Help Wanted – Male

This is a Sunday feature looking back at selected articles from the early days of this blog before readership had ramped up. Enjoy.

I was rooting through my father’s old papers from a time when he was looking for work and came across the following ad that appeared in the July 31, 1964 Montreal Star:



I was struck by the obvious sexism and ageism: must be a male between 25 and 35 years old. The point is not to call out this newspaper or the company placing the ad, but to realize that this was an accepted common practice at the time.

Slow change can creep up unnoticed, but it’s obvious that the world has changed quite a bit (for the better) since this ad was placed.

Comments

  1. AaronMarch 29, 2009 at 9:53 AM

    >it’s obvious that the world has changed quite a bit

    Definitely Canada, US, and Europe, but maybe not the world.

    A few years back I was looking for work in Central and South America, and many job ads for a computer programmer wanted a male between the ages of 25 and 35. Plus, the resume must include a picture of yourself.

    I've seen quite a few international resume floating around the net and I'm always surprised to see it when they state things like: height, weight, religion, age, gender, etc.

    ReplyDelete
  2. guinness416March 29, 2009 at 9:56 AM

    That's not that long ago, really. In my mother's working life married women in Ireland had to quit govt jobs. How far we've come!

    I'm a woman who works in the construction industry. I see a lot of ads for work in the middle east (my uncle is among many many Irish people in the biz over there) that specify male applicants. Can't remember the exact language. I wouldn't fancy working in Saudi anyway, but it always gets my blood pressure up!

    ReplyDelete

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