Diversity and Inclusiveness - Discrimination in Engineering Fields

Well, a female working in Saudi Arabia is constrained by law to a very restricted area.

Most of the other situations refer to social attitudes where the task is fully legal, yet people form groups to put down others.

Having worked in academic levels at Colleges and Universities I find that the in those areas grads etc are all excellent in the way they treat people. There were problems with some of the support staff in the 60's, but these have largely been beaten down via work rules and union action.

A strange things to see was the cultural baggage brought by married grad fellows from Africa, India, and Asia who were suddenly in a free society....but their wives were not. They were smart boys and they soon adapted though, for the most part.

In general the lower paid worker feels more threatened by someone if he is doing something that any warm body can do. So you get guys who drive forklifts in the longshoremens union for $120,000/year who try to keep anyone else out, black,red or spotted.

!!

You have not mentioned AGE. How easy is it to find work after graduating as a "mature student", with no previous office experience?

. . . . . and age ! (good point ). The idea is, are there specific stories out there where you do / don't feel comfy at work due to these issues.

But first you have to get your "foot in the door", not just replies of "you have not got experience"

George,

Age discrimination is very much alive in the workplace, from hiring and later promotions to layoffs, and also including the social networking aspects of the workplace.

Unfortunately, there is no shortage of "old timers" who haven't kept up with the craft and thereby reinforce the stereotype of being "obsolete", and/or "slow" to learn new things.

I have been considering a thread on the topic of age discrimination from all angles, which is one of the reasons I hadn't posted here previously.

Regards, Greg

Are you too old to quit your job and find a new one?

Hi, Bill - was this remark aimed at the thread, ie if you don't like discrimination, then leave.

Or my comment, ie if you have not worked in engineering yet, you must be lazy.

Either way, it could be termed as discrimination.....;-)

. . and there is another hidden type of this 'age' thing, meaning that I see >> "I am too old to get another job, so I'll just play it safe and not speak out for 3-4 years and coast to retirement."

We (corporations) tend to not make it safe to still take risks at old age for fear of being sacked at 60+ YO. I was self employed one man consultant for 16-20 years and tossed back into Corporate America just last year and I'm a bit in shock.

Another post indicated reverse discrimination. I see this also. Quotas must be filled to prove we don't discriminate, which includes putting people in categories to chose from to fill those quotas . . . hmmm . . . isn't that discrimination? I don't know.

Thoughts? Please forward this thread to others to keep it alive a bit longer and get more feedback.

I'm in no way a minority--working in the US, WASP, 40yr old. But here's an observation of mine: I've never worked with an American born scientist or engineer of African descent, male or female. About three years ago I took an informal poll amonst friends, and they all said the same thing.

I have worked with several engineers of African descent. One was an American born woman, and one was a Nigerian man.

On average, I found no differences in capabilities, but I noted among the older ones a tendency to "tread lightly", and keep a low profile based on their experience with past discrimination. Years back, before the days of "Diversity and Inclusiveness", racial discrimination was a very real force in the workplace, (and society in general). But then, I have been around long enough to remember how it used to be, unlike many here to whom it seems that "real" racial discrimination only existed in some distant past. I live in the "enlightened North" and have never been a fan of affirmative action, yet saw both overt and subvert discrimination against blacks, jews, other minorities, and women at all levels while I was growing up.

Regards, Greg

One category that seems to have been left out for consideration is: The Intelligent working with the Political Sycophants

I am sure we have all come up against this one.

Hi George, you forgot to mention Indian Pariah or "Dalit" high tech nerds working in……

…….In India they are fiercely discriminated.

……..Here in the USA, in special within the Silicon Valley borders, they can excel without limits creating high tech companies or studying in Stanford. Fortunately nobody here dares to ask them about their caste belonging, it would be illegal to do that in USA, and they have no obligation to disclose that secret. God bless the USA.

Citizen of the world

I don't fully understand the cast system in India. I know a little bit, but would like to know through the eyes and emotions of those who know it becuse they live it. Please explain.

The clothes and marks make the man.

naked in a room with the same haircut you cannot tell a high caste from a low caste.

