Gender equality: ‘Men and women are not the same and won’t be the same
Jordan Peterson has HR in his crosshairs with his strident criticism of efforts to close the gender pay gap and to tackle unconscious bias. With a vast online audience for his views, the sector needs to respond with hard facts and strong arguments, writes Adam McCulloch.
It would be a mistake to dismiss the forthright Toronto university psychology professor as an “alt-right” blowhard; he is a fluent advocate for his views and uses research as evidence. But then there are comments such as this: “CEOs should wake up and understand that HR is becoming an anti-capitalist fifth column in the middle of their organisations.”
Peterson’s philosophical positions – informed by thinkers such as Jung, Dostoyevsky and Nietzsche – have led him to question many contemporary HR policies.
Many might think he’s being horrible and unfair, but perhaps he’s just spotted a chink in HR’s armour” – Rob Briner
In January, Peterson discussed the gender pay gap with Channel 4 News’ Cathy Newman, an interview that has been watched more than seven million times online. In it he argues that the gender pay gap is largely a natural reflection of differences between men and women, differences explained in the Big Five personality traits: openness to experience, conscientiousness, extraversion, agreeableness and neuroticism.
He tells Newman that multivariate analysis of the gender pay gap shows that prejudice is only one small factor in the pay gap, one that’s much less than “feminists claim”. Other factors include women’s tendency for neuroticism – their likelihood to experience stress, depression and unpredictability – and their high level of agreeableness, to be cooperative and compassionate.
Eradicating the pay gap could work against women’s true interests, he says, by interfering with their preferred choices, such as less demanding careers.
Newman presses him on why there are only seven women running FTSE 100 companies. Peterson responds by asking why women would want to, adding that men are more likely to want to work 70-80 hours a week. “Men and women are not the same and won’t be the same, but that doesn’t mean women shouldn’t be treated fairly.”
Women face family ‘crises’
There are other reasons why equality is unattainable, Peterson explains: “Many women around the age of between 28 and 32, have a career-family crisis that they have to deal with. And I think that’s partly, because of the foreshortened time-frame that women have to contend with. Women have to get the major pieces of their life put together faster than men.”
As an example he uses his work with law firms in Canada where many of the best performers are women yet the firms are unable to make many of them partners because they so often leave in pursuit of a better work-life balance.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=veVONaeTBVM
https://www.personneltoday.com/hr/jo...pay-gap-exist/
Geplaatst door FCE 