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0 pointsRIMR10y ago0 comments

You seriously need to learn the difference between constructive contrasting, and fallacious straw-man arguments.

I am telling a true story about an actual boss I had who was using "positive discrimination" in a dubious way. This wasn't some fabricated argument meant to replace yours. I'm contrasting two similar actions, one of which you defend, while the other you condemn - yet you can't articulate why.

>We want to see women with skills and abilities hired in the same ratio as men.

Well, if an employer gets 30 male applicants for every female applicant, then by your standard they are now obligated to mass-discriminate against fully-qualified men for no other reason than their gender, while suffering a lack of staffing while they try to find as many technically-qualified women to fill their ranks.

This problem runs much deeper than sexual discrimination by hiring managers (which is actually quite rare). You're trying to put a band-aid on a nonexistent wound.

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JoeAltmaier10y ago

Ok, thank you for the perfect straw man, right there in glorious living color. If an employer gets 30 male applicants for every female, then I suppose that fictitious situation would justify discrimination against women.

But there's no reason to assume that is the case. The evidence, in fact, is that women do apply for jobs and are not hired. Blind trials of anonymous resumes show that women would be hired, if only the reader didn't know they were women. That once hired, with nearly identical job histories for men and women, men are complimented for leadership qualities and promoted, while women are criticized for being bossy and demanding, and denied raises and promotion.

Willfully ignoring these well-documented issues is not the same thing as debating. Coming up with one anecdotal case (that 'constructive contrasting') and concluding that nothing should be done because there is no problem, is pretty much classic strawman argument.

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