‘It’s a Man’s World’ James Brown mellifluously informed us back in the 1960’s. That might have been true once – it might even be true now, but unlike James we are forced to look further afield for our evidence. Assuming, as a man, you still wish to make the cars, the trains and the electric lights to take us out of the dark, your best bet is to put on your Sunday dress before you show up for the job interview. The sad fact of the matter is, it’s not easy getting hired as a man in the current climate; and if you compound the matter by having the audacity to be white, you might as well send your curriculum vitae over to Jim’ll Fix It.
I applied for a job last week, but I didn’t get it. The green-haired, non-binary, two-spirit, genderqueer panel told me that they / them were looking to hire a woman. Naturally, in the spirit of genderfluidity I flashed them my moobs, my Adam’s apple and my penis, but they said regrettably I still wasn’t feminine enough! “It’s nothing personal” they told me as I got up to leave, “you’re more than qualified – but we’ve got to think about our quotas, rather than flummery like profit and productivity”.
Quotas are indeed at the heart of the matter. It’s no surprise to learn that women are preferred 2:1 in the headline-grabbing STEM fields. And in sectors where they are underrepresented, all-women shortlists are often employed (as well as the direct exclusion of male candidates), to get things up to 50:50 as soon as possible. It’s interesting to note that the reverse is rarely if ever true.
As an illustration, it was curious to note earlier this year that the Victoria and Albert Museum is desperate to improve its quota for minorities. With its Asian and minority ethnic workforce languishing at 17.2% – woefully short of the 18% national BAME demographic, the V&A is hoping to get that up to 20%. In terms of gender however, the 75% female, 25% male imbalance is much less of a concern – the plan being to get male employees up to a whopping 26-30%! Neither is there any mad rush to replace the patriarchy on the oilrigs, the dustcarts, or in the sewers – clearly, those are still jobs for the boys.
One obvious reason for the preference for female employees, is that wonderful gender pay-gap we are always told about; clearly with women, you get more bang for your buck. Except that you don’t. Not only has the gender pay-gap been thoroughly debunked, it turns out women under thirty out-earn their male counterparts considerably.
Apart from the fact that it’s illegal to pay women less for doing the same jobs as men (and aside from the obvious point that no men would ever get hired were it legal), women are currently demanding more than equal pay for the same work – they now want equal pay for less! As we speak, tribunals are currently ruling that (mostly female) shop assistants’ work is of ‘equal value’ to the (mostly male) warehouse workers’ work, and that the former have outrageously been ‘underpaid’ for some considerable time.
In addition, women also bring a lot of caveats to the workplace. Air conditioning is now considered ‘sexist’, because women have more trouble regulating their body temperature than men. In terms of productivity, women are less ambitious than men, and take more time off. Moreover, they often increase expenditure in unforeseen areas, such as that recent political necessity, the House of Commons creche – which caters to just 15 children at £34,000-a-pop!
Woe betide any employer who fails to take these issues seriously, however. The list of transgressions which can befall a male boss are growing by the day. Increasingly it seems, the courts are favouring women who object to what used to be considered routine business demands. No overtime for women now, after a female worker was awarded £16,000 for being ‘made to walk home late’. Nor is sick leave to be questioned, after another female worker extracted £37,000 when her menopausal time off was dismissed as an ‘excuse’. Best in show however must surely be the Frenchwoman, currently suing her former employer for the ‘moral harassment and discrimination’ of paying her a full salary for 20 years, without actually assigning her any work. Those are tough conditions indeed.
Even in retirement, when women finally get their hands on equality – they don’t want it. Take Britain’s ‘Waspi women’ (Women Against State Pension Inequality) – the ‘inequality’ they’re referring to is the fact that their pensions have finally been brought in-line with the men (who die five years earlier at the best of times). Not content with demanding compensation for monies ‘lost’, some are even campaigning for female pensions to be brought back to 60.
If you’re a man looking to get hired, take the patriarchy’s advice: don your best Dustin Hoffman ‘Tootsie’ outfit, and apply for a high-paying job you’re totally unqualified for. With any luck you’ll make the boardroom by Christmas, and in the unlikely event that you don’t get promoted, you can always sue the bastards for discrimination!
Frank Haviland is the author of Banalysis: The Lie Destroying the West, and writes a Substack here.
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And in my experience, female hirers always prefer young women who are presumably what they assume they were once like themselves and so will not question anything in the hope of becoming female execs themselves ASAP. Also oblivious to the fact that most young women are persistently off ‘ill’ or pregnant as well. It may have once been a man’s world, but it certainly isn’t now in anything but the few remaining hard labour professions. You though have to be a (real) woman to understand the WASPI grifters rationale.
When I was a young-ish woman in the workplace in the late 60s to mid 70s, I went for a job where I sat in front of a 3 man panel and was asked numerous ‘gotcha’ questions like ‘do you drive on the outside lane on the motorway?’ There is a name for such methods which I can’t remember. I also had said to me ‘you’re recently divorced – you don’t seem very unhappy about it – why?’ What was I supposed to do? Cry? Anyway, long story short – I was offered the job, (in insurance) but turned it down. They took me to dinner, they flirted, they pleaded, one even offered to go with me to my first appointment. ‘Sorry, it’s not for me’ wasn’t enough – in the end I had to formally write and ask them to stop. Nice to be ‘wanted’, but I knew I couldn’t stand it. I worked as a designer in an advertising agency, and was called into the manager’s office at 4.30 on a Friday afternoon and sacked, Never knew what for. I went in to pick up my stuff on Monday, only to find a guy already in place at my desk. The studio boss swore he knew nothing about it, and my work was first class. When I first started working there, I did a week for no money so they could suss me out. At the age of about 30 I went for a school photographer’s job, and was told I was too old and too thin. So, please don’t get the idea that women always had everything their own way in the workplace. The pendulum does appear to have swung too far the other way now, but luckily (!?) for me I am now retired.
That’s it exactly, once women were discriminated against both in recruitment and in employment – but as you say, the pendulum has now swung too far in the other direction and it’s not in the interests of real equality to excuse this (or bogus social justice quotas) as payment for past injustices.
This is a great point, so please don’t think I’m making light of past inequalities. Bullying bastards come in all shapes and sizes, and it certainly was once a man’s world.
Feminism however seems to have rattled past equality, and appears content to replace one two-tier system with another. I’m all in favour of equality.
Best wishes.
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