Any hiring based upon any non-skill or non-personality traits is clearly absurd. I don't understand why all of this has to be such a big deal... It's a very simple thing:
Hiring should be PRIMARILY based upon 2 things:
THAT'S IT.
The race, gender, color, favorite cake, orientation, etc stuff should have absolutely no part in the decision. Let's think about this logically for a second:
According to Merriam-Webster, the b definition for "discrimination" is as follows:
the act, practice, or an instance of discriminating categorically rather than individually
One of the definitions for "discriminate" is as follows:
to make a distinction
Thus, by dictionary definition, ANY CATEGORICAL DISTINCTION based on any group is discriminatory. This means "Women only" is discrimination, this means "men only" is discrimination, this means "Chinese people only" is discrimination, this means "Everyone except Indian people" is discrimination, this means "15-20 year olds only" is discrimination, this means "people who have a master's degree" is discrimination... Discrimination is just categorically defining someone by a trait other than their individuality, by the definitions shown. And that's the case no matter if 5 million people say so or not; the dictionary says so.
It's not subjective; there's an actual factual definition of what discrimination is. The question is "how much discrimination is okay?" or "in what situations is allowing discrimination okay?" And that's a whole other ball game.
Discrimination occurs everywhere. What are the chances of me becoming a server at a Hooters restaurant? How about getting onto a women's dance team? How about becoming a cheerleader? How about being a hairstylist?
How about at the door of a nightclub where the bouncers are letting women in free and men they are charging $20? This kind of stuff happens everywhere all the time, at least here in the USA. I think the problem is much larger than people think. People pick and choose when they think discrimination is a problem but the reality is, nearly everyone discriminates in some form or another every day.