Posts Tagged ‘discrimination’

Be nice to gays – or else.

Tuesday, March 23rd, 2010

Today another of your liberties has been composted in the name of political correctness, for today Section 74 of the Criminal Justice and Immigration Act 2008 comes into force. This makes incitement of hatred on grounds of sexual orientation a criminal offence.

I don’t think that people deserve to be treated badly because of their professed or perceived sexuality, because physical/verbal bullying is a horrible thing and nobody should have to be the victim of the emotional torture associated with anti-homosexualist abuse.

Having said this, I am reasonably sure (and do forgive my optimism) that if someone were being seriously victimised because of certain character traits, he could file a complaint with the official police who, I’m sure, would be able throw the book the culprit for assault or affray or intimidation. There are already laws in place protecting innocent people persecution at the hands of ruffians and bigots and the like  (I do acknowledge –on occasion from firsthand experience – that the police sometimes fail to defend the meek, but that’s not really the point of this entry).

This latest amendment to the law, however, issuing an interdiction forbidding incitement of hatred“against a group of persons defined by reference to sexual orientation” is a different matter entirely. I’m sure that there are members of the government who genuinely (and ill-advisedly) believe that passing a myriad of acts of Parliament against discrimination is an effective and reasonable way to protect the innocent. I’d like to believe that the legislators in the Labour party who came up with this had nothing but the best of intentions, however misguided. Needless to say, I rather struggle with this article of faith.

First of all, I’m not entirely sure how one incites hatred against a group of people. One might try and convince others that a certain practice is inherently disordered and that all persons should refrain from this practice. One might try and label that practice as perverted or disgusting or a vile abomination. Obviously some might object to these terms – still, that’s really a matter of opinion. Saying unpleasant things isn’t a particularly awful thing to do. That is, provided it isn’t a specific attack directed at an individual person with the intention of harming them. There is a world of difference, a big thick marker of distinction between making a criticism of a practice and personally harassing those that enjoy that practice.

As an aside, it’s a tolerated maxim that racist jokes are unacceptable in public, but between individuals they might raise a few chuckles. I don’t think that jokes based on the colour of a person’s skin are all that hilarious per se, rather, because they’re forbidden and cheeky, they create humour simply as a result of their illicit nature. Prepare yourself, therefore, for a deluge of off-colour remarks about the male genital tract. I might be wrong, but over time I suspect that the risk of being incited to hatred will turn those frowns upside down. Putting homosexuals on some sort of pedestal, protected from criticism, probably isn’t a good thing – time will ultimately tell whether or not there’ll be some unexpected consequence of doing this.

The minutiae aside, this law has rather disturbing ramifications on the old free speech thing. First of all, the Government has now reduced the number of possible combinations of words that one can say without fear of prosecution. There’s a good chance that this will result in various comedians having to reshuffle their repertoires – (Rowan Atkinson, for example, notably spoke out against laws that tried to immunise religious groups from ridicule) – this might mean that the output on the BBC is even less amusing than usual. It might mean that Stephen Green of Christian Voice gets another visit from the police. These, however, are minor side-effects of the legislation.

What i find particularly awful about laws of this nature is that it promotes and propagates a culture of censorship, of policeman reading through websites looking for questionable comments. The law doesn’t just apply to fringe politicians;  it covers “publishing or distribution of written material, but also the public performance of a play, distributing, showing or playing a recording, broadcasting a programme and the possession of inflammatory material”.

Even worse, when a government takes this sort of attitude, it prompts a fear of the state. It prompts a negative, worried society of self-censorship, where people have to consciously modify what they say out of fear of being arrested. We were once proud of the fact that even though we feared communism, we allowed Communist Party candidates to run for election. We were once a bastion of civil liberties and the freedom of expression. Now we’re descending into a horrible dystopia where people are going to become worried that a seemingly innocuous comment will result in them being hauled before a judge and sent for compulsory rehabilitation.

Edit: Grahame Archer on ”CentrerRight” also covers this.

Edit again: Susan Wilkinson runs a Swiss Bed and Breakfast in Berkshire. She quite recently turned away two men who wished to sleep in the same bed (at the same time) because it is “against her convictions”. Given that she’d already accepted the booking, and that the blurb states that “warm & friendly welcome awaits all guests”, I think that this was rude. I do think that she should have the liberty to refuse to house whomsoever she pleases – however, she should probably have made this more obvious.

However, the new law goes a step further in criminalising those who dare to vocalise their convictions. Should copies of the Catechism of the Catholic Church be judged “inflammatory” and banned from publication because of #2357? Should Mrs Wilkinson should be reported to the police because she doesn’t want intrinsically disorderd activities going on in her guest house?

