Does gender trump talent?

Q. Our medical office has one female physician and several male doctors, but all the support staffers are women. Should we try to hire men into those roles? In general, are we obligated to help dispel stereotypes by deliberately placing men in positions that are traditionally female-dominated?

This is a question ethical people ask themselves in many situations throughout life: is it incumbent on me to go out of my way to do what I consider is right, even if it’s not required or expected of me, just to set an example for others? Just asking this question means that you are moral enough to think about how your actions affect others in circumstances where the problem is not yours alone, but rather a broad social issue.

In this case, the question bumps into issues of labour laws and anti-discrimination rules.

“‘Purposive hiring,’ like selecting men just to create a more balanced workforce, is likely to create legal problems,” warned Joseph Mazzola, an assistant professor of industrial and organisational psychology at Roosevelt University in Chicago. The female applicants you don’t hire could sue you, especially if they feel they are more qualified for the job, he said.

The safest way to hire people is to use a consistent system, such as interviews or personality testing, he said. If two candidates come out the same in your scoring system, then it’s up to you to pick the one you feel will be the best fit.

There’s also the issue of self-selection. If more women enter this field, then it makes sense to receive more job applications from women. Mazzola suggests changing your recruiting or advertising techniques to attract more men, but in a female-dominated profession, you may still have trouble getting men to apply. 

If there aren’t qualified men for you to hire, then it’s a moot point whether you wish to hire them or not. As a businessperson, it’s your responsibility to hire the best applicants you can find, as long as you don’t discriminate illegally. “To not do so could risk the performance of the business and affect the organisational culture negatively,” Mazzola said.

In general, you can, and should, try to apply sweeping moral principles to your work, such as “professions should generally be equally divided between men and women”. Just be aware that sometimes it’s not feasible to make these principles fit the needs of your business. The important thing is to keep trying to conduct your business in an ethical way.

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