratio. If the standards are arbitrary and don't apply to the job then get rid of them instead of playing this game of adjustment. It defeats the purpose of having a standard if you're going to bend it to meet different classes of people.
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I agree with you. It's not as clear cut as people want it to be.
I think you hit on a lot of subtleties that cause making changes to be difficult. Even if you are in a position of power to alter these policies and have the time to think about it, gender fairness is such a political topic that you will almost definitely come under fire no matter what you do, and these subtleties are not likely to get the attention they should from sensationalist media/water-cooler gossip. I think a lot of people in this position are going to feel like it is easier to just keep things the way they are, and only tackle the topic when they are put under pressure by mass opinion to (aka letting women into the military at all).
One poster above mentions that it's more common to see women in secretarial jobs. He offers the reason that they are more affable and beautiful or something like that, but I think it's a society thing. Of course we've seen cute girls at these jobs, but we also see a lot of very ordinary women too. Boys when they're young are encouraged to do these physical, laborious jobs, girls are often taught the exact opposite, to try to keep their hands clean and not over exert themselves. There are counter examples but there aren't many, and we see that reflected in this.
I think we often mistake what we're used to for what is 'biological' or 'evolutionary' fact. You might be able to find a study that shows people are more receptive to a female voice on the phone than a man's, but you might just be really unused to hearing a male secretary.
It's a slow process and it isn't speeding up any time soon. Big populations take a long time to make big changes in culture and attitude. We as individuals can only do our best to be ahead of that glacial curve ;p
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I think these double standards are kind of weird and i think they're even kind of insulting. Yes it's true, women are naturally physically weaker than men, but why would that be a reason to lower their requirements? Because it's not just like every man is as gifted as every other man. Someone who is 1.70m tall is probably going to have a harder time meeting the running requirements than someone who is 1.85 meters tall.
Is that a reason to set different standards for small and large men? Of course not, we just accept that the one has to work a little harder than the other and everything's fine. If you're not accidentally Albert Einstein or Usain Bolt, chances are high that there are many people in your field of work that are more gifted than you are, but i don't know anybody who would want other people to expect less of him/her because of it.
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Requirements should have exactly one standard: Whether the person meets the general requirement or not.
Below 1.60m but want to work for the police? Tough luck.
Can't run fast enough to be a police officer (because you're too old/too fat/physically disabled/your genes suck)? Tough luck.
Have a lower education than someone else (even though you might be part of a group where your employer has to reach a certain minimum quota)? Tough luck.
Adjusting standards to make the possibilities in a certain job "more equal" is a road that doesn't lead anywhere useful. It's obviously a different story if you realize that your general standards need an adjustment.
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On September 15 2013 03:18 r.Evo wrote:
Requirements should have exactly one standard: Whether the person meets the general requirement or not.
Below 1.60m but want to work for the police? Tough luck.
Can't run fast enough to be a police officer (because you're too old/too fat/physically disabled/your genes suck)? Tough luck.
Have a lower education than someone else (even though you might be part of a group where your employer has to reach a certain minimum quota)? Tough luck.
Adjusting standards to make the possibilities in a certain job "more equal" is a road that doesn't lead anywhere useful. It's obviously a different story if you realize that your general standards need an adjustment.
i think that it makes sense to have "different standards" if you think about these things not in terms of having an arbitrary speed that a candidate must be able to run (which generally, for most jobs, doesn't make sense- although it does for something like firefighting, which I think the op lists as having this as a sort of "hard requirement" that skews the ratio of men:women for that sort of career) but rather as wanting their eligible candidates to be within a subset of people that are a certain percentage above the normal in terms of general fitness, which is being measured by 2 mile times and push-ups.
if you think about it as something like, "we want people in the top X% of fitness" or "we want people that are X% more fit than the average person" rather than thinking of it as an arbitrary speed requirement, it makes sense.
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Men produce more testosteron, they grow more muscle, and they grow it faster. Men are the better athletes. End of discussion.
Anyway, i think women in the western world really dont have anything to complain about, pisses me off when women play the gender card, while at the same time crying for equality.
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On September 15 2013 03:18 r.Evo wrote:
Requirements should have exactly one standard: Whether the person meets the general requirement or not.
Can't run fast enough to be a police officer (because you're too old/too fat/physically disabled/your genes suck)? Tough luck.
Lol.
I have yet to see a physical fitness test standard that is remotely challenging.
Actually, in that respect, does anyone know of any jobs that have decently challenging aerobic minimums and what those are?
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The double standards are wrong. At least in military.
The purpose of a soldier is to perform on the battlefield. Regardless of circumstances, the enemy won't have any regard to the fairness of standards in your country; if a soldier is too slow or too weak, he will expose himself and be a burden to his squad.
Some jobs just can't promote modern definition of equality. Imagine guy getting 3rd place in a running competition, but being awarded with gold medal because he was the fastest compared to the expected standards for his age. That would be absurd.
Other areas probably can apply double standards to a certain degree, because they require more complicated set of skills and some people can compensate one deficiency with something else. But when it's needed, pure physical ability cannot be compensated with anything else. As someone said above, if people can't meet those requirements, then tough luck.