Japan has a relic of a caste system. sewer workers are shunned

Problem in the US is we in the corporate world can suffer from a reverse discriminatory behavior sometimes. I have had a number of older female employees who recently graduated, employed as professionals at behest of the management. These older women tend to be much less capable of the entry level field work and less willing to do the entry level work. Then the failure to complete a task makes the responsibility fall upwards eventually to me. Men who behave this way will get a reduction in hours or released. Diversity means women who behave this way are assumed to need accomodation because they are female. this is not an issue i have noted about race, most companies will fire a man no matter race. However, we have huge exception built into corporate policy regarding women in the work place. This is detrimental to good hard working women, because we make exception for the lazy ones. I figure if all the men have to spend their first 3 years in the sun digging holes or walking fresh pavements, then women should expect the same. I have worked in my past for a number of hard female managers, and they absolutely hated employing entry level women. Who else can seek a day off because they a bloated, or gets maternity leave for a year and then expect to come straigth back to their position as they left (did the company shut down for a year?). I think we should stop pandering, and treat everyone equally. If you have a senior more competent male and a junior entry level female, when the entry level hard work comes up just think of her as a man, and if she can not get the job done reasonably efficiently, transition her out. As a matter fo fact this should be done for every person equally, but HR people seem to be severely lacking.

"I have had a number of older female employees who recently graduated, employed as professionals at behest of the management. These older women tend to be much less capable of the entry level field work and less willing to do the entry level work."

Reverse discrimination is no better than any kind.

On the other hand, (not to justify reverse discrimination in any way) in the US, companies are not "family friendly" in any number of ways, and women suffer the most from this. The single wage earner family is a thing of the past for most of society, and working or having a career is no longer a choice for most women, it is a matter of survival. These women are our mothers, wives, sisters and daughters, and they bear "our" children (not to mention our mother bore us). When a family member is ill or disabled, most often the care-giving burden falls on the woman either by necessity, or her choice.

Does this mean that a less qualified woman should be promoted over a more qualified man? Of course not! Should some extra consideration be granted to older women re-entering the workforce? Probably, in the form of some allowances granted to give them a chance they might not have had, but there should be no guarantees they will succeed: that should depend on their own ability and effort. Laziness is never to be accepted, let alone rewarded.

Men also benefit from family friendly policies, and as the roles of men and women continue to "blur" in family responsibilities we will benefit al the more. Many men have availed themselves of family leave or actually put their careers on hold for a time to care for a disabled family member.

We all have a stake in our society and its future. Like the changes wrought by the Americans with Disabilities Act, and in spite of the abuses that occurred, and in some cases continue, overall our society is the better for it and most of us have come to appreciate the fact that we and our loved ones are only an illness, fall, accident or maybe just the eventual onset of old age, away from acquiring a disability ourselves.

BTW: I am in good health, but have been the recipient of age discrimination, and the beneficiary of veteran's preferences in the past. I mentioned the Americans with Disabilities Act because I was originally opposed to what I perceived (and in some cases still feel) as excesses or misguided attempts at compliance, but have come to realize that it is the "right" approach in a civilized society.

Greg

Hi George,

People from the culture of the mother company tend to get treated better than would otherwise be the case, and they tend to establish the workplace "culture". In the eyes of the people from other cultures, this tendency of favorable bias can easily appear much more exaggerated than it is, and can therefore be the cause of resentment.

We tend to be most comfortable with people who are "most like us", and least comfortable with people who are "least like us". This is rooted in basic human nature, yet modified by our own experiences and prejudices (prejudice in the general sense of the word, both positive and negative).

As engineers, we tend to pay more attention to the technical skills of our coworkers than might be the case in some other areas of the corporate world. However, that is not to say we can overlook "in your face" differences without at least some distraction.

Some examples of what I mean by "in your face" differences are use of a foreign language with compatriots when in the presence of people who don't speak the language, inappropriate dress in the workplace, based on national origin, religion or cultural background, overt religious displays or actions, and for sexual minorities (women in a male dominated setting, gays etc) provocative dress of one kind or another. We are all members of one type of minority or another, be it race, religion, national origin, sex, primary language, regional accents etc, but accentuating those differences beyond a limited degree is a distraction at the least and tends to arouse negative feelings.

It is a two way street: we should be tolerant of the differences in others, and at the same time we and they should be respectful of the dominant corporate culture in dress and behaviour, and play down our differences rather than "advertise" them. Our own personal lives are of course another matter entirely, where we choose associations based on our own preferences, but work is work, and the object is to work together to accomplish tasks, regardless of who we may be working with at any given time.

Smart companies and managers know this and while the employees may appear as a menagerie of sorts, the emphasis is that "we are all part of a team", and "our team" is more important than whatever individual differences exist among its members.

Regards, Greg