Quote:
Originally Posted by adidasss
I'll give an example. I was hired because I am a man. The firm was looking for a male because the job requires frequent contact with middle-eastern clients who look more favorably on men. Perhaps there were women who applied and were more qualified, I'll never know as they were never seriously considered. I believe there was also a consideration that a woman who was hired the year before went on maternity leave and will be out of action for at least a year. Companies frown on that. My sister also told me that her employers asked her (even though it's illegal) about her personal life (boyfriend) and whether she intended to get pregnant soon. It may not be fair, but I can also understand why employers in capitalism would prefer to hire men than women precisely because of the risk that women could get pregnant. Sucks but it happens. At least in Croatia...:\
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The cases about maternity leave and the questions about their personal life are pretty bad. I've never experienced that, although that could be due to the fact that at my age many employers don't think of me as being in the the "settling down ready to have a family" stage of my life. I know my mom had to deal with questions like that in job interviews before, but she was being interviewed by two men, one much older, one not much older than her. When the older man asked her if she had any plans to start a family, the younger one promptly told him to shut up, apologized profusely, and then offered her the job a few days later.
The other case you mentioned, in dealing with men from middle eastern cultures, is a bit more tricky because it's a direct result of the perceptions of a different culture, and I was asking more about people's experiences in the US, Canada, UK, and other european cultures. I can understand that reasoning entirely. I certainly don't agree with the sentiment that women are somehow less capable in the business world than men, but the reality is that in that area of the world, it's the norm. And no matter how much western people protest against this, it's not something that we can have any major and lasting effect on, change is going to have to come from inside those cultures to really make a difference. But that's a totally different topic.