My friend got fired for saying this... your thoughts?

[Jon-Erich]

fireburn95 said:

Ok quick context, he is doing an internship/placement at a major, blue-collar tech organisation in the UK.
Fired is probably not the right word, but it was suggested he does not continue past his 1 month probation.
He and I both do not give into this third-wave feminism 'made up stats' and 'oppression' bullshit.

Ok, company xyz, (I will call them) had a one month review. My friend is a top marks student, one hell of a programmer and being in the same year as me, makes me mother bleeping jealous of him. (Don't worry i'm still learning.)

He was doing fine, did his work, passed his university exams with flying colours, easily got the job at xyz, and was going places. They asked him a few questions which he confidently answered, then came up the next question (not sic mind you but along the lines):

How important do you think it is that we get more women in the tech workplace?

Now, as a believer of equality of oppurtunity for everyone based solely on their merits, he answered this. Note that elaboration is usually required in these answers, so they were expecting also a 'how do we do this' etc. Also, there's only one objective answer to this question, so it is kind of pointless asking anyway because no one is going to flat out say 'not very important'.

Now his answer was reasoned and though out, and along the lines of (again, not sic)

The technology industry is large and ever growing and their is a lot of room for everyone to join the party. Majoring in computer science can be difficult so it requires a lot of preparation and dedication to achieve greater heights. With that in mind, I truely believe that anyone who is interested enough to pursue this career should really give it a try, and it could result in fresh new ideas for the industry which is a win-win, and we should encourage it from the offset throughout primary and higher education.

Note how he avoided pretty much saying what he wanted to "It's important that we get good, quality people regardless of gender or race into the industry", to be fair he did a good job without going against his morals but the interviewer pretty much knew what he was about then, but he got told immediately after that question that he is subject to a review, and later, he will not proceed past his months probation.

Personally, I don't think you can be judged on a very stupid question in an interview. I mean, it's important that we get more, good people into the industry. Grabbing a bunch of women and shoving them into an industry just for the sake of having a close to 1:1 ratio rather than them being interested is ridiculous. Do you think he was unfairly dismissed based on the above or was he unreasonable in thinking so?

It's political correctness at it's worse. It's a social issue. It's a political issue. However, I don't see it as left wing politics vs. right wing politics. The biggest problems facing society today are PC campus liberals and social conservatives. These groups are completely different in a lot of ways but are similar in quite a few ways. Both of these groups don't really believe in freedom and democracy. They just want to shove their beliefs down your throat. For the left, if you criticise anything relating to affirmative action, you'll be labeled as a racist (mostly if you're white), a homophobe, and every category of hatefulness. For the right, if you criticise your country for going to war, spending excess money on the military, or for allowing corrupt corporations to get away with whatever they want, you'll be labeled as a anti-whatever country you're from or unpatriotic, even though in Western Democracy, the whole idea is to get a group of people who don't agree with one another into a room together and have them compromise and work out their differences. These people don't believe that. It can only be their way.