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Post by Jaga on Jan 27, 2006 20:19:15 GMT -7
we already started this discussion in another thread about women and driving... It seems that Scandinavia is the most progressive in treating women, sometimes it goes to the extreme: Norway's government put into effect one of the more radical attempts to achieve sexual equality: requiring that in the next two years 40 percent of the board members of the nation's large, publicly traded private companies be women.
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Post by Jaga on Jan 27, 2006 20:22:53 GMT -7
In Sweden paid parental leave is....480 days but 2 months had to be taken obligatory by fathers! look here at this charming father-child relation:
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zooba
Full Pole
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Post by zooba on Jan 28, 2006 1:29:45 GMT -7
If that was the case in Poland, nobody would employ women any more.
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Yanc
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Post by Yanc on Jan 28, 2006 2:49:08 GMT -7
In my opinion, equality of genders cannot be achieved by some administration directions.
Why there are requests for equality in board members, but not for sailors, butchers, fighter pilots, police officers, firefighters, welders, car mechanics and so on??
Genders in general have prerequisities for some occupations, and it is impossible to change it by some stupid regulations.
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george
Cosmopolitan
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Post by george on Jan 28, 2006 4:05:13 GMT -7
I think woman's equality only benifits society in general. Economically as well.If you look at advanced countries in this world, you will notice they they will afford equality among the sexes.No coincidence there. I'm not all that informed with gender equality in Poland, only that i imagine they have a way to go yet. I think reproductive rights should go hand and hand with gender rights. I was curious though, abortion aside, are woman allowed ( for lack of the proper term ) to get their tubes tied in Polish hospitals? I once read read that vasectomies for men in Poland is against the law.
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Post by Jaga on Jan 28, 2006 10:03:18 GMT -7
If that was the case in Poland, nobody would employ women any more. Zooba, from what I understand - some women actually work part-time while taking care of the children - then they still can keep all the benefits. I heard that Poland is one of the few countries that do not offer that much part-time employment. I think part-time work is good - I work part-time, Nancy - the co-host also work part-time.
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Post by leslie on Jan 28, 2006 10:19:24 GMT -7
UK government announcement yesterday that there are special apprenticeship schemes starting in the construction industry for women to become qualified plumbers (a move to detract from the 'Polish plumber'? ) and electricians. It has been seen as a good move here, but the main question is whether women will want to take it up. They showed one woman working as an apprentice electrician on a construction job and she showed herself as very capable. Of course, women working in what were traditionally men's jobs is nothing new, starting back in WWI and being even stronger in WWII and after. They still seem to be losing out, however, in the rat race for top management jobs - middle management, yes, and more senior management in such areas as HR. Leslie
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hanna
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Post by hanna on Jan 28, 2006 12:44:22 GMT -7
In Sweden paid parental leave is....480 days but 2 months had to be taken obligatory by fathers! They are discussing the same issues here in Finland right now, but it looks like they are going to take another path than the obligatory fathership-leave. Because the parental leave strains mostly female dominated sectors employers; healthcare, officework, shops etc they will try to even out the costs by making the father´s employer pay half of the costs of the parental leave/mother´s employer half, regardless of which parent stays home with the newborn. This is under discussion. Another thing recenly is that Sweden made BUYING sex illegal (not SELLING because it puts for example slave trade victims in a very bad position) and now Finland and even Estonia might be following that trend. Estonia has a huge upcoming AIDS/HIV epidemy because of prostitution and drug abuse , :(so something needs to be done. In the other end of how to implement equality; in many countries in Europe (and the US) the rights of the father to the child in case of divorce are much more emphasised - even fathers can get custody of the children. Not long ago custody was almost to 100% given to mothers disregarding the father´s opinion. In Poland mothers still get custody in the majority of cases. Parental leave in Poland is around 2 months?
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Post by suzanne on Jan 28, 2006 18:41:03 GMT -7
Quotas, as in the Norway example, don't solve "equality" problems, or problems of any kind, for that matter. What will happen in Norway is that there will be many cases of women being hired who are not skilled enough for the job, who are hired only because they're women and there's a quota to fill. Meanwhile, many men who are properly qualified will be forced to be turned away.
