The Truth about Gender Discrimination

Obviously, most of us take the news coming from Sweden with more than a few grains of salt. And yet, the study by Swedish doctoral candidate Mark Granberg merits at least a post.

You see, Granberg discovered something new and interesting about gender discrimination in Sweden. He discovered that female dominant jobs discriminate against men but that male dominant professions do not discriminate against women.

How did he and his fellow researchers conduct their study? Why, they sent out applications from male and female candidates for different jobs.

Psypost reports:

There were 3,200 fictitious job applications sent to 15 different occupations, including four male-dominated professions — vehicle mechanic, delivery/truck driver, IT developer, and warehouse worker — and six female-dominated professions — customer service, cleaner, childcare, accounting clerk, preschool teacher, and enrolled nurse. The remaining occupations included B2B sales, telemarketing, chef, waitstaff, and store clerk.

The results skewed toward female applicants, most especially in female dominant jobs:

Granberg and his colleagues found that women had higher positive employer response rates than men on average, an effect that was primarily driven by female-dominated occupations. There was no evidence of discrimination against women in male-dominated professions or in mixed-gender professions, but the researchers did find evidence of discrimination against men in female-dominated professions.

Then again, once we expand our purview and ask whether you would hire a male, someone who is surely suffering from toxic masculinity, to be a preschool teacher or a childcare provider, surely gender must count among the job qualifications, or disqualifications. After all, don’t we all know, yet again, that some of these jobs require more empathy. And that empathy is the province of the female of the species. 

On the other side, it is interesting to see that in male dominated professions hiring officers do not discriminate against women. This might simply be a function of the ultra wokeness that infests the Swedish mind. Then again, the researchers qualify their conclusions by saying that women might suffer discrimination later in their careers. Surely, we must maintain the narrative:

“This study only captures discrimination at the initial stages of the hiring process at entry level jobs in Sweden in the occupations which we study,” Granberg noted. “It is of course possible that there is discrimination at later stages such as actual job offers (as opposed to interview offers), in wage negotiations, in the work place, and/or in promotions. However, as there are studies from other countries with similar findings, we would say it is reasonable to generalize a bit in the country dimension.”

Meaning-- in other countries-- he does not say which ones-- women do not suffer discrimination when applying for jobs in male dominant fields. And yet, they might not receive as many offers and they might not be paid as well. Of course, motherhood might play a role in this process.

So, it’s all vaguely interesting, but still, why the obsession with discrimination? Why would the researchers not ask whether the companies that hire for diversity are as productive as those that do not?

In America we have two worlds, ones we will call the academy and high tech. The first hires and has been hiring primarily for diversity. This means that our universities have dumbed themselves down to the point where they are both a national and international embarrassment. The only exception lies in STEM subjects, which are largely inhabited by Asian males.

As for Silicon Valley, where our tech oligarchs are becoming thought police, diversity is nowhere to be found. These immensely profitable companies are mostly run by white and Asian males. Given that they increasingly control the means of national communications, one suspects that they will continue to hire for merit, without anyone showing much interest in their hiring practices.

Look at it this way, if other American companies hire for diversity, they will scoop up all the less competent workers. This will mean that more very competent workers will be excluded on the grounds of their race, because they do not fill diversity quotas This will give Silicon Valley the chance to hire from a group of more qualified workers.

Diversity for thee but not for me. This will produce a nation where the brightest people will all be working in one profession. Companies that hire for merit will excel while companies that hire for diversity will flounder. In the latter context, we need not stop with the academy. Hasn't the mainstream media been destroying its reputation for fair and honest reporting? Could it be that this is happening because these companies hire for diversity and not for merit.

Does the same rule apply to college admissions? If Ivy League schools are dumbing themselves down, then you would expect that state schools would have an increasingly competent student body. This means that the quality of education at state schools will increase and that corporate hiring officers will do best to hire from them and not from the Ivy League. I imagine that they have already figured that out.