“Funnily enough, that means that you agree with Harriet Harman! That’s exactly what the Single Equality Bill will allow”

Yes, that’s exactly right, I didn’t think I was being coy about it.

Funnily enough, that means that you agree with Harriet Harman! That’s exactly what the Single Equality Bill will allow (not require, but allow).

“What, pray tell, is a reasonable way to fix this? You have, so far, come up with nothing as a solution. You are devoid of answers, my friend, you are supporting a status quo of discrimination. I’d expect you to be angry at that, but frankly you have to come up with an equality model.”

But using discrimination to combat discrimination is just silly. Apart from the gross generalisation it requires, it just doesn’t make sense. If a group of people went round punching everyone in the face for years, the solution wouldn’t be to encourage others to do the same thing, it would to get them to stop.

Excellent points Ravi.

“No, that is more or less a given.”

That’s the attitude that pisses me off. I am glad you just said it explicitly. We cannot know whether we are progressing in fighting discrimination if we don’t have accurate ways to measure the level of discrimination that fares against people because of their ethnicity or gender in companies. Looking at the proportion of people at senior levels just doesn’t cut it. If your sink has water flowing problems do you automatically assume that something is blocking? Is that also a given? Or do you also check that pipes have enough water pressure? (if I got the plumbing analogy wrong, I do apologise)

And that’s because people like yourself and Sunny are looking at the wrong angle: we should not aim at balancing diversity because it wrongly assumes that there is homogeneity in aspirations and qualifications among women and minorities.

We should aim in ensuring that people doing the same job are paid equally, and qualified people are not put back because of their ethnic origin or gender. This should be the main goal, and it is not the same as achieving diversity (senior positions = benetton ads). There is a world of difference between the two, for the reasons I have laid down in my posts.

I do think however, an “exception” can be made to when two candidates are equally qualified, that the minority gets it – because it benefits society, which in turns encourages other minorities to seek similar posts. This dynamic does not curb meritocracy, and does not necessarily restricts white males. For instance, I would love to see more Polish people working in Indian restaurants.

So you say – but how do we know that there IS actual sexism and racism in a particular company or field? We clearly need a more reliable mechanism to measure discrimination that favours one demographic over the other, then by simply comparing the proportion of a group in a company to the whole country. So far, you haven’t said anything beyond this.

No, that is more or less a given. It is pretty obvious that women, for instance, do not occupy senior positions in FTSE 100 companies. Neither do Asians, beyond Asian companies. It is perhaps not useful to not mix things. You, sir, are assuming that it is a level playing field, when it is obviously not.

I cannot see what your arguement achieves…

White, male, private school, Oxbridge, males are quite likely to recruit other from their own sub-set of humans. This leads to daft wee laddies recruiting the likes of Anthony Blunt.

That is the frigging problem…..

The least loyal group is probably white, male, private school, Oxbridge, males.

Mmm. You seem a bit angry about this subject. Particularly with with white males who went to Oxbridge!

I don’t see the New Labour obsession with trying to ‘fix’ everything with new legislation. I am sceptical that this ‘anti-discrimination’ bill will actually have an overall positive effect.

I think this new legislation can only add to any existing racial tension or prejudices within the white majority. I am confused as to why people are not addressing this, too. All this do-gooding often results in backfiring where the intended outcome is the opposite to the the real outcome.

How will you feel Douglas when you for a job that you are desperate for, and you are told there is another equally good candidate, but you will be denied this job and given to the other candidate as you are have the wrong sort of ethnicity?

There’s also the assumption that the state has a responsibility to intervene in business matters with regards to an employers choice of employee. How much do we want the state to intervene in our lives?

“But what this doesn’t take into account is that there IS actual sexism and bias in the system”

So you say – but how do we know that there IS actual sexism and racism in a particular company or field? We clearly need a more reliable mechanism to measure discrimination that favours one demographic over the other, then by simply comparing the proportion of a group in a company to the whole country. So far, you haven’t said anything beyond this.

“But you guys are doing the opposite – saying that the relative differences in representation is only down to structural differences.”

Nobody has said that – and I am guessing you have not bothered reading what I have written. Never have I said that racism/sexism does not exist: but that there are other explanations that can explain under-representation. Up to this point, it was YOU said that under-representation could only be explained by sexism and racism. As in: In a very meritocratic system – you would already have tons of diversity roughly reflective of the population. The fact that it isn’t, is reflective of the system’s inherent bias.

I know plenty of Asians and blacks in politics. They won’t publicly admit it but they face plenty of casual and tacit prejudice that holds them back.

It is not particularly helpful to mix things. We are talking about hiring people for a job in a company. Laws can be made to control the hiring process so that people are not discriminated against. On the other hand, politicians are voted democratically (as in hired) by thousands or millions of people – the majority being white – it is a choice that cannot be controlled by law, and I have no doubt that racial and gender discrimination is a big factor. But this is not really a counter-argument for the topic at hand, is it?

That group being specifically, white, male, private school, Oxbridge, males.

If the recruiters fall into that category, then as sure as God made little green apples, their preferred sub-set of the human race will be exactly the same.

