Sexism and ageism
Women of child-bearing-age
We now live in an age where some (not all) mothers expect to pursue a career while raising a family. Some employers don't like such women, especially since the rules on maternity leave have been changed and extended to give these women plenty of time off to look after their new-born babies. Even where the women concerned are single and childless, some employers don't want to take the risk that they might one day have babies. One outspoken employer posted an article explaining why she will never employ women of child-bearing age. Attitudes like this explain why women of child-bearing age are screened out by recruitment agencies.
Of course, getting past the child-bearing age doesn't open up golden opportunities for women, since they then run into the problem of ageism.
Ageism
In trying to apply for low-grade office jobs, I found one vacancy that appeared to blatantly break the age discrimination laws. Here's the job description.
OFFICE JUNIOR A vacancy has arisen at our Leicester office for an intelligent office junior, 18-20 years, to train in our wages, bookkeeping and computer departments. The successful applicant will have neat handwriting, be accurate and enjoy the variety offered in this busy environment.
I printed it and took it to the jobcentre. Incredibly, the person I spoke to said the word junior implied a young person, so adding the age range wasn't relevant. While it wouldn't be an ideal job, I feel that I should still be able to apply for it. If employers offering all such jobs are allowed to indulge in ageism, then there really is little hope for older unemployed people. I therefore did some research and found the Age UK page about lawful age discrimination as it then existed. The current age discrimination page saying what is lawful and what isn't appears to differ in various respects. However, a close look at the time suggested that this particular employer could have been within the law, depending on the wages on offer. There are lower bands of the national minimum wage for young people, which is fair enough in principle but I don't see why this should allow employers to use it as a way of blocking applications from older people. It certainly seems that there are plenty of loopholes in the law.
And people accuse me of being Too fussy? While there may be exceptions (it seems that ex-politicians never have problems finding work), employers are generally unwilling these days to consider people of my generation. The performance of Tom Watson at the 2009 British Open Golf Championship shows that experience can sometimes be important. It might even make a few employers realise that older people can still do a good job, though the fact that Tom Watson only came second in the end limits the potential for this sort of attitude adjustment.
Actually, 2009 was quite a year for the oldies, as a compilation of music by Vera Lynn made number one in the British album charts. Vera Lynn was aged 92 at the time.
Spelling and grammar
Employers sometimes complain that the overall standard of young people's spelling and grammar is poor, though of course some individual young people excel in these subjects. Older people aren't always good at spelling and grammar, but taken as an average, they are better than their younger counterparts. You might think that this would cause employers to prefer older people for jobs where spelling and grammar matter, but apparently not. Instead, they simply expect higher qualifications, which works against older people. A lower proportion of my generation of people went to university than is the case these days. Still, anybody interested in the subject might compare various blogs (including this one) and websites, by both younger and older people. Although I had always been aware that some people have difficulties with spelling and grammar, I didn't realise how bad things were until I started using the internet.
It seems that schools place far less importance on spelling and grammar than they once did, presumably on the basis that it takes up time that could otherwise be spent on other topics. This attitude seems to have developed in the seventies and eighties when reading and writing were seen as less important, while other methods of communication such as radio, television and telephones became more important. The internet revolution has once again moved reading and writing up the agenda, but some of today's teachers were Children in the era when spelling and grammar were neglected, so they aren't exactly in a strong position to teach it themselves. Now, I'll admit that some spelling and grammar rules are arcane and could be dropped without affecting our ability to understand the language and communicate in it, but some rules are necessary.
Lynne Truss became famous as a consequence of writing Eats shoots and leaves, which is a book about punctuation that includes a particularly funny letter from Jill to Jack. The author presents one version where Jill thinks Jack is perfect and an alternative in which she thinks Jack is useless. No words are different, just the punctuation and associated capital letters. For those of you who like to test yourself, I present you with an un-punctuated version, from which you can work out how to achieve these contrasting results. In working out your solutions, you may use full stops, capital letters, commas, question marks, apostrophes, exclamation marks, colons and semicolons (but you won’t need all of them). Note that it might be possible to arrive at slightly different solutions to those in the book. Here goes.
dear jack i want a man who knows what love is all about you are generous kind thoughtful people who are not like you admit to being useless and inferior you have ruined me for other men i yearn for you i have no feelings whatsoever when were apart i can be forever happy will you let me be yours jill
You might think that letter is contrived, but it provides a perfect illustration of the importance of punctuation. Spelling is a separate issue. Word processors can help to some extent, but they cannot cover all situations. People will continue to confuse "their" and "there", "your" and "you're", "to" and "too" as well as many other sets of words. And that's before you allow for different spellings in Britain and the United States. These differences don't matter in most situations. They are widespread on the internet, but once you get used to them, you just accept them. After all, it's obvious what the writers mean. But there are certain types of jobs where accurate spelling and punctuation are important.
