Relay-Version: version B 2.10 5/3/83; site utzoo.UUCP Posting-Version: version B 2.10.1 6/24/83; site ubc-cs.UUCP Path: utzoo!utcsri!ubc-vision!ubc-ean!ubc-cs!andrews From: andrews@ubc-cs.UUCP (James H. Andrews) Newsgroups: can.politics,net.women Subject: Re: Discrimination against x Message-ID: <1133@ubc-cs.UUCP> Date: Wed, 3-Jul-85 13:34:29 EDT Article-I.D.: ubc-cs.1133 Posted: Wed Jul 3 13:34:29 1985 Date-Received: Wed, 3-Jul-85 15:38:47 EDT References: <893@mnetor.UUCP> <5642@utzoo.UUCP> <896@mnetor.UUCP> <15520@watmath.UUCP> Reply-To: andrews@ubc-cs.UUCP (James H. Andrews) Organization: UBC Department of Computer Science, Vancouver, B.C., Canada Lines: 36 Summary: In article <15520@watmath.UUCP> bstempleton@watmath.UUCP (Brad Templeton) writes: >While one might claim that it is an important social gools [sic] to ensure that >"black female plumbers are paid as much as white male plumbers", ... I *do* claim this -- don't you? >... it is >also a very important social goal that superior plumbers are paid more >than inferior plumbers.... > ... If somebody criticizes a hiring decision as sexist, and >the employer responds that they think those [sic] chose the superior applicant, >the government is required to set down standards to decide who is the >superior applicant. >Thank you, but no damn way I want this to happen.... Employment policies will be independent of race and sex iff we have a totally non-racist, non-sexist society. We most assuredly do not have such a society right now, and it would take several generations for such a society to come about, if it does at all. In the meantime, while the bigots get educated and/or die off, it is important that we try to move towards equality amongst races and sexes. If an imposed solution is the only way, so be it. We owe it to all our people. By the way, I am basically an optimist when it comes to the potential of humans to move away from racial intolerance. Skin tone and hair colour must have been factors of discrimination in, say, 10th or 11th-century Britain, indicating as they would racial origin (Celtic, Anglo-Saxon, Scandinavian, Norman, etc.). Obviously those racial distinctions have all but disappeared in the genetic mix which now characterizes most English-speaking countries. More recently, up until a few decades ago there was great prejudice against Irish North Americans, which has by now dissolved into, at most, fairly mild stereotypes. So racial tolerance can happen, but it happens on the individual level, and cannot really be legislated, much as we would like it to be. But we can legislate against the effects of racial intolerance, such as different wages for different races. So let's do it as much as possible! --Jamie.