If a society really wants to see so-called gender equality in the workplace, society needs the following: - affordable, available, quality child care (day care/preschools/after-school programs), - a "corporate culture" that lets people have a life outside of work, and take time off of work if they or their child is sick - a work climate that does not punish people in any way for taking some time off for the birth/adoption of a child or that doesn't view having a family as anathema to having a professional life.
Unfortunately, that all takes a change in attitude on the part of society and businesses, and isn't something that can be legislated. Besides, absolute gender equality in the workplace (where, for all jobs/fields out there, 50% of the people in a field are men and 50% are women) is not attainable in reality.
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hanna
Freshman Pole
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Post by hanna on Feb 3, 2006 11:49:22 GMT -7
Quotas, as in the Norway example, don't solve "equality" problems, or problems of any kind, for that matter. What will happen in Norway is that there will be many cases of women being hired who are not skilled enough for the job, who are hired only because they're women and there's a quota to fill. Meanwhile, many men who are properly qualified will be forced to be turned away. Norway has a very high percentage of educated women, they have no problems finding qualified women. Im for this quota system. There are many psychological barriers (men/women, ethnic prejudice, age-racism etc) in society and in the corporate world that need to be tore down - it will benefit the corporate world and the economy as a whole aswell. The way companies are run needs to be more dynamic, so they can easier adapt to the quickly changing trends in society. Having a pluralistic board of different people is beneficial in this. The old-male-mason-corporations are the companies of yesterday. They will have to learn from progressive examples like the Norwegian one.
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piwo
Citizen of the World
Co Słychać?
Posts: 1,189
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Post by piwo on Feb 3, 2006 20:46:02 GMT -7
you mean, discrimination. call it what it is. you'd gladly discriminate against someone who by no fault of their own, was born male, or black, or white, or yellow, of female, or gay. You'd discriminate because, well, you think it helps someone. Well, of course it helps someone. If there was 80% taxes on income, and it all came directly to me, I could stand up and say how wonderful it was. I could go on to say how my family wouldn't be able to live in this style without it, and how "progressive" it is. But it's still discrimination against Innocent people... and of course, it's wrong. But it's socially acceptable wrong., and that makes it OK
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Post by Jaga on Feb 3, 2006 22:53:28 GMT -7
Hanna,
I don't know. I am usually against any affirmation actions supporting disadvantaged, minorities, children of peasants and blue collar workers (this took place in Poland) so that a person with the same or better qualifications but not "disadvantaged" cannot take the job.
But I agree - women have more work and less chance for advance still in the societies.
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hanna
Freshman Pole
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Post by hanna on Feb 4, 2006 3:02:59 GMT -7
Jaga, You are not supposed to lose your head when you implement this kind of law-or any law. No peasants will enter the Norwegian boards, trust me. Of course there are basic criteria of level of education, experience etc that have to apply to all people seeking the post. You have to be qualified. This law comes into question when the applicants have similar merits. It happens all the time. Look around- do company boards today select people merely based on merit or who is objectivly best? No! This kind of law is already in practise in the public sector, has been for a long time -and the experiences have been very good. I do understand your view based on your bad experiences from the Poland in the past.
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hanna
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Post by hanna on Feb 4, 2006 3:21:46 GMT -7
Piwo, I understand you prefer "every (wo)man fend for themselves"...this so-called neo-liberal point of view. This is fine. But the anti-discrimination"="freedom" you want trough that is not freedom for everybody... Freedom is not a fixed thing, people have different opinions of what it is, based on different backgrounds.
For the majority of South-Africans Nelson Mandela´s governmenments laws on quotas for colour, disabled, old etc people was the epitome of anti-discrimination =freedom in that time. Soth-Africans cried and danced in the streets because of it. (South-Africa is today the most advanced country on the continent, coincidence maybe.) For you this is discrimination.
The Norwegians pay the highest taxes in the world, and they will implement a law you call discriminatory, BUT they seem very content with it. It is after all a democracy, and its THEIR choise, their view of what is freedom, that they decide to carry out this way.
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zooba
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Post by zooba on Feb 4, 2006 4:45:46 GMT -7
Ihave been thinking about quotas in my son's school. He goes to the first grade of primary school. Because the school is small and there were too many children who wanted to attend there, the school organized some kind of interviews to select the pupils. It turned out that in my son's class there are 17 boys and 3 girls. I assume that the children were admitted according to their aptitudes, the results of the interview and what we've got - very "male" dominated group. Should the school introduce 50/50 rule? For me not easy to decide.
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