To hammer it home. White, male, private school, Oxbridge, males are quite likely to recruit other from their own sub-set of humans. This leads to daft wee laddies recruiting the likes of Anthony Blunt.

That is the frigging problem…..

The least loyal group is probably white, male, private school, Oxbridge, males.

Fuck the lot of them. I have more faith in Pickled Politicians than I have ever had in any of them. There is at least a degree of honesty around here.

Och, I don’t know how to say this to you without offending you. It is pretty clear that we have had discrimination in favour of middle aged white males. Do you, or Rumbold or anyone else on your side of this arguement deny that?

What we have had is a self reinforcing oligarchy. Neither you, nor Rumbold, has a clue how to deal with that. Denial of a problem is certainly not an answer to a problem.

Personally, I agree with Lynne Featherstone, the legislation should have gone a lot further and attacked the private sectors idiocy too.

I don’t know why people insisting that giving preference to women and ethnic minorities, all other things being equal, is not positive discrimination?

I know it’s not like the States. Not yet anyway. And I accept the legislation probably wont make a great deal of difference anyway.

The left wing Independent seem to think it’s positive discrimination: Harman defends positive discrimination plans. So it’s not just right wingers coming to this conclusion.

I’d pay more attention to her if it wasn’t some sort of a high horse based on a reality that doesn’t exist. You could write that in the United States and it would be true – because positive discrimination (called affirmative action) actually exists there.

That is when you have proper quotas for minorities or women and have to fill them. This isn’t that. No matter how many times you people keep screaming it, this isn’t positive discrimination. and to keep saying it doesn’t convince me any further.

Meanwhile, anti-discrimination law at present has one very big moral advantage: it says to everyone, equally, that employers have no right to discriminate against you on the basis of your gender, sexuality, race or religion.

You see what I mean? this still is the case people!!!!!! Gosh.

Lastly, the above reality still doesn’t stop people screaming that ethnics get preferential treatment in this country, so its clearly rubbish.

What the f*** is wrong with you people?!!

Jenny McCartney says it for me, It’s not positive, it’s just discrimination

For those of us who grew up believing that discrimination was a bad thing, the Government’s official espousal of a “right” kind of discrimination leaves a rather dubious taste in the mouth. As Ms Harman herself says in an interview with this newspaper today: “Once you move to let the cat out of the bag on something like this, you never put it back in.”

It is the soft beginning of recruitment-by-quota, a process which creates a breeding-ground for mutterings of preferential treatment. Such mutterings may well be based on spurious perceptions, but “positive discrimination” creates a climate in which they flourish…

Meanwhile, anti-discrimination law at present has one very big moral advantage: it says to everyone, equally, that employers have no right to discriminate against you on the basis of your gender, sexuality, race or religion.

We mess around with that fundamental principle at our peril: kick a hole in it, for whatever reason, and a river of angry resentment flows beneath.

Well, I’d disagree with you on this:

But one can recognise that the system has benefited white males in the past without coming to the conclusion that the only way to fix it is to discrimate against white males in the future. What we have to do is to get away from the notion that people skin colour or gender should influence whether they get a job.

What, pray tell, is a reasonable way to fix this? You have, so far, come up with nothing as a solution. You are devoid of answers, my friend, you are supporting a status quo of discrimination. I’d expect you to be angry at that, but frankly you have to come up with an equality model.

Which you have not done.

I’m not denying any of this, I’ve already argued this in the past. But what this doesn’t take into account is that there IS actual sexism and bias in the system (the working hours, the roles women are relegated to, the internal culture, traditional attitudes) that does actually discriminate against women (and minorities) too.

I know plenty of Asians and blacks in politics. They won’t publicly admit it but they face plenty of casual and tacit prejudice that holds them back. And these are people on the right or just accepting of the fact that the system is like that.

I’m not conjuring up this shit just to make a point. I talk to these people all the time. There are similarly several examples I could give you of people working in the media who report how casual prejudice is endemic in many ways.

In fact if I so wanted I could basically blog about that every day just to make the point.

Now – I’ve already accepted that there is no homogeneity amongst the population. Hell, I’ve argued that myself plenty of times when I point out why Indian girls do way better than black boys at school – so saying there is racism in education is too simplistic.

But you guys are doing the opposite – saying that the relative differences in representation is only down to structural differences. Take minorities out of the equation. Why do women in politics here so much better than women in European countries?

What we have to do is to get away from the notion that people skin colour or gender should influence whether they get a job.

Yes, I wish you could spend more time telling that to the people at the top of the tree.

In a very meritocratic system – you would already have tons of diversity roughly reflective of the population.

I agree with Ravi, this presupposes homogeneity amongst different populations. If there is diversity in whatever population you’re looking at then you have to accept there will be diversity in the types of aspirations that population has. As an obvious example the number of beer tasters from certain religious backgrounds will never reflect the population demographics.

You’re taking a heterogeneous population as a starting point then trying to ‘map’ that to a socially derived -perhaps aspirational – homogeneousness one (in terms of jobs etc) that you want. That start point and end point aren’t compatible. Diversity in the truest sense doesn’t look like a Benetton ad, there is nothing ‘wrong’ with a certain industry not reflecting population demographics.