Comedy, tragedy or farce – this interview episode exposes the reality of working life for many women

ASCENE shot for ‘comic effect’ in the Impact trade union inhouse training video opens with a young interviewee being complimented on her engagement ring before a formal panel of two men and a woman. Straight away, the older of the men asks: “So when is the big day?”

The story is turned on its head to reveal that the woman is actually in a same-sex relationship and the couple already have a child – thus exposing the prejudices of the fictitious interview panel.

The scene is a popular one amongst trainees learning how to correctly conduct the interview process.

Niall Shanahan, communications officer at Impact, wrote the script and the union employed professional actors so that they could “really let loose” with the comedy aspect.

“When I saw it myself, I just thought, ‘Imagine someone being that gauche as to ask that question,’” he said.

But he and other officials with the union were struck by the similarities between their segment and the real-life revelations, after Minister for Training and Skills John Halligan emerged as having asked a senior civil servant during an interview if she was married and how many children she had, commenting: “You must be busy.”

The woman was subsequently awarded €7,500 by the Workplace Relations Commission for having been a victim of discrimination.

“I looked back at the video and laughed because they were so similar – but we were playing it for comic effect.

“People laugh in recognition at the scene that it’s so old-fashioned, deeply outmoded and antiquated, straying into an area of a person’s life that we have no right to stray into,” said Mr Shanahan.

Impact is not alone in mining such a ‘fictitious’ scene. Irish Equity, too, highlights the inappropriateness of such questions in its own training programme, said Karan O’Loughlin, Siptu’s arts and culture sector organiser.

SHE expressed outrage that Halligan had heaped “condescension on top of discrimination” by claiming that he had merely asked the woman the questions to put her at her ease.

“Does he try to put the men comfortable during an interview by asking them about their children?” she asked.

All agreed that such a line of questioning hardly ever happens in this day and age.

Human relations and employment law expert Caroline McEnery (inset below)), of the HR Suite, revealed that she has seen lots of scenarios where an interviewer might say they were making conversation and didn’t realise they were being discriminatory. Such situations usually happen with non-HR-trained staff members, she said.

“The risk lies in an amateur doing the interview and saying, ‘We are just having a chat.’ But you’re not

–an interview is a formal process.”

Anecdotally, the evidence is that prejudice remains. Stories abound of women removing their wedding rings before interviews or admitting that they were too afraid to reveal that they were in the early stages of pregnancy – although it would be illegal to ask in any case and they are under no obligation to do so.

The reality is that women are uncomfortably aware that their gender or fertility may be held against them.

As recently as 2010, the Irish Small and Medium Enterprises Association warned that employers would not hire “buxom young women of childbearing years” if forced to top up maternity payments.

The pitfalls of being a woman in the workplace remain.

Children catch a virus and need to be collected early from school; parent-teacher meetings are held.

But it is all part of the fabric of human life and employers should remember that a happy worker is a productive worker.