Falling standards in spelling and grammar among young people ought to give older people an advantage in those types of office jobs where written communication is important, in much the same way that Tom Watson took advantage of his experience of links golf that younger golfers have little or no experience of, but apparently not so. People, including employers, might get used to the lower spelling and punctuation standards, but if that happens, employers will cease to complain about this issue.
I should add that I'm not perfect, but most of my spelling errors are typos rather than genuine spelling errors. Some of the stuff I post on the internet, being for an international readership, contains a mix of British and American spellings, though this blog, written primarily for Brits, is written with British spellings throughout.
Mathematics
The advent of calculators and (later) personal computers has affected attitudes to mathematics, which was my strongest subject at school. Personally, I'm pleased that I can do a lot of calculations in my head without the need for technology. I'm not sure what impact any education policy changes have had on young people's ability to calculate for themselves without technology, but having seen what has happened with spelling and grammar, it might be a cause for concern.
Qualifications
These days, employers seem to insist on ever more qualifications than they used to. We not only have GCSEs (formerly GCEs) but we now have NVQs too, as well as various other qualifications that didn't exist in the old days. Young people generally get more qualifications of all kinds than people of my generation ever did. Of course, this is a good thing in some ways, but I wonder if the insistence on qualifications is just ageism by the back door?
Are qualifications easier now?
This is a controversial subject, but if qualifications are easier to obtain now, they provide another obstacle in the battle against ageism. In my day, marks could be lost in all subjects for poor spelling and punctuation. Perhaps it was unfair to penalise somebody in all subjects for a failing in one, but as I explained above, we are now reaping the harvest. Not penalising students in this way was inevitably one factor in the apparent improved qualifications that are now so widespread, but it wouldn't account for the steady but relentless improvement over the last three decades.
Improved teaching methods may be a factor, but are today's teachers really any better, taken as a whole, than those who taught my generation? We often hear that school discipline is not what it used to be, making teaching more difficult these days. For teachers to obtain superior results from their students despite falling discipline standards, they need substantially superior ability and/or teaching methods. I don't believe any improvement in these areas accounts for the results trend.
One thing that is very clear is that teachers have been very adept at identifying which students are likely to succeed at obtaining which qualifications. Teachers are now preventing students from taking examinations that they are not expected to pass, but I don't know how far this goes. If a student has no chance of success in a particular examination, then it seems fair enough. However, the obsession with school league tables leaves open the possibility that teachers are sometimes preventing students from taking examinations that they might pass, which would be completely unacceptable. I don't know enough to be sure, but I am suspicious.
If rising success rates are caused primarily by students not taking examinations that they might fail, that wouldn't prove that qualifications are easier to obtain, but the perception remains that qualifications have become easier to obtain over the last three decades. Changes in attitudes to spelling, grammar and mathematics are likely factors, but it seems that that either the examination questions are easier, or the marking is easier, or both. Studies have been carried out, taking students from different eras, giving them various aptitude tests and comparing the results with the grades they achieved in their qualifications. These studies, such as they are, confirm the trend. Yes, it looks like qualifications are a form of ageism by the back door.
Proof of certificates
Apparently, employers are now increasingly likely to insist on seeing Certificates. I've never been asked to show any of mine, but in some vacancies that I applied for in 2008, the job description clearly stated that I'd be required to provide proof if offered a job. Having not seen my Certificates for several decades and not remembering which GCE examination board was responsible, I did some research. UK exams has a list of current boards, but when I contacted my old school, they directed me to AQA, where I see that I would have to pay a fee to provide proof. Because of their charging method, my fee would be triple the bare figure quoted, since I obtained my six GCE qualifications two by two.
Eventually, my parents discovered my original Certificates in their archives, including some that I'd forgotten about. I've now created a special Certificates blog for them, so that is one problem that I don't have to worry about. Even if I lose the physical documents, they will remain on the internet for posterity unless my Blogger account is deleted. Furthermore, I've put a link to my Certificates on my CV, so employers know even as they consider my application that my qualifications are real. If they follow the Certificates link, they'll find other, less important, qualifications that are not mentioned on my standard CV. So I've been able to turn proof of qualifications, which was an apparent disadvantage, into something that could work in my favour. Some older people may not be so lucky.
An ageing population
Sometimes, politicians comment on Britain's ageing population, but it is rare for them to discuss old people in compilmentary terms, if they ever do. Generally, politicians complain about the drain on Britain's finances that old people cause by claiming their pensaion and by their medical needs. Obviously, the government would like everybody to die at around 70 except for themselves, their family and friends and a few celebrities. Nobody is immortal and nobody can be sure how long they have left to live, but I hope to live to around 80 if I can remain reasonably healthy. I've seen people deteriorate slowly over many years, spending their last few years in great suffering. I'd prefer to go quickly than to suffer that way. However, I'm certainly not going to go at a time of the government's choosing.
Really, the politicians should look on old people in a more positive light. While some are in poor health, many old people are in reasonably good health and able to lead fulfilling lives. These people should be encouraged to contribute what they can instead of being dismissed as a burden on the state, which merely reinforces the problem of ageism.
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