Please add a field that explicitly asks for sitter gender preferences. I am very tired of spending time filling out applications for hosts who ultimately will not consider a male sitter.
Hosts are absolutely entitled to their preferences, and that is their business. What I do care about is investing time and effort into applications for opportunities that were never realistically open to me in the first place.
Adding a simple preference field would save time and frustration for everyone involved.
@Ksu unfortunately in most countries it is against the law for companies to advertise or state gender specific in anything. THS would fall into that category.
@SeniorSitter1 the homeowners can state any of that in their listing but the company cannot state it as an option in the preference field. It would appear to be discrimination in the eyes of the law, at least in my country anyway.
It seems youāre correct. I just googled if you can state gender preference in the US for a volunteer position and the answer was no. I thought if you are not hindering someone from earning a living that it would be OK. I was wrong.
I suspected there may be a legal element at play here, but doesnāt THS already allow sitters to specify whether they are applying as a single sitter or a couple? It seems like thereās a lot of gray area and room for discussion here, and many hosts do put their preferences upfront, which I appreciate.
Iām not even upset about the discrimination aspect of it. Iām just getting very tired of spending time on thoughtful applications only to receive instant rejections, often without any response at all.
Are the same rules not the ones that would prevent or permit age disclosure? As those are already shown on THS then maybe gender can be applied? #justathought
Iām going to posit that this would decrease your chances of getting a sit, not increase. Some people may have a hard preference. Some people might have a preference but be open to someone else ā especially if someone cancels or the sitter who doesnāt āfitā the preference seems especially great. If suddently people with a preference were in a bubble and only those sitters could even see the sit, then there is no chance of people changing their minds. It makes āmaleā solo sitter memberships less valuable since realistically there are fewer sits they should even apply for. It puts THSās thumb on the scale actually encouraging homeowners to be open about their preferences.
I would enourage you to look at other aspects of your profile to see where you might tweak things and to take the extra time necessary when looking at listings to decide whether or not itās worth applying. A lot of times if homeowners have strong preferences they will list them up front on the listings.
THS is neither employment nor housing which is why they can get away (at least in the US) with homeowners stating preferences for sitter age (and offer it on profiles), gender used to be searchable along with age in the app when homeowners were searching for sitters to invite but no longer is. Homeowners can also state a religious preference on the listing. This is I know because I complained once about a listing with multiple safety violance that asked specifically for a āyoung Christian woman of good moral character.ā
This actually give THS a weird advantage I guess over Airbnb which has struggled around discrimination issues in its accomodations.
Has anyone ever seen a sit where hosts preferred a single MALE? And the pet is afraid of women? Strangely, I have never seen this, but plenty of the opposite.
I canāt see THS including a preferred field like this though, either because they canāt manage the technical side or they are too afraid of offending someone.
THS is a UK based company and subject to UK laws and the following -
In the UK, volunteer roles are still generally covered by equality and discrimination law, although the exact legal position can be more nuanced than for paid employment.
Under the Equality and Human Rights Commission guidance and the Equality Act 2010:
Organisations usually cannot discriminate based on protected characteristics such as gender, age, race, disability, religion, or sexual orientation when recruiting volunteers.
sounds like you are assuming the reason for decline is your gender. How many 5 reviews do you have? What is your sitter location set as versus where are you applying for sits? What types of things are you saying in your applications? ALL of this together has a lot to do with rejections.
Time and effort meaning youāre putting out a form copy paste application to many many sits? Help us understand your approach and history on THS. Maybe the forum members can help you increase your chances of landing sits if you provide additional info surrounding this sitch.
Well, I wasnāt just commenting on men Iāve met in my life. The human population is about 50/50 gender wise, although I donāt have exact data, I think itās pretty safe to say that a much greater % of mass violence, criminal activity, assaultsā¦ are committed by men. So, I can understand why some people may not be comfortable with single men.
I sit with my wife. Alone? Hmmm, Iām not sire I wouldāve had as many sits.
Some of these listings have literally had 100% female sitters. Itās obviously a female-only preference. Fine, whatever. I guess I should know better than to apply, but why is that burden on me? Why not just include clear criteria like whether hosts do or do not want couples, guests, men, women, etc.?
Ok, Iāve literally been told this directly before.
Donāt be coy please?
Uber now allows women to request women-only drivers. This is obviously a real preference some people have.
So letās not pretend there arenāt hosts who strongly prefer female sitters to the point they wonāt even consider a man. Thatās clearly happening. My issue isnāt even the preference itself, itās wasting peopleās time by not being upfront about it.
Hi SeniorSitter, It seems to be fine for some sits that are advertised, as have seen many that have stated they only want a female solo sitter, as their pet does not like males etc. Also some sits do stipulate couples only. The company may not be able to offer tick box options but home owners can, or they do in many cases, state their preference.
reviews do you have? What is your sitter location set as versus where are you applying for sits? What types of things are you saying in your applications? ALL of this together has a lot to do with rejections.