A Monograph on Feminism: Gender Bias In Employment

Glenn Burger submitted an interesting editorial piece on the topic of gender bias in employment. He raised some issues that I had never considered before, and so I thought it would be of interest to others. If anyone has any personal stories about this topic, feel free to discuss them on the message board to this story. Click "Read More..." below to view his Glenn's writings. A Monograph on Feminism



By Glenn R. Burger





For the past 30 years, the mainstay of feminism has been gender bias in employment. According to the feminists, women have been denied employment
opportunities, pushed aside and just generally treated badly in the job
market because of their sex. Indeed, during the most influential years of
feminism in North America in the 1960's, the feminists claimed that women
were "the last hired and the first fired". Women were victims of gender
bias.



I can cast serious doubts on this notion of gender bias victimizing
women with two simple, straight forward facts and a conclusion.




Fact: In 1939, 65% of the banking staff in Canada was male. True. Two
out of three employees were male. And what was 1939? 1939 was the start of the Second World War.



Fact: By 1943 (the worst of the war years) the banks in Canada had
closed almost half of the banking system due to "lack of staff". The banking text book which inadvertently made me aware of this banking system closure didn't indicate what caused this lack of staff but - considering the dates involved - it is obvious what it was: military requirement for the war effort.



Conclusion: At the end of the war, to prevent any possible future loss of staff expertise to the military in the event of yet another war (which seemed highly possible at that time) the banks and many large business offices, oil company head offices and other labor intensive white collar corporations in both Canada and the United States implemented hiring policies which demanded the exclusive hiring of women for the skills acquiring, upwardly mobile white collar clerical and supervisory sectors of their organizations because women were not vulnerable to military requirements in the event of war. At the present time, Canadian banking white collar staff is 95% female and this high percentage of female employees is true of most other business offices in both Canada and the US.




It is for this reason that bank and business office staff in North
America
is almost exclusively female. It has nothing to do with poor wages, or
superior female abilities, or female competitiveness or "discrimination"
against women forcing them into so called pink collar ghettos. Enter banks
or business offices in Asia, Europe or Australia and you will find
substantial numbers of male employees. Not so in North America, because in
North America many employers hire only women because they aren't wanted for
possible military duty.



So, how's that for "gender bias"?



Note: It should be pointed out that men created these hiring policies, not women. The policies, unquestionably, came from the most senior executive level and, as the feminists have been pointing out for years, that level is almost exclusively male. If those executive males had not created the hiring policies, women would not have had exclusive access to the white collar jobs and, thus, they would not have become the spoiled, demanding individuals that they presently are. Feminism was little more than a power grab for the executive suites. Women had all of the white collar jobs and saw no reason why they shouldn't have all of the executive suites too and a movement was created mostly for that end. The movement was called feminism and it is my sincere belief that feminism would not have happened if the hiring policies hadn't been created.



(The thought also occurs that both American and Canadian multinational corporations could export their anti-male hiring policies to other countries in Europe, Asia and Australia without those countries realizing what was happening. Any given office staffed exclusively by women would look as though the all female staff had occurred by chance when, in fact, it was caused by stupid anti-male hiring policies imported from North America, but I digress).



Also, if you find this view of gender bias in employment to be of
interest, I encourage you to copy this single page and "pass it around", especially to feminists. Feminists can be remarkably verbal about their views and you might be surprised how fast they go silent when they read this view. Try it. You'll see.



Further, what would be the possibility of beginning a class action law suit against the big banks and other white collar employers in North America in
response to these anti-male hiring policies? Would there be a place for this single page on the Internet, say on a web site?



Contact me at: glennrburger@hotmail.com

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