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Posted in Politics by Callum Wood | 2 Comments »

Harriet Harperson and the Half-Blood Prince

Sunday, August 2nd, 2009

Having kicked out [most of] the hereditary peers, castrated the historic office of Lord Chancellor and established an ersatz  ”Supreme Court”, Labour wants to tinker with the Constitution again – only this time not out of a long-held and irrational fear of the nobility, but merely so that Lord Mandelson can return to the Commons. (BBC News)

The problem with this is twofold. Firstly, it demonstrates Labour’s willingness to fiddle about with what is meant to be an ancient and solid constitution. Perhaps more worringly, this isn’t just a superficial alteration; rather, it means that Labour is quite prepared to change the rules of the game once it becomes clear that they’re going to lose. Secondly, the concept of politicians hopping between the two houses as it suits them undermines the bicemeral system completely – why have an upper chamber if it’s nothing but a holding-space for politicians who saw fit to leave domestic politics and now want to have a second bite at the apple?

 

Harriet Harperson is, herself, oblivious to the lovely “British” ideals of equality before the law – her inappropriately named “equalities” bill literally and explicitly gives employers the right to discriminate based on sex. Furthermore, she’s now decided that even the Constitution of the Labour Party is below her own personal ambitions, declaring that men are incapable of running the government on their own and suggesting that one (or both) of the Leader and Deputy Leader of the Party must be female (Times). Unusually concise, John Prescott asks, “Why take away from the party the right to choose its leaders on the basis of ability?” – it seems that the concepts of meritocracy and fairness are beyond Ms Harperson.

Apparently, she spoke to senior Party officials about her plans and was immediately told to sling her hook. It is, clearly, a very overt and overambitious ploy to establish herself as leader of the Labour Party. Perhaps this is her response to Blairite-mediated attempts to bring Mandy back to the Commons; there is, it seems, an open feud between the two of them (Telegraph).

Personally, I’d much prefer Peter Mandelson in number ten, simply because he is the lesser of two evils. Indeed, he could even prove to be a disasterous spanner in the works of the Conservative Party Machine.

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Posted in Politics by Callum Wood | 5 Comments »

The Gender Pay Gap

Thursday, November 13th, 2008

I have an article in this week’s TCS, “No longer any need to mind the gap”. Here’s the complete version:

Women earn approximately 17.2% per hour less than men, on average. The Fawcett Society’s “No Pay Day” claims that this means, from October 30th, all women are working for free. A speaker in a recent Union debate said that “women earn £569 per month less than men”, and that there is probably a pay gap at the University because more bedders are women and more professors are men. Well, yes.

The 1970 Equal Pay Act says that two workers doing the same jobs to the same standard should get paid the same. This is sensible. So why, forty years later, does the pay gap still exist? Is the remaining gap really the result of sexism?

I used to believe it was. But it turns out that if you control for things like part-time work, and men and women being more likely to do different jobs, the gap disappears.

For example, some jobs done more by men have disadvantages that are reflected by higher pay. Men are more likely to work outside in all weathers and work unsocial hours. “Women’s jobs” are less risky in two ways: men are much more likely to be made redundant, and suffer much higher rates of industrial injury. Women have shorter commuting times to work, and take more time off. Women report greater job satisfaction than men.

More women work part-time than men. It costs more to train two workers than one, so part-time workers cost an employer more per hour than full-time, and this is reflected in lower hourly pay. This shows up in the overall pay gap, but doesn’t indicate sexism.

More women than men do certain jobs, and vice versa. This is the result of different average preferences. For example, 36% of male managers work more than 48 hours a week, but only 18% of female managers do. Women with careers are 4.5 times more likely than men to say they preferred to work fewer than 40 hours per week. In one study, men tended to place more importance on “being successful in my line of work” and “inventing or creating something that will have an impact”, while women tended to place more importance “having strong friendships”, “living close to parents and relatives”, and “having a meaningful spiritual life.” But amongst men and women doing the same jobs, the gap can disappear, or even be negative. Female investment bankers and dieticians, for example, earn significantly more on average than male ones.

In many couples, the female partner often spends more time looking after the children, which would reduce her overall lifetime earnings. That is why there is no pay gap amongst the young. In the UK, the median pay gap between 22 and 29-year olds was less than 1% in 2007. A US government study found the gap between men and childless women between the ages of 27 and 33 was about 2%. Middle-aged women who remain single earn more than middle-aged single men. Lesbians and gays earn more than heterosexuals.

If you look at the figures more closely, you find not only is sexism not necessary to explain anything, but that there are some things which cannot be explained by sexism. On average, Bangladeshi women in the UK earn about 26.8% more than Bangladeshi men, and Black Caribbean women 1.5% more. This hardly indicates sexism.

I’m no apologist for sexism; it’s stupid and inefficient, and sexist employers who don’t hire the best person for the job are losing out themselves. And surely sexism does still exist in the workplace. But too often widespread sexism is inferred from simplistic econometric analysis with no other evidence. And, as I hope I’ve shown, this inference is misguided. A study by economist June O’Neill, former director of the Congressional Budget Office, found that women earn 98% of what men do when controlled for experience, education, and number of years on the job.

I’ve been talking a lot about averages. Of course, many women do jobs which are mostly done by men, and many women get paid more. Really, there is now so much variation in the lifestyles and economic behaviour of men and women that simple comparisons of average male and female pay etc are increasingly irrelevant.

The data do not indicate sexism, and those who claim they do are guilty of “cherry picking” data (a scientific cardinal sin), not comparing like with like, and selective reporting of the facts. They focus on the “headline” figure and don’t look any further.

