Loz

Fortunately I never had any issue raised by my interviewees. Having seen some of the complaints made against others, I put that down to luck more than anything. Quite a few were trying it on, IMHO. Mind you a gender complaint from a female was unlikely anyway. Being an IT company, we generally crawled across broken glass for a half-decent female employee.

Laddy Muck Wrote: ------------------------------------------------------- > At the end of the > day, the burden of proof is on the woman to show > that she has been discriminated against. This can > be extremely difficult to do: she is unlikely to > have in her possession an email from her boss > stating that she - e.g. - has failed the selection > process on the grounds that she is likely to fall > pregnant. I used to do interviews as well. After some new legislation came in that said that, as well as the normal forms and such we filled in as a result of an interview, we now had to submit any notes we made during or after the interview. That was the day I stopped taking notes. I couldn't risk writing an odd hastily-written note that could be misconstrued, especially as I used to scribble notes on the cv. So, yes, I can see that such action would be hard to take. (And I would note that men get discriminated against too. I'm always a bit perplexed when some small companies describe themselves as 'all-women'. Sounds like an invitation to a lawsuit.)

Now this I absolutely agree with. Women will almost always accept the offered salary (which is generally their current salary and a bit more). Men are much more likely to push back for a second or third offer and get a salary that they see that the role/job is worth. Short of free salary negotiation classes, I'm not sure what you can do about this. But I fully agree it's a significant part of the issue.

Definitely a lot of crossed posts. But at least the debate is more meaningful than it was. I agree with you on this, but that suggests that it comes down to a 'mothers' pay gap, rather than a 'gender' pay gap. Again, until society entertains and expects fathers to do a lot of the early baby care, this will continue. I'm guessing here, but your friend sounds like she was on a good salary, and chances are she earned more than (or at least similar to) her husband. Why did they not look at if it would have been better all round for him to take some time off? As I've said in other threads, men who would relish such an opportunity are not given the chance because the mother wants to do it - end of discussion. If I owned a small business I would be kidding myself if I didn't think twice about employing a female between 25 and 35. Many female businesswomen have declared something similar. Now if men of that age had the same rights and were seen to use them then I would not. Inequalities of a different shade that you think might just be the cause here. So it's not just the attitudes of 'male driven institutions' that has to change. Attitudes of the 'female driven institutions' need to be brought up to date as well. Not to mention government driven legislation in this area.

Now, see I don't believe that is happening (or at very least widespread enough to be statistically significant). That has been outlawed for over 40 years. And also, are you taking individual cases, or looking at it in a wider sense. I used to have quite a lot to do with salary increases at my company and so saw most people's salaries. If you were to ask me to find a women earning less than a man doing roughly the same job, I could do. But equally, I could also easily find you a man earning less than a woman doing roughly the same job. It's the nature of a performance related review over many years and the fact that my company doesn't have a strong role/salary relationship. So I really don't believe that the 'gender' pay gap is at all due to sexual discrimination of that nature. Yes, there are still pockets of it, but it's not common enough to be a big factor in the gap. And those stats for 20-29 year age group would tend to support that.

DJKillaQueen Wrote: ------------------------------------------------------- > Men are three times more likely to earn six figure > salaries than women But is that the 'men take the extremes' thing again? That men tend to occupy more of the extremes of most stats of this kind, whereas women tend to group more tightly around the average? Thus, higher male unemployment and high male homelessness are the price men pay as a gender group for these ultra-high earners.

Great stats, DJKQ. The most interesting one was tucked away in the middle. This has been around for a while now, so it is not indicative of a 'new dawn' in the pay gap. Women start equal (or even ahead) in pay, then fall behind in their late twenties. This would suggest (but has never been proven) that the 'gender' pay gap is actually mainly a 'mothers' pay gap. This would be backed by the fact that the uber-feminist Swedes (who have 'positive' discrimination practices all over the shop) have a not too dissimilar pay gap. I don't think I've seen any UK stats that delve into this and examine male/female parents/non-parents. I suspect parent hood has a low impact on male salaries, but a pretty heavy effect on female salaries. But still doesn't answer why the public sector has such a skewed gender ratio!!

Laddy Muck Wrote: ------------------------------------------------------- > Also, women remain in the minority when it comes > to securing "top" jobs - e.g. at senior management > level and above. Which, I think, is one of the two main factors in explaining the pay gap. The other is time off for babies causing a delay in career progression and therefore a slower salary progression. The first is fixable, and will be in time to an extent (though the single minded career fanatic gene seems to turn up in the male more often). The second will only be fixed if men, society, employers and, to a degree, mothers accept that, following birth, fathers are equivalent to mothers in terms of parenting.

Personally, I'm surprised a parking warden hasn't slapped a ticket on it by now for parking on the pavement. I imagine it is only the police cordon stopping them!

