Frank Baaijens, Eindhoven University: Sex Discrimination Is OK If It Benefits Women

lostapwbm · 2019-06-19T20:30:52+00:00

This is certainly a radical step, as the international headlines about our move attest. But we felt it was a necessary step as the more subtle measures we tried over the past 10 years were to no avail. The targets we set for female recruitment and the missionary work of our chief diversity officers were certainly useful in making our staff and community aware of inequalities and their own biases. As a result, at least two women are now on every selection panel. And yet, the gender imbalance persists with only 16% of our full professors being female – one of the lowest percentages in the Netherlands, and indeed in Europe.

That's an interesting choice of words: missionary work. It's almost as if feminism/'social justice' isn't a political or social ideology; it is entirely based on morality, particularly a moral system in which the ends (gender equal utopia) always justify the means (discrimination and sex quotas).

What has become clear is that during the recruitment and selection processes, all of us – males and females alike – have an unconscious bias that means we gravitate towards male candidates.

There is no such thing as 'the unconscious' therefore there can be no such thing as 'unconscious bias.' It is Freudian pseudoscience.

A university that is fully representative of society calls for an inclusive academic community. But the change we are embarking on will also have a favourable impact on the quality of our teaching and the varied perspectives that our students encounter. In recent years we have successfully attracted more female students, but now we need a culture change to enhance this further. More female staff will attract even more female students. More female professors will serve as role models and epitomise the values of the university.

One of those values being sex discrimination.

Again, this is not only a matter of fairness. In the Netherlands, as in many other European countries, there is a shortage of engineers. We simply can’t afford to exclude half the intellectual potential of our populations. Besides, engineering is a discipline that is all about brainpower, regardless of gender.

So the solution is a shortage of engineers is to restrict the pool of potential engineers by front-loading women and excluding men?

GENIUS!

The laws of the European Union allow us to favour women, given suitable competences, if they are seriously underrepresented. Smaller initiatives at universities in Delft and Groningen, which have been challenged in court, have shown that this is possible.

Frank Baaijens circa 1850: The laws of the Netherlands and the Dutch West Indian Company allow us to kidnap Africans and transport them to our Caribbean plantations as slave labor, if it profits the company.

An unjust law is no law at all. - St. Augustine

a-man-from-earth · 2019-06-20T06:33:10+00:00

No, Frank, it's not okay. Moreover, it's illegal.

Title	Frank Baaijens, Eindhoven University: Sex Discrimination Is OK If It Benefits Women
Author	lostapwbm
Upvotes	6
Comments	4
Date	June 19, 2019 8:14 PM UTC (7 years ago)
Subreddit	Posted in /r/MensRights
Original Link	https://old.reddit.com/r/MensRights/comments/c2m2bq/frank_baaijens_eindhoven_university_sex/
Archive Link	https://theredarchive.com/r/MensRights/frank-baaijens-eindhoven-university-sex.875191 https://theredarchive.com/post/875191

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