How do you recognise discrimination?
More recent events in my life have caused me to re-think why I find myself in my current predicament. What am I doing with my life? Who am I? Stuck on a perpetual roller-coaster, I spin around, get flipped upside down, and pulled back up again through a daily slog of trying to find a meaningful existence.
It appears that the system is definitely against me.
As I complete endless job applications with my qualifications, who I’ve worked for, my age, marital status and number of children, I am confronted by a page of simply outrageous enquiries.
Sometimes it’s sixteen
pages, sometimes it’s only thirteen. Before I sign and send my latest thesis
length application, even for a minimum-wage-part-time job, I must answer some
excessively probing questions.
These are designed to avoid discrimination, according to the U.K.
government. Strangely, they seem to highlight the very things that once were supposed
to be left out for fear of… discrimination.
1)
What is your Sexual Orientation?
Are you = Lesbian/Gay, Heterosexual,
Bisexual or Rather not say?
2)
What is your Religion/Religious Affiliation or
Rather not say?
3)
Please describe your Ethnicity/Ethnic Origin – You
should put a tick against the one you feel you belong to.
WHITE = English/Welsh/Scottish/Northern
Irish British or Irish or Gypsy or Irish Traveller or OTHER WHITE?
If other white/other mixed/other
Asian/other black/other ethnic group (please supply details).
4)
Are you Romanian or Bulgarian? Please specify.
5) Cultural Identification - Describe who you identify with (related to ethnicity).
6)
Are you a member of a Secret Society? If yes,
please indicate which one.
7)
Are you a refugee from the Montserrat Volcano?
3 comments:
That is truly Big Brotherish.
Being a secular Jew myself,I find questions like that rather frightening.
I don't see the relevance of most of those questions unless it was to help the employer weed out who they really want to work for them.
And how stupid is that last question -
"Are you a member of a Secret Society?"
Doesn't that kind of defeat the purpose of secrecy ?
Being unemployed now myself,I'll soon have to be answering questions like this...not that they will be getting straight ones...not that I'm Gay,by the way.-)
No,I'm really not Gay,if people thought that I wasn't being straight with them in that last sentence.-)
This post reminds me of an tongue-in-cheek argument I was being roped into by another commenter over at the SynchroSecrets blog about Gray aliens and Greer...not that I'm even sure that Grays exist in the first place -
http://www.synchrosecrets.com/synchrosecrets/?p=14635#comments
So discrimination even exists when it comes to aliens from other dimensions as well it seems.-)
I also thought it was a sync that I'm the 23rd follower of this blog.
As 23 is a big sync number for me.
Thanks Darren, I always feel honoured that (now 23) people have decided to add me to their follow lists. It makes me believe that I have a duty to write down real thoughts and views, and talk about my real-life experiences.
I like to pose questions and to air my opinion. SO it's great to see there are more people out there who think along the same lines, as well as people who will challenge my views.
Gay Aliens? ;-) I will check out the comments at the link you mentioned.
The discrimination is so blatant now. A couple of weeks ago I turned up for an interview at my alloted time, but was told to wait as they chose to see the other girl waiting for her meeting which was after mine. It was done on purpose, and quite obviously as well. I'm British but I have foreign ancestry, so my name is quite weird looking on paper. This counts against me nowadays.
The other day I was walking along the typical British High-Street when I heard the old man walking in front on me mumbling and then he said out loud 'bloody foreigners'. I laughed as he was holding a Starbucks coffee cup in one hand, and a bag with Samsung written on it, in the other. Then he wandered into HSBC bank!
:-)
Marie
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