It's interesting to think about. If I'm looking for someone to ride on a garbage truck, there's probably a 95% chance the future employee will be male, but acting on this expectation, by advertising to men instead of women - getting more employees per dollar spent, is sexist. Likewise, if I needed to hire an au pair I'd have to advertise to men and women equally?

I don't think it's sexist to target men for a job posting.

You know the job, you know what it entails and you know what works behaviorally and physically. There are differences between genders. That's okay.

I do think it's sexist to not hire a qualified women for the job because she's a women ( esp. in the garbage collector scenario). Like you hate women or something and you don't hire them ( funny story I heard a women on the sidewalk casually say she hated men. Never heard a man say that... ) The same for the flipside.

I do think it's a sexist double standard to say it's not okay to target men for a job and not mention anything about the flipside: it's okay to only target women.

The law says that it is "sexist" (i.e. discrimination) to target advertising in a way that denies qualified women the opportunity to apply for a particular job.

In the end the net result of targeting only men is the same as refusing to hire women, it denies otherwise qualified women opportunities that they are deserving of.

That this has a cost is understood by those who wrote the law, they decided those costs are worth it.

Which law specifically states what you say?

It's one thing to target a gender in your advertisement. It's another to deny someone a job based on their gender.

>Which law specifically states what you say?

Title VII of the Civil Rights Act of 1964

I read it. Couldn't find mention of advertisement or solicitation for jobs.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Civil_Rights_Act_of_1964

That's a summary wiki article, more detail here: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Disparate_impact

also:

https://www.nytimes.com/aponline/2018/09/18/technology/ap-us...

>Targeting job ads by gender is illegal under Title VII of the Civil Rights Act of 1964.

I'll take a look. Thanks

No women ever saw the ad, so how could they apply? The courts have ruled it's the same as denying qualified people the job. The opportunity was unfairly hidden from them.

Imagine the job posting was in the men's toilet. The company would have a hard time arguing women had fair notice.

"There are differences between genders."

For sure. But you're not hiring a sex, you're hiring a person and individuals can match requirements for almost all types of position regardless of sex.

So if i have a job that requires a man, why should i be coerced into paying for showing the ads for women?

>for almost all types of position

You shouldn't IMO.

However, you should also understand that people do get jobs through other people seeing adverts - so worth bearing in mind.

Yes, but advertising can only reasonably target demographics, not individuals.

I think it’s sexists, but I also think that targeted advertising should be allowed as long as Uber hires women drivers who want to drive for Uber.

I think there will certainly be some issues if it becomes a trend though. I mean, most programmers are men, most doctors are women and if you target your adds based on that, you’ll only further increase the current norms.

Frankly targeting sex makes little sense for most jobs, doesn’t it? It’s be more reasonable to target interests, qualifications, education and current job status. I mean, Facebook knows what job and car you have, it might even know how much you drive, wouldn’t it make sense for Uber to target that instead of sex? But maybe they combine it all.

In relation to your last question: in many countries (not sure about the US) jobs like au pair, house maid, babysitter, caretaker, are explicitly exempted from nondiscrimination rules.

Why are they exempted?

The issue is that under the law, you as an employer are not allowed to make a hiring related choice that in any way discriminates against a protected class (with some exceptions discussed on other comments). You might expect to only get applications from men, but legally you can not target men specifically.

The inclusion of 'women and people of color strongly encouraged to apply' is actually walking a fine legal line when you go by the word of the law, and is only accepted as it is encouraging what are more-often the discriminated-against groups within the protected classes. It follows the sprite of the law, which is to protect the discriminated-against groups within the protected classes.

I wonder how fine that legal line is when an outreach program is using Facebook advertisement. How common is that they tick that gender box rather than adding some line of "women and people of color strongly encouraged to apply".

Which law is that specifically?

And, as a business owner, please tell me why it would not be in my best interest to hire the best person for the job?

The Civil Rights Act of 1964, Title VII, which was codified as Subchapter VI of Chapter 21 of title 42 of the United States Code, and was later extended by the Pregnancy Discrimination Act of 1978, Age Discrimination in Employment Act, and Americans with Disabilities Act of 1990.

It is in your best interest to hire the best person for the job, but if you determine who is "best" based on inclusion or exclusion from a protected class then you are illegally discriminating (except for in some specific cases such as the sex and race of actors, and where disabilities can not be reasonably accommodated for).

