Nuclear Power Plant Shows How Not to Hire More Female Employees
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A nuclear power plant is battling accusations of sexism after an unusual hiring process.
Nine News - com.au
In an effort to hire female interns, a nuclear power plant, CEZ, in the Czech Republic asked female high school graduates to show their qualifications by sending photos of themselves in bikinis to a contest hosted on their Facebook page. The post has since been deleted.
Nine News - com.au
If you're not sure how stripping down and nuclear power correlate, you're not alone, as many comments show.
The plant asked high school graduates to battle for "Miss Energy 2017," The New York Times reported.
ICTemelin/Facebook via AOL - aol.com
Before the post was deleted, The New York Times reported that it had declared "the girl with the greatest number of likes will get the title of 'Bouncer of Energy' and spend two weeks of residency with us."
CEZ's spokesperson explained the thought process behind the contest to The Independent.
"Most of [our internships] are organised for the high schools and universities that are members of our partnership program. Some of the internships/excursions are however customarily offered for the winners of competitions either organised by CEZ or by the third parties."
In this case, as Australia's 9 News reports, "the competition was originally organised by media agency Maturantka Roku and had attracted more than 600 submissions."
CEZ's spokesperson added, "[T]he fans on the Facebook page of the Information Centre Temelin could cast a vote on the Facebook page and choose a girl that would receive a short internship according to her preferences—if she plans to study journalism, she would do the internship in the press office, if she plans to study economy, she might do it in the economy department."
ICTemelin/Facebook via AOL - aol.com
They spokesperson also offered an apology: "The voting was possible only for a brief period of time – around one day – and then we stopped it. We haven’t announced any winner and we apologised."
Additionally, on their Facebook page (before deletion), CEZ added that all 10 finalists were offered internships, and further stated, "the purpose of the competition was to promote technical education. But if the original vision raised doubts or concerts, we are very sorry."
ICTemelin/Facebook via AOL - aol.com
Petra Havlíková, a human rights lawyer, told aktualne.cz (a Czech media site), via German broadcasting company Deutsche Welle, "the competition is absolutely outside the bounds of ethics. In 2017, I find it incredible that someone could gain a professional advantage for their good looks."
Indeed. Yet even in The United States, women are struggling to grab top jobs in the work place, especially in male-dominated fields, like technology. And as ATTN: previously reported in 2016, women who wear makeup at work are compared more favorably to do those who don't, regardless of their field.