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.