There's no mention of protected class in Title VII. Or the entire Civil Rights Act of 1964 [0]. Try again.

[0] https://www.ourdocuments.gov/doc.php?flash=true&doc=97&page=...

Protected Class: The groups protected from the employment discrimination by law. These groups include men and women on the basis of sex; any group which shares a common race, religion, color, or national origin; people over 40; and people with physical or mental handicaps. Every U.S. citizen is a member of some protected class, and is entitled to the benefits of EEO law. However, the EEO laws were passed to correct a history of unfavorable treatment of women and minority group members. [0]

[0] https://www.archives.gov/eeo/terminology.html

It's the term used to denote the groups protected by a number of different laws, the individual laws describe the classes specifically. This is all well established law and terminology, and anyone who takes part in any hiring process in the US should be versed in all of this.

You're being intentionally obtuse.

Thanks for the information.

Civil rights act, title 7 IIRC

As with most laws, because the government will send some lawyer to hurt you if you don't.

> why would I not choose the most effective form of advertising for me?

To put a slightly different spin on things, in the US young black men are more likely to be perpratrators of crime[0], so should police spend more time investigating young black men over other demographics?

[0] whether this is due to racial prejudice or other systemic matters doesn't matter.

As a cop your job is to prevent and solve crime. So yes.

The problem is that these "immutable characteristics" are very hard to assess subjectively by humans.

Say you divide a group of candidates into evenly split groups based on something. Gender, age, race - your pick. You'd end up with an uneven split even if your entire pool has the same qualification level and you let someone hire from it "by merit". And I don't mean it'll be random, there will be a clear distribution given enough samples.

How else do you suggest we solve this issue besides affirmative action?

Better education. For all.

Having a culture conscious of bias is good, but I'd rather see some progress before the end of the century. You know, cause old people exist and you can't really change this culture too fast, especially not if you factor in reactionaries that are sort of standing in the way and can't see the issue (hint: it's because you don't have the issue).

I don't follow.

Old people are bad? I don't have issues? Because I'm a particular color and ethnicity you've attached to me?

My comment is about education that is actual education. For example, let's teach kids math in a form that has worked for centuries. Not this new common core stuff. Let's teach students a more complete history, versus the cartoonish narrative that has produced these brainwashed masses. And the current cultural narrative is part of that problem. Check out Thomas Sowell or Camille Paglia. They have some ideas on education based in empirical evidence, not based on what sounds good.

And how has there not been progress? If you look at what the media says I can understand that impression. But walk around a city and you'll see people of all colors, ethnicities, wearing suits working in offices, etc.

I live in a world where, if you put your mind to it and work hard, you can get closer to where you want to be. No matter who you are. And no matter where you came from.

I don't walk around the world putting people in victim/oppressor categories based on someone's outward appearance. That's dark. And to me, more a reflection on the viewer than the actual people they claim to know which category they fit in.

>Thomas Sowell or Camille Paglia

Gotcha. I'm wasting my breath.

https://rationalwiki.org/wiki/Thomas_Sowell https://rationalwiki.org/wiki/Camille_Paglia

Ahh yes.. Rational wiki, a bastion of truth. I'd suggest first source materials. Not echo-chamber drivel. Peace!

Last I checked both articles have extensive "References" sections. Unless you actually like what you read, in that case I'll just have to deal with that. Unfortunate that stuck up people like you exist, but I'm not going to change that on this bastion of techbro-ism. (I know you people hate that word, so I made sure to use it)

haha

Right.. the government actually requires discrimination in its contracts through affirmative action....

Yes, because otherwise you have companies hiring 10 year olds to work in sweat shops. Don't act like government rules for fair employment are only good when it benefits you.

Not sure what you're on about, but nice strawman. I am not referring to government regulations to prevent child labor. I am talking about the systematic discrimination the government takes on when making purchasing decisions: https://www.govspend.com/2017/11/17/government-contracting-o...

It is patent discrimination to evaluate government contracts from certain groups as having lower costs, simply because the business owners come from certain groups. That is discrimination, and it has nothing to do with child labor laws.

>why would I not choose the most effective form of advertising for me?

Because it's illegal? Advertising jobs only to white men hurts society. A modern democracy understands that freedom loving people need access to jobs. So yeah, you are prevented from infringing on others' freedoms.