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Originally Posted by Toy Soldier
The only part I sort of question is the whole "BBC's highest earners are all men and that's wrong" thing... this is an issue across all entertainment media and there's very little the actual companies can do about it. People are paid based on what is attracting viewers, and for whatever reason, men seem to sell better than women. To men AND women.
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This reminds me of when there was a huge kickoff about male sports stars being paid more than female ones. That was ridiculous as most pay comes from sponsors and obviously male sport is much more popular than womens. I believe it was tennis that the kickoff was about...now I don't watch tennis but apparently (from memory of the thread) mens games go on for much longer, as such require more effort..along with them being generally more popular. So quite why should the women get paid the same for less work, and less viewers?
I do think a lot of companies still discriminate against women though. Its a kind of 'risk of pregnancy' thing in a lot of cases. Hopefully when more men start taking their paternity leave and such, this will even out a bit (I think i read somewhere that paternity leave was increased..as it used to be a paltry 2 weeks) but I am not sure what could be done about it besides that. Its quite well known that it happens, but unless its explicitly stated that they are not hiring/promoting a woman because she may get pregnant at some stage, theres nowt that can be done. Theres always ways around whatever laws are in place
I also do disagree with positive discrimination when it comes to stuff like this. The only time a company should be specifically seeking one sex should be when its something like a caring job thats for (for example) a male patient. If the patient requests a male person for personal care, then obviously its fine to employ only male people. There is no need to be employing someone simply to fill a diversity quota. Should always go to the best person for the job. If this means the majority of staff are male, so be it. If it means the majority of staff are women, so be it. if it means the majority of staff are black, so be it. If it means the majority of staff are able-bodied..so be it (theres a scheme where if you have a disability its a guaranteed interview..thats clearly very wrong)