The Politics Thread

Genuine Women's rights and Wimmin?...

 

Another comment unsupported by any facts.
If gender employment ratios are different from male/female population ratios then that is possible evidence that there is discrimination. All the data that I am aware of is completely supportive of continued sexual discrimination in most countries of the world. Feminist movements want zero discrimination - how is fighting for that "illegitimate, immoral, illogical, and unmeritorious" or "bullying".

 

I really can't be bothered to discuss it with you tbh. Sorry.

 

Here's a comment I put somewhere else, if you are interested :

"
I wrote the following article yesterday, in response to an accusation on an Internet forum, that an MP discriminated against women, on the basis that he voted for legislation which reduced VAT on razors, but which did not reduce tax on a womens' sanitary product.

In the article (which was written after an exchange about the allegation referred to above) I argue that the women's' rights movement has been very beneficial to society, but that its aims have now been achieved, and it is time for it to stop before it becomes a mischief :

I've taken a few minutes (below), to clarify the views that I alluded to yesterday with regards to equal gender rights.

Yesterday, a poster in this discussion mentioned the issue of a womens' sanitary product that had a 5 percent higher tax on it than a male grooming product, and cited this as an example of discrimination against women.

Because an individual (an MP who voted for the legislation which gave some products partial taxation exemption) had been accused of discrimination, I objected, and argued (as above) that the issue did not demonstrate that the MP discriminated against women, and in fact, it was likely a minor detail which was missed in the drafting of the legislation, rather than a deliberate attempt to prejudice women.

I then rightly apologised, for my excessive reference to the sanitary product, which I considered on reflection to be somewhat ungentlemanly and coarse, notwithstanding that the issue was originally raised by a female poster.

In the course of discussing the issue, I also made some references to my objections to some elements of the modern gender rights movements. I did not explain my comments, on this rightly sensitive area properly yesterday, so I have taken a moment to clarify myself below.

Before I comment further, I should confirm for the avoidance of any doubt, that I totally support any actions taken against discrimination. That applies to sexual discrimination, racial discrimination, any other kind of discrimination, and indeed any form of bullying or unpleasantness, whether that is based on a stereotype or not.

I wholeheartedly support the view that it is totally unacceptable, for someone to be given negative treatment, or disadvantaged, on the basis of their gender. I believe that this view is rightly accepted in modern society.

One of the issues that was touched upon yesterday was equal pay. I stated that I would strongly object against a situation where someone's pay was based without justification on their gender, and that if a study showed that one gender was consistently receiving less pay than the other gender for the same job, which they were doing equally well, then that would appear to amount to discrimination, and is something that should require urgent attention.

I would suggest that instances where such a situation exists, certainly in countries like the UK, are very rare. If this is not the case, then it needs to be corrected. This need for correction is notwithstanding any patterns in society which might suggest that on average womens' expenditure might be lower than mens', due for example for tendencies for some womens' purchases to tend to be made out of mens' salaries and such like. Such trends are irrelevant to pay structures, and a woman doing a job at the same standard as a man, should be paid the same as the man.

It is my opinion however - and this relates back to the subject matter discussed yesterday - that there are some matters which on the face of it, might look or sound like discrimination, but which are not in fact. Such matters might include :

1. instances where there are more persons of one gender in a role or occupation than the other gender
2. some differences in treatment of persons on account of their gender
3. inadvertent minor benefits and disbenefits of being one gender or the other

It is not directly relevant for me to talk about these at length, but I will comment briefly upon them.

The situation in the first example that I gave, might indicate discrimination or it might not. If it is due to discrimination, then like the situation with equal pay discussed above, then it should be addressed and corrected. However, there are many reasons other than discrimination, which might account for such results. For example, it might very well be that less of one gender wants to work than the other gender. It might also be that one gender does not choose a particular career or role as much as the other gender. It might even be that in some career or roles, one gender is not as adept at the other gender, and therefore less likely to merit promotion. In any of these cases, the resulting gender differences in the professions is not due to discrimination. Rather it is due to differences which exist between the genders, either through choices that they tend to make, or through their tendency to be suitable for the profession, or role. In my view, such discrepancy does not need to be forcibly corrected. In fact, deliberate attempts to make such a correction, are likely themselves to amount to discrimination. Such discrimination is labelled as 'positive discrimination', and as such tends to be considered acceptable by many, however I would suggest that it is equally as undesirable as any other kind of discrimination. I regard this positive discrimination, and it's apparent acceptability, as more of an issue in our modern society, than traditional gender discrimination.

