But the most important thing is to find a system that works for YOU. If you’re better with separate checking accounts, or if one of you is really bad about credit cards, then adjust your plans accordingly.

That’s because it IS sexist, Daniel – and it’s sexist in both its forms. It just doesn’t SEEM sexist, at first, because it’s about the subjugation of men rather than the subjugation of women.

Honestly, I think marriages that *don’t* have consensus-based decision-making are doomed from the get-go (although not all of them actually implode). But if your marriage is full of one partner or the other saying “Well, I didn’t want to do X, but my spouse made me…” then the relationship is dysfunctional. I see this ALL THE TIME with social events. Me, I attend weddings/etc without my husband, because he’s an introvert who hates being in large groups of people he doesn’t know and will never see again.

My ancestors were persecuted out of their homeland based on their race and religion, but there is no checkbox for that because I’m just white. (Except in the UK, I did see a check box for Irish, which I thought was hilarious and awesome – maybe I should apply!)

I went to a job fair in Miami, and was flat out told by one of the people “recruiting” that I would not be hired because I’m not hispanic. They were there solely to recruit minorities and meet targets. I told them that I write and speak spanish better than many people in the city, but she just laughed.

Second, I have a friend in dental school who is a white male. He has taken out tons of loans to go to UPenn, and is now first in his class at the end of the program. Do you think he can get any scholarships or get into the residency programs he wants? No, and he’s pissed. They are all going to people who are either from other countries (who got scholarships from UPenn or their own country governments to attend) with lower GPAs than he. He’s number 1, and he can’t get into programs that should be begging him to attend. The worst part is that when it’s all over, he’ll be practicing here in the US and those other students will leave and go back home. So basically, the US is funding great dental care in foreign countries while sacrificing our own.

“All I mean is that right now, a woman is more likely to get acts of discrimination addressed by society than, say, me: a young, middle-class white preacher’s kid going to a good school.”

I presume you have some facts and figures to back that statement up?

Wintermute is correct, it’s against the law to discriminate against someone and the grounds of their sex, race or religion and you would have a good case to sue the company. Just becuase the Daily Mail says it’s true it doesn’t mean it is … :-)

p.s. If you want to look for opt out clauses Churches and faith schools spring to mind …

Didn’t there used to be a phrase for being responsible when you’re the superior gender/race/ whatever? “Benign rulership” or something like that. This husband is the superior one, he is in charge, and so if he’s responsible, then a superior person can afford to take blame, and should, because it’s his world! The author is charging him to be the best ruler he can be! Get it?

Yes, ‘positive discrimination’ is rarely mandated by law (although it has been so mandated in the past, and continues to be in some areas), but I’m pretty sure that isn’t what I am talking about (not familiar enough with EU/UK law to know for sure about what Custador’s saying). I do know that many kinds of ‘positive discrimination’ are “against both the spirit and the letter of the law” in the US, and that this discrimination nevertheless happens.

Unfortunately, it isn’t a crime that most people are willing to acknowledge as such. I wouldn’t bother pursuing a legal case at this point, because men who have tried to argue that they were vastly more qualified than a woman who was given a job they were applying for have, for the most part, been shot down. Typically, they will then be called sexist; I have heard someone ask men involved in these lawsuits why they thought it was “their” job, and didn’t that mean that they are unjustly assuming a patriarchal framework for the business world?

Basically, the difference right now is that when a woman is discriminated against in some way she occasionally has some recourse. Not always, and I don’t mean to say that inequality against anyone is a good thing, or that women have it easier than men, or anything like that. All I mean is that right now, a woman is more likely to get acts of discrimination addressed by society than, say, me: a young, middle-class white preacher’s kid going to a good school. Or a white male divorced day-laborer. Society acknowledges injustice against some groups less often than it addresses injustice against others, because society at the moment cares more about some groups than about others.

Frankly, this has always been the case.

She said firms should be able to choose a woman over a man of equal ability if they wanted to – or vice versa.

If your employers are promoting women when there are men of greater ability, then this is against both the spirit and the letter of the law.

As for the second article, despite the attention-grabbing headline, the primary change (apart from defining “sexual harassment”) is to change the way discrimination cases are handled; instead of it being up to the employee to prove they were refused employment / fired / not promoted because of their age, sex or skin colour, it will now be the employer’s responsibility to prove that their practices are fair. The Amsterdam Treaty has been in force in most of Europe for a decade, without requiring or even encouraging “positive discrimination”. There are absolutely no penalties for a company deciding to hire a white Christian male who just happens to be the most qualified candidate.

So Harriet “Harlot” Harmen never made this speach then?

http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/7474801.stm

And that speach never materialised as the Single Equality Bill?

And gender / ethnicity targets in UK employment law for hiring and promotions don’t effectively institutionalise positive discrimination, then?

And the UK government never signed up to this European accord, then?

http://www.independent.co.uk/news/uk-backs-positive-discrimination-1183055.html

Sorry Wintermute, but I think you’re wrong on this. You have to remember especially that UK law is not allowed to contradict EU law – EU law always takes precedence.