???? Wrote: ------------------------------------------------------- > Sorry for being right - that's what your actually > miffed about. Man up. You were wrong, the > application of your 'idealism' has ruined whole > @#$%& countries for god sake. You're the ones who > really deserve your own rancour. Who says your right? As Mark Twain would say, reports of its death are greatly exaggerated. And Greece's problems - whilst based in it's entry into the Euro - were caused by it taking every single Euro cent it had (and then a lot more) and pissing it up the wall for the past decade or so.

Actually, most of the conversations I have ever noticed have gone... Enthusiasts: Let's have a common currency that'll be great Sceptic: But then the pahnd wouldn't 'ave the queens 'ead on it, woodit? I can see a few countries falling out of the Euro, but the Euro will live on. I don't understand this 'hooray for that' attitude either - it's almost like loads of people have been secretly annoyed for years at the Euro's success. Whilst Germany and France want a common currency it will live on. And just to annoy you Eurosceptics, losing Greece and a few others will only make it stronger.

Undisputedtruth Wrote: ------------------------------------------------------- > As you've been so dismissive in the past then my > final answer is no. In any case I have a fair > understanding of the Equality laws/policies so I > won't benefit in doing research for you. In that case, thank you for your interesting piece of tangential trivia. Anyone got anything of substance to add to the debate? Should PS jobs cuts be seen in isolation as female unfriendly or should the public sector as a whole - which is, on the whole, female advantageous, be taken into account?

Sorry, but giving one side of a stat is pretty useless. It's your stat - you do the research.

So what? Unemployment rates in the UK are higher for men than they are for women. Better to be a low income earner than a no income earner. Besides - what is the equivalent statistic to your 50% stat for the private sector?

Laddy Muck Wrote: ------------------------------------------------------- > Moving on... > > from my favourite research institute, the IFS But isn't it unfair to examine *changes* to public spending without examining public spending as a whole. For instance, the part of the Fawcett Society complaint was that cutting back public service jobs affected women more as they made up something like 70% of PS employees. But surely that means that women are unfairly benefitting from PS spending as a whole? Statistics, eh?

Go for irony: I hope I'm Old Before I Die - Robbie Williams Live and Let Live - Paul McCartney/Wings When I'm 64 - The Beatles

In one of the Guardian comment areas there was a rather amusing tale. I was well dressed that day as a friend (who was in the trade) got me in for free to an expensive club when on a trip to London. Inside I was mobbed by 6 young women. I was so shocked by the attention (I have a form that only a mother could love) that I asked my friend why they were doing this. He said: "Because they think you are a City worker". It's always nice to find out that women and men can be equally shallow.

StraferJack Wrote: ------------------------------------------------------- > airlines and concert ticket websites don't face > that many millions hitting refresh constantly and > simultaneously > > anyone applying for glastonbury tickets in the mid > 2000s will be familiar with the routine tho. When > you have that many millions applying at THE SAME > TIME - you can't feasably and economically install > that many servers I've sized and designed server farms for web apps. It is not rocket science. And can be done economically in the cloud age. Or, if you can't handle a million or so people hitting your website at once, then don't design a business process that will make it happen.

We got in on the dot of 6am. Moved around freely for 2 mins and then - bam - the rest of the UK got on and the whole thing ground to a halt. Judging by the error message, one server at least fell over in that time. Like Chippy then next half-hour was spent sloooooowly getting what we wanted and a lot of pressing the F5 button the retry. In the end we got beach volleyball, basketball and handball. BUT! The email said 'thanks for your application' - the bloody tickets aren't confirmed yet! So much for the first come first served they promised. It's not as if airline websites and concert ticket websites do this ticket thing every day, is it? Piss up and breweries spring to mind. Coe should resign over this ticket fiasco.

... and the person in question is now no longer a tube driver. He will "not return to his previous work location, and will be re-employed in a non-operational role, which does not involve customer-facing duties." http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-england-london-13896546

Strange. I thought you were completely in agreement with the government needlessly giving money away to 'the people'.

I expect a steaming drunk LM to staggering down the street singing loudly some time around midnight...

Dunno. But they'll have your kids, they will.

The eyes/brain tends to notice changes, be they movement or flashing, and 'turn off' anything that doesn't change. It's why if you shine a torch in your eye you often suddenly see the veins in your eye - they light causes them to 'move' as far as the retina is concerned. A static light on a bike travelling in the same direction as you tends to leave your concentration. That's why ambulances, fire engines, etc. have flashing lights - to get your attention. And in the rain and in the dark, there are lights and reflections all over the place in the urban areas. Even if you don't wear your hi-viz jacket at any other time, wear it on rainy nights.

Send in the clowns!