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As far as the differing standards go, in the military case I'm going to echo many here and say that I wouldn't want to trust my life to someone who (for reasons of sex or age) is not at the physical or mental standard necessary. Ditto for firefighters and policemen. But anything other than that, like an administrative or commanding job in the military, and it is just unnecessary limiting of everybody's options. And just having one standard for an application to the military, which houses a variety of possible jobs, doesn't seem to make sense, unless the standard is really only for an application to a foot-soldier role/private.
Practically speaking, no business can be "compassionate" or PC all the time for every case. There's simply not enough administrative or ethics expertise around. This is inherently a slow process. So if there's any physical requirement, I'd be inclined to not punish any business for imposing one standard (E.G., the military). Instead, movements toward a more rational system would be rewarded -- perhaps in terms of funding.
So the military should scrap the age and gender standard differences and put in a flat requirement for all categories, for now.
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With regards to the lowering standards over time, it's because of where you are assumed to be in your military career at that time.
Let's face it, are you going to throw out a senior master sergeant or brigadier general because they can't run as fast as they could 25 years ago? Career military people also tend to wind up getting a little bit more removed from the physical demands as their tasks shift more towards management. Until recently, women were not allowed to be placed into combat directly (by the US, at least) - they literally didn't have the same physical requirements in their positions. (Pissed my ex-wife off to no end that they wouldn't deploy her and that she had no chance of trying to join the PJs, Combat Controllers, or even TACPs.)
With that said (about age-based changes), my ex-wife's first sergeant was a E-9 with almost 30 years in the service. A lot of it was in special forces, and he chain smoked. He routinely destroyed everyone else in physical competitions, and said that he would quit smoking the day anyone in the squadron (a special tactics squadron, of whom even the non-combat, non-deploying personnel were in excellent shape) beat him on a run.
The military has a lot of different jobs, not all of them are directly in the front line. Of those that are, there are still different requirements based on function. Not every soldier/airman/marine/sailor is going to be able to pick up and hip fire an M-60. It's just nature. And no matter how strong you are, or how fast you run, you can't outrun a well aimed shot or an A-10 strafing run. The maximums in place in the military regulations are a little iffy too - almost a quarter of the above mentioned STS squadron were technically "obese" by military standards. Even though their body fat was probably around 8%, and they could easily throw me a long way.
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On September 15 2013 04:36 L_Master wrote:Show nested quote +On September 15 2013 03:18 r.Evo wrote:
Requirements should have exactly one standard: Whether the person meets the general requirement or not.
Can't run fast enough to be a police officer (because you're too old/too fat/physically disabled/your genes suck)? Tough luck.
Lol. I have yet to see a physical fitness test standard that is remotely challenging. Actually, in that respect, does anyone know of any jobs that have decently challenging aerobic minimums and what those are?
I have no idea how the military works. Do you have to take a test before they'll even let you into bootcamp? "You are not even worth trying to make better." I would think bootcamp would be enough to bring almost anyone up to speed.
Would you say that anyone (without very irregular body type) who does weight lifting and training for a year would be able to pass such tests? Women can build muscles too, it just isn't very fashionable. It would make sense to me that is one large factor limiting them from reaching the very attainable minimums set for males. Surely they don't just want you to barely pass the test, they want you to exceed it. Men feeling more pressured to get involved with physically intensive sports (and the types of men who want to be firefighters probably being the same as those who like sports) are probably going to have a head start in that regard. But if you take a random female soccer/football player and put her on some weight training, do you think she will pass the male test easy peasy?
Women who want to 'stay in shape' are almost exclusively encouraged to focus on aerobics and lift tiny weights to build endurance rather than power... Testosterone might help men build muscles faster, but there's cultural factors telling women they basically shouldn't build muscle at all. Only 'tone.'
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The reason for the difference is that since the army isn't able to draft and really relies on recruits + lifetime soldiers, they pretty much have to let people in. Honestly, that is the biggest thing, the military complex enjoys its size, so it keeps it by the means necessary to do so.
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I see it like this.
If you want job A you must meet requirements XYZ
Gender ignored. Thats equality.
Would u like to be rescued by a firefighter which has minimum requirement of 10 (male) or minimum requirement of 8 (female).
If u phrase the question like that. Id bet 100% would choose 10 if they were ignorant of the gender behind the numbers.
Those 10 and 8 just example numbers ftr
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Whoa, this seems way too level-headed and thoughtful. It's almost weird to see a good discussion about gender without some crazy biased posting.
On September 15 2013 04:32 SupplyBlockedTV wrote:
Men produce more testosteron, they grow more muscle, and they grow it faster. Men are the better athletes. End of discussion.
Anyway, i think women in the western world really dont have anything to complain about, pisses me off when women play the gender card, while at the same time crying for equality.
Then I saw this.
There are a lot of women in "The western world". Not all of them are the same. You see, not all women are feminists and not all woman "play the gender card". An example of this would be like someone saying "Hey, 5 years ago, men liked Football, now they like My Little Pony." and you can see the problem with that statement; different groups of men in different contexts. It's very easy to oversimplify the situation you see in an incredibly obtuse manner, and then top it off with that gem 'women don't have anything to complain about', which is complete nonsense, especially since you're complaining about it. Do men have things to complain about whereas women don't?
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EPT