The second example that ai have listed above, might on the face of it sound like discrimination. In fact, it is just recognition of the fact that as genders, we have differences, and we tend to have some different attributes, skill sets, and indeed sensibilities.

A fair example of this might in fact be the comments that ai made yesterday about ladies' sanitary products. I apologised for the comments, when I reflected on the fact that my repeated reference - as a man - to this matter (which in my defence had been raised by a lady poster), appeared course and ungentlemanly. Do I object that it is considered inappropriate for a man to be seen discussing this matter ? Do I think this is wrong ? No, I don't. I recognise that it is just a difference which exists, and which should be respected. Why ? Because men and women are not the same. In my view, we should not try to make them the same, and even if we wanted to, such an attempt would be hopeless. We are what we are. And as men and as women, we share similarities, and we share differences. Why should we be required to pretend that such differences don't exist ? And why should we be required not to make use of gender advantages where we can, both in terms of our own gender specific skill sets and attributes, and those of those around us, such as our employees ? In my opinion, we shouldn't.

I can give an example of this, by reference to the construction industry. The construction industry is sadly dominated by men, but that's not the example that I have in mind. The example that I have in mind, is that almost universally, the heads of business development in major contracting companies, are attractive young women. Is that a coincidence ? Definitely not. Is it discrimination ? Well, I suppose technically it might be, but that's not the point I'm making here. That point is that I suspect that the professionals in these roles, are intelligent, educated, skilled people with excellent communication skills. But, they have a particular skillet as well of being a woman. Is it wrong that they should be given a role on that basis ? Not in my view. They are using the particular skills that they have, including gender specific ones, and their employer is selecting them because they are the best people to have it that role, partly due to their gender specific skills. I will come back to this point shortly.

Before I do so, I should just make brief reference to the 3rd item that I have listed above. And I fact, an example of that was discussed yesterday in the taxation issue. Again, his does not appear to me to be discrimination, it is just a difference that exists by accident. It was not motivated by a preference of one gender over the other.

Now, I will start to get to the point, and draw these points into an explanation of the concerns that I expressed yesterday regarding gender 'equality' movements.

I will make a confession at this point. And that is that some of my comments yesterday were encouraged by Amber's comment,

"What do we want ? Equality."

Having engaged in further dialogue, I have no or little doubt about Amber's honourable intentions in making this remark.

My concern though, is that 'gender equality' movements, have moved (perhaps inadvertently) from seeking equality, to seeking something else.

And whilst that equality, and more specifically, removal of discrimination, is or was an important and valuable movement, the movement to seek something else, appears to me to be neither important nor valuable. In fact it is in my view, likely to be dangerous, and potentially harmful.

Let me explain...

It appears to me, that having achieved a great deal over the last century or so, and having corrected many faults in our society, and making our society more relevant to modern living, gender equality movements are now in danger of going too far.

Specifically, instead of seeking "equality", what they now appear to me to be seeking, is homogeny.

This is a hopeless task as noted above, because men and women have differences. For better and for worse, they are not the same, and can never be the same.

So whereas giving two equally effective colleagues of different genders the same pay is only right, trying to ensure that there are an equal number of each gender in each and every role is not right. If this was ever 'achieved', then it would not represent equality, it would represent positive discrimination, that was detrimental not only to business, but to individuals involved (of both genders), and to society.

Furthermore, and perhaps of more concern, this strive for 'equality', is likely to create an imbalance.

In my view, because people men and women have differences, one will never be a perfect reflection of the other. In order to achieve true equality therefore, what we should be seeking, is not homogeny, but balance. Give and take. Rough and smooth. Fairness, reasonabless.

And seeking out every individual imbalance which, if taken in isolation appears to adversely affect women, and seeking for it to be corrected, without the same attention being given to conversely balanced issues, will create an imbalance, and effectively, discrimination against men.

For this reason, it is not appropriate in my opinion, to look at gender issues, in the minutia of detail that was attempted yesterday, by comparing tax on razors, to tax on sanitary products.

Not only is it misleading to categorise such a matter as "discrimination" (in fact, this particular example fits into my category 3 above of non discriminatory issues), but doing so repeatedly, is not a search for equality at all, but a search for imbalance.

And that can not be positive.

