Originally Posted by
Bob Viking
For what it’s worth, I think it’s a good advert. I have two sons and a daughter (all very young). I want them to grow up in a world where their gender doesn’t hold them back.
I think that throwing spears at TR for his opinion is not actually constructive. I believe you would be better served by addressing why he holds that opinion.
You accuse him of ignoring half the population but maybe there is a real risk that by deliberately targeting a particular half you then disenfranchise the other half from which you currently draw the majority of your applicants. This may prove to be counter productive in the long run.
Conversations about race/gender/sexuality etc often end with someone who dares to hold the ‘un-trendy’ opinion being accused of racism/sexism/homophobia. This is not grown up debate and it stifles the real conversation.
Let me restate that I fully support campaigns to recruit women/ethnic minorities etc but I firmly believe that we need to acknowledge the fact that our forces are currently made up of a lot of white men who are doing just as good a job as anyone else and are equally deserving of recognition.
My wife has probably put it best when she says that we have a history where people were discriminated against unfairly. We are currently in a period of readjustment hence we hear and read a lot of discrimination based stories in the media. Once the problems have been addressed we may start to hear less about it.
There are a lot of areas in our country (and most other countries) where more work needs to be done to level the playing field. Ironically, from where I’m sitting the UK Armed Forces are probably already far ahead of anyone else.
BV
Well put Bob!
In the the ideal world any recruitment campaign should/could start with a simple line such as 'we don't care about your sexual preference, gender, race religion or other criteria, what we are interested in is can you do the job we need you to do...blah blah blah'.
As I said in an ideal world where quotas are not important, there is no discrimination or bigotry then that is what we should see, but life is not ideal and there will always be those with alternative or hidden agendas, which is a real shame.
I for one can happily say I spent nearly 20 years in the military and have know men women from all backgrounds, ethnicity, sexual orientation and religion and the one thing that has been clear is none of those have really ever been what made the person good or bad at their job. it was their personality, their ability, their skill and their aptitude that defined that. I have personally known 3 men that have completed a gender reassignment in the military and while one did not continue in the military the other two did. They were capable and intelligent people before and funny enough, after they still remain the same capable intelligent people. I have also know lots of other people who for one reason or another were complete muppets, but it was not their sexual preference, race, gender etc that defined that, it was their own innate personality and aptitude.