Dedicated to my working-mother friends, all of whom I have a deep respect for: So, one thing Ive learnt today is that sarcasm really doesnt travel at all over the internet, so for safety we really should label sarcastic remarks. Because of a misunderstanding that a critical comment of mine was actually complimentary, I ended up having drawn out chat with a HR person from one of the organisations I had worked at. I lamented that mothers who work only part of the year because of maternity leave but who were force-ranked against other people who worked the full year were disadvantaged. This was the reply (verbatim): But in the 8 months the contribution could surpass another officer who worked 12 months. In that case, we should rank the former higher than the latter. This reply I found to be quite tone-deaf because it admits the mothers are starting the annual appraisal race already at a time disadvantage (in addition to being pregnant!), but it got me thinking about how maybe some prejudices (gender, racial, wealth/income, education, social) can become so ingrained that they are essential invisible through being rationalised away, and maybe even accepted by those disadvantaged by these prejudices. Pointing to the rare examples of people who beat a system stacked against them and pretending its the norm is harmful to social justice and no way to run any modern society.
Posted on: Thu, 11 Sep 2014 11:08:24 +0000
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