Why Does The Demographic of Employees Matter?

[JohnT]

"Considering the title of the thread, I think Bodd's was using the tech issue as an example of why he thinks seeking diversity in a company is somehow stupid. I was merely countering with examples in which is it quite pertinent. If he just wants to confine the discussion to the tech sector, so be it, but I don't think that was his aim."

Point taken.

[Japher]

What about diversity in the Home Workforce?

Most of the domestic engineers are women (stay at home moms). I want more diversity in this field! I want to stay home all day!

...though I may be asking for it.

[David Floyd]

Diversity in the workplace should be irrelevant, except way too many people care about race. Stupid racists.

[mactbone]

I don't exactly agree that we need more women, etc. in the workplace, but it is important that way change the way people act about certain other people learning things. For instance many believe that the reason many women don't pursue fields dealing with math and some sciences is because in their education there is a stigma against women being smart at something that easily definable (you can argue whether someone writes well to a point, but in math there is only one answer). So some women are intimidated out of the field. Personally, I would have liked to see more women in enginerring when that was my major - there was ~15% women in Engineering and in the other schools it was a lot closer to 50/50 except CS, which was again a lot lower. Obviously something's odd and I'm very curious as to what the exact problem is and how we can alleviate that.

BTW, I couldn't believe that some senior women in high school wanted to be stay at home moms - I wasn't prepared for the idea that people I had gone to school with would just up and quit learning and not work. Especially since TV culture has really pounded in that women can be anything they want.

[chequita guevara]

I was going to post, then I saw that it was a Spink thread, so why bother.

[Sandman]

And it doesn't surprise me the Beeb didn't place that last paragraph in speech marks - sliding to the left all the time.

If you'd quoted it in full, instead of cutting it off mid-sentence, then the reason it doesn't have speech marks would be pretty obvious.

Currently too many women are leaving the profession and this flow must be stemmed if the UK is to have an equal percentage of men and women in the tech sector, said Trade and Trade and Industry Secretary Patricia Hewitt.

[Solly]

Boris - you say a company might want to employ a black or gay person in order to appeal to either the racist or heterophobic attitudes of their customers.

A while back, you made the argument that gays should be allowed to adopt, and that any teasing the adopted got at school was society's fault, so it shouldn't stop gays adopting.

These are mutually exclusive positions.

[rah]

Only to you bod.

[Hurricane]

If we limit ourselves only to the engineer sector, I would say the main benefit is that the employees will feel more comfortable when both sexes are represented. I know I would be very reluctant to work only with guys.

On a more general scale, there are lots of jobs that would need more people of the other sex. It is good both for society and competitiveness.

[Caligastia]

In case you didn't notice, there are major differences between men and women. If all environmental conditions were equal, the ratio of men to women would not be 50-50 in any industry, so why do we continue to strive for this pointless and unattainable goal?

[Solly]

I don't hear much being said about male primary school teachers..

Or white footballers in the national team..

[Dis]

And I think more men should be in the watressing field as well. WTF

[Worthingtons]

Good sense from Castigastia. since men and women are very different, having different skills and likes/dislikes. Such has been proven in scientific studies. People should pursue a career that is right for them, ideally something which matches thier skills and which they will enjoy doing. This 50-50 milarky conflicts here with both common sense and the needs of society in general.

I'm not sure why the Media has to print such rubbish. I know there is always pressure from the government and lefty sewage to inforce such ideas on us, but is our population so dim-minded as to actually take it on!?!

[Solly]

By the looks of this thread, yes they are.

[Urban Ranger]

The point is us geeks can't find girlfriends if women don't work in the tech sector. So we just have to unleash worms and viruses to vent our frustration.