Should There be Racial and Gender Quotas?
There is no simple solution to this complex problem
What’s the quickest way to be on the news or be the most hated person on social media in this era? There’s a simply and effective trick: be a sexist or a racist. Or presumably being both will get you further down the road of hatred and disgust. Gender and race are two very sensitive issues to talk about. You say anything that’s slightly off, and surely there’ll be a group of keyboard warriors flooding to your social media and terrorize you with death threats.
And it makes sense that gender and race are sensitive yet pertinent topics to discuss about. After all, not being able to get a job or being discriminated against due to your race or gender does feel unfair, especially since there’s virtually no way for you to change any of these traits. Let’s just imagine for a second. How would it feel if you’re certainly qualified for a job, and you know you’re better than the other candidates, yet they fail you simply for being a woman? That definitely shouldn’t happen at all.
However, the problem on discrimination is more complex than we think. Discrimination doesn’t really happen on the conscious level; it happens deep inside our unconscious state. It’s very rare nowadays that people actively discriminate you. This doesn’t happen very often. The bigger problem is that most people have biases and prejudices that they are not aware of. Even though you say that you are neither a racist nor a sexist, which is probably true, when it comes to making decisions on who to pick as the next leader, hire as an employee, or appoint for a particular role, these irrational biases and prejudices can have big effect on the decisions you make.
Of course you might argue that you are not to be blamed because it happens on an unconscious level, but it still doesn’t change the fact that these biases exist and that it costs someone a job or a position simply because of traits they unwillingly possess.
It’s very hard to say what can be done about this. These irrational biases arise from so many things like movies, marketing, news, etc. Due to its complex nature, it’s hard to say if we can reduce or eliminate these prejudices regarding race and sex.
That’s why some countries implemented racial and gender quota to require their companies to hire a fixed percentage of people from those groups of people. This supposedly benefits the minorities and compensates for the discrimination the minorities had to deal with.
Yet, it’s hard to say if such an implementation is a good solution to this complex problem. Even more problems can arise from this implementation. It’s possible that those who are less qualified could get into a position or a role simply because of the quota. For example, in Korea, the government requires the fire stations to hire a fixed percentage of women. The problem with this is that women are inherently not really suited for such physically intensive roles, and, therefore, men have to work even hard to compensate for it.
The issues with gender and racial discrimination is a complicated one, so the problem can’t be solved by simply requiring organizations to hire more people from this specific minority of people. It could potentially cause more problems and rather actively discriminate the other groups of people. The solution isn’t clear, and there should be a continuous endeavour to find better ways to reduce such discrimination.