Gerard Barry wrote:
Rachel Waddington wrote:
Gerard Barry wrote:
In any case, I always find it disappointing how some jobs with such limited benefit for society (let's take "diversity officers" in companies or government bodies as just one extreme example) are often better paid than jobs that provide real practical value to society.
I can see that they may not have many benefits for you personally. If you belonged to a group that gets discriminated against, you might feel differently.
This is taking us a long way off the original topic though (actually, nearly all of the posts are off topic in relation to the original question).
And tell us, Rachel, which groups get discriminated against? It's rhetorical question, of course. I know the answer will be "women, non-white people, gays, etc." Quite apart from the fact that this isn't the case (at least not on a large scale), most countries (well, Western countries at any rate, non-Western countries don't do "wokeness") have laws in place preventing discrimination, which means anyone who feels they unfairly missed out on a job or a promotion can go to court, which means that "diversity officers" and the like are completely superfluous, and a waste of taxpayers' money in the case of government bodies. If anything, they do harm by a) potentially hiring or promoting underqualified staff on the basis of gender, skin colour, etc. rather than merit and b) creating a hostile working environment for "straight, white men" who are almost second-class employees in some companies nowadays. Such identity politics has no place in the workplace and often just annoys people. (It's also an American import.) Furthermore, many companies who push this DEI nonsense don't even practice what they preach. My second-last employer was a case in point. Although they loved to proclaim how much they valued "diversity", there were precious few black employees in the company (even in their British and American offices). In other words, it was all show. I sometimes felt like telling some of the white, male lawyers that if they really valued "diversity" (which apparently they did), why not vacate their position and give it to a woman, a black person or whatever. Fat chance of that ever happening!
PS: I happen to be gay myself and thus belong to one of the groups that are apparently so hard done by, yet you won't find me wanting preferential treatment. Maybe it's time educated, middle-class women also gave up their victim mentality.
Gerard Barry wrote:
"diversity officers" and the like are completely superfluous, and a waste of taxpayers' money in the case of government bodies. If anything, they do harm by a) potentially hiring or promoting underqualified staff on the basis of gender, skin colour, etc. rather than merit and b) creating a hostile working environment for "straight, white men" who are almost second-class employees in some companies nowadays. Such identity politics has no place in the workplace and often just annoys people. (It's also an American import.) … you won't find me wanting preferential treatment. Maybe it's time educated, middle-class women also gave up their victim mentality.
I don’t think you understand what diversity officers do or how it all works. There is no preferential treatment. It’s about equal opportunities and unconscious bias. Some aspects of some policies may be questionable, of course, but that goes for everything ever. The idea of a hostile environment for the poor straight white male is an invention of the dog-whistle media.
I too would advise the OP not to bother with an MA, whatever his take on the sorry plight of the beleaguered majority. Not only is the industry clearly in a downward spiral, but these courses are of limited value anyway (I did one, taught on one and hired four translators from one, way back). All you need to get started as a translator with your background is to do some translations and pay a translator to critique what you come up with. Much cheaper and quicker than funding an MA.
But still, I really wouldn’t come into this business for the money, not any more.
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