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Posted in Politics by Hugo Hadlow | No Comments »

Good and irrelevant discrimination

Friday, September 12th, 2008

“It especially annoys me when racists are accused of ‘discrimination.’ The ability to discriminate is a precious facility; by judging all members of one ‘race’ to be the same, the racist precisely shows himself incapable of discrimination.”

Attributed to Christopher Hitchens

“Discrimination” is condemned widely nowadays, but usually not understood. Without committing the etymological fallacy, the word “discrimination” comes from the Latin “discriminare”, meaning “to divide”, which comes from “discernere”, to discern. Someone who can discriminate is someone who can tell the difference between things or people, and treat different things or people differently. We discriminate all the time: it’s part of ordinary life. Clearly, some (most) discrimination is good.

In the case of universities, an admissions tutor who admits the most intelligent or promising students is discriminating between candidates: namely, the good-enough candidates and the not-good-enough candidates. This discrimination is good because it is relevant. If we failed in our duty to discriminate between candidates, given the limited supply of places at Cambridge University, we would end up admitting worse candidates at the expense of better ones.

If, on the other hand, admissions tutors were to be influenced by irrelevant factors, such as race or background, and discriminate on those grounds, we would also end up admitting sub-par candidates.

Too often, people criticise “discrimination” when they really should be criticising “irrelevant discrimination”. Discriminating on irrelevant grounds creates sub-optimal outcomes, but failing to discriminate on relevant grounds also creates sub-optimal outcomes. We have a duty not to discriminate on irrelevant grounds, but we also have a duty to discriminate on relevant grounds. Sloppiness with language prevents useful debate on this issue from taking place.

I was pleased, therefore, to read that Vice-Chancellor Alison Richard has condemned attempts by the government to encourage universities to recruit more pupils from state schools.

Obviously admissions tutors should only take into account a candidate’s ability. There is no such thing as “positive [irrelevant] discrimination”: any irrelevant discrimination is bad.

As Thomas Sowell has pointed out, “You are not doing anybody a favor by sending them where they are more likely to fail, rather than where they are more likely to succeed.”

In the case of “affirmative action” in the US, “where the racial preferences in admissions are not as great, the differences in graduation rates are not as great. The critics of affirmative action were right: Racial preferences reduce the prospects of black students graduating.”

Discriminating on the grounds of race is irrelevant discrimination and reduces efficiency and overall welfare. Discriminating on the grounds of what school someone went to is also irrelevant discrimination and will have the same effect, ultimately hurting those it is intended to help.

41% of the students at Cambridge went to private school, but private schools educate only 7% of the pupils in the country. Why do so many more (proportionally) private school pupils get into Cambridge?

One explanation would be discrimination in their favour. However, there is no evidence for this1. Laudably, the copies of our UCAS forms that are given to admissions tutors do not mention which schools we went to. There is no reason to believe that Cambridge admissions tutors do not simply admit whichever candidates seem the best.

This leads us to the conclusion that private schooled pupils are better, on average. This may be because the pupils were better in the first place, because private schools are selective. Or it may be because private schools make their pupils better, through better teaching. It is probably a bit of both.

We can fix both problems by closing state-run schools, and making paying for education through a voucher system the state’s only involvement. That way, the market can improve the schools, something the government cannot do, but everyone would still be able to go to school regardless of their income.

The government are putting pressure on universities because they do not want to admit the real cause of state-schooled-pupil under-achievement: government involvement in education.

“A spokesman for the Department for Innovation, Universities and Skills insisted that any measures to encourage widening participation at universities were voluntary. ‘We value the independence of universities, but we also want to get the best students into the best courses,’ he said.”

Note the implication that universities are using their “independence” to discriminate against the “best students”, without any evidence to back it up. On the contrary, universities are using their independence to admit the best students, and it is the government that wants them to apply other criteria. And voluntary measures are merely a prelude to non-voluntary ones, of course. There is a chilling effect here, because universities are likely to do what they know the government wants, even without it asking, in an attempt to forestall more government meddling, since the government provides the money. As another vice-chancellor said: “The Government gives me a cheque every year. I have a public duty to do what the Government says.”

I applaud Cambridge University’s long-term project to become financially independent of the government, so that it can pay for the education of the best pupils, regardless of their financial background, without being subject to government meddling.

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1. There is a tendency to assume that disparity in figures automatically implies bad discrimination. Both of the poisonous candidates for the CUSU Women’s Sabbatical Officer mentioned that more men than women studied maths at Cambridge, and of those, proportionally more achieved firsts. They ignorantly assumed this was caused by irrelevant discrimination. Of course, it is actually due to the fact that maths geniuses are more likely to be men. While men and women have the same average ability at maths, variance is higher in men, so there are more male maths geniuses and male maths morons. This is explained by Charles Murray in “The Inequality Taboo”. The following diagram (not to scale) shows this intuitively:

See also http://clubtroppo.com.au/2008/04/06/inequality-how-much-is-too-much/

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Posted in Photographs, Politics by Hugo Hadlow | 14 Comments »