International Day of the Girl? What About Gender Equity?

Today is International Day of the Girl – a day set aside to advocate for girl’s rights and raise issues of gender bias – according to those women running this annual event.

Isn't it interesting how in this world of equal rights, women are the only ones advocating for and raising issues about “gender bias?”

So it isn't any wonder that the only gender they advocate for is their own.

It takes both men and women to keep the world going – at least if we as a species want to continue to exist. As modern as science has advanced, the miracle of life occurs when a woman’s eggs are fertilized by a man’s sperm. The physical act of sex no longer need take place, thanks to test tubes, in vitro fertilization and other medical marvels, but so far, to continue on as a species, it takes both sexes.

So why do gender equity discussions only focus on one of our sexes – those with mammary glands?

Granted, over half a century ago, women and visible minorities in North America were treated as second-class citizens. They were given the low paying jobs the men in charge didn’t want. Often women – back then – were treated as sex objects, objectified, and poorly treated.

A lot has changed in the 50-plus years of the women’s movement, and the other politically-correct movements throughout our society, including just about every race, sexual orientation, religion, and anything else which makes us different from one another.

Employment equity programs have changed the face of the working world – now more than ever those that were discriminated against decades ago are now doing the discriminating.

Every time I see “we are an equal opportunity employer” at the bottom of a company’s tagline, I read that as “we’ll hire you, so long as you are not a white man.”

Employment equity programs were originally brought in to level the playing field, so that women and visible minorities were no longer discriminated against. Essentially the original idea behind them were if you have two equal candidates vying for the same position at a company, as a last resort, you’d hire the one that was either a woman, or a visible minority.

Problem is, as we see today, those employment equity policies have essentially created a workplace where white men are no longer welcome. No one should ever be hired based on their race, sex, or anything OTHER than their skills and experiences.

So the whole employment equity movement was flawed from the start, and here we are today, where on average white men are dropping out ofthe work force, because they can’t find work. They are just giving up.

You’d give up to if you saw everyone working at the places you were applying too didn’t have anyone like you.

I've worked for some of the biggest companies in the financial sector – including American Express, KPMG, and BMO Bank of Montreal and all of these I was shocked – no horrified to see how they all had wrongly used employment equity policies to create workplaces which were anything BUT equal.

American Express’ team I was on of about 200 people was 90 percent Chinese, and 10 percent other. That does NOT reflect the population of Canada, or even America.

When I was working for one of the largest banks in Canada, BMO Bank of Montreal, the team I was on had two white men on staff, while the rest of the female-led team was all women.

The business unit for that team, The Institute for Learning, which ironically fell under the Human Resources department, was about 90 percent women, and 10 percent men.

Yes, in North America, there are more women than men proportionately in our society. However, what I experienced at BMO Bank of Montreal was hardly representative of the Canadian society which it serves.

Clearly women don’t need a gender equity day all their own. Though the real point I’m trying to make is no one should have a day to promote their own gender, sexual orientation, race, creed, religion or anything else unique to them, or their own group.

If we are to really achieve full equality for all, no one group should ever be celebrated outside of the whole.

That was and still is the major flaw in all politically correct movements, and corporate job equity programs. By creating policies, procedures and practices which advocate any one group above all else, you discriminate against anyone that falls outside that group.

That’s why the pendulum has swung the other way – now women and visible minorities no longer suffer discrimination in corporate North America – which is good -- however everyone that is not a woman or a visible minority suffers discrimination.

That’s why the tagline “XYZ company is an equal opportunity employer” means “white men need not apply.”

And that’s as wrong as wrong can be.