But I have a graver concern even than this...

I'll finish my piece, as I do believe I have a valid point.

My serious concern arises out the question of what happens to a movement when its goals have been achieved. What happens when gender equality is achieved ?

And I believe it already has been achieved in the developed world.

Yes, there are less women in certain positions than men, but as I have discussed above, this does not mean that there is discrimination or inequality. There are other factors at play.

Women now have the same rights as men. There is equality. Women can (rightly) vote. Women can (rightly) make contracts. Women can (rightly) own land, women can (rightly) do any job they are competent in, and (rightly) earn the same money for the same job as a man.

Equality has been achieved. Combing every detail of society in search for random accidental differentials such as tax on sanitary products being higher than on razors, does not obviate this point.

But as with any movement, it is difficult for those involved to know when to stop. It has been a key part of their lives. And so, they search for reasons to keep the movement going, even long past when its aims have been achieved.

And that is the grave concern that I mention above. What can he movement do at this point ? Well, aside from stopping, this one can either search for the inappropriate minutia of detail that affects the balance I described earlier, or it can press on to a point where it tries to exert dominance over men.

And the trouble with an equality movement of this kind, is that it develops such politicised protection, that it is difficult to counter. To criticise it, is to be seen to be discriminatory, just as the MP who inadvertently voted not to remove tax on tampons was seen to be discriminatory earlier in this discussion.

And so we see in some recent example that have made the press, such as the furores over the British passport and the LinkedIn incident between the female barrister and the male solicitor.

In fact, these are good examples. You might remember that earlier I mentioned 3 situations which might on the face of it give alarm signals as potentially indicating discrimination, but which aren't actually discrimination.

The third one of those, was with regards to minutia of detail, that were just accidents in the natural course of things, such as the razor and the sanitary product. Well, I'd put the passport into that category as well. For those who aren't familiar with the story, the passport office recently produced a template document for the new British passport. Included in the print of the passport, were pictures of 9 British historical figures. What was the first thing that womens' rights groups did ? That's right, they went through the passport, counting how many of the figures were women and how many were men. And lo and behold, they found that 7 of the famous figures were men, and were up in arms about it demanding equality.

But in a similar vein to my point about gender ratios in business (my second category of matters which do not represent discrimination) previously explained, the fact that there are 7 men pictured and 2 women pictured, does not indicate discrimination or inequality in our modern society. It represents the fact that most significant figures historically are men. It was men who fought in wars, it was men who explored and charted the oceans, it was men who invented things, and made great leaders, and it was largely men who wrote plays, books and poems which entertained the people. Does this matter from today's perspective ? Was it any less my great grand father than my sister's great grand father ? No. And was this state of affairs due to inequality even then ? Some of it, probably. But history can not be rewritten. We can not retrospectively invent women whose contribution exceeded those of the men portrayed in the passport, and not doing so does not represent inequality or discrimination. What it does represent is a movement which has become obsessed over finding something to do, to the extent that the first thing it will do upon seeing a new passport will be to go through it and count how many pictures here are in it of each gender. This is lunacy in my opinion, and the fact that it was presented in the BBC as a credible story rather than being responded to with the howls of derision it deserved, shows how cowed towed to he movement the press has become, and how it has forgotten how to see the wood for the trees as well as he movement itself.

If the passport issue represents and annoyance though, the barrister issue represents a serious concern. The concern that rather than just scouring the world for any irrelevant minutia of detail that they might be able to try to cloth in the guise of inequality, the feminist movement is actually taking the other path, and choosing to bully and exert superiority over men. And the incident with the barrister is a case in point. Again, for those who don't know the story. There was a furore in the papers and on the Internet a few weeks ago, after the following series of events took place :

1. A female barrister and women's' rights campaigner, who works for an extreme left wing barristers' chambers, changed her LinkedIn picture profile from her normal characterless head shot, to one in which she was wearing an (arguably) attractive dress and looking (arguably) somewhat alluringly into the camera.
2. The barrister then contacted a senior male solicitor via LinkedIn.
3. He solicitor replied, saying let's do business sometime. He also complimented the barrister's new photograph.
4. The barrister notified a national newspaper of this turn of events, claiming that the solicitor's comment on her photograph represented the oppression of women in the legal industry, and branded him sexist and unfaithful to his wife.
5. The barrister wrote to the solicitor advising him that she considered him sexist and an oppressor of women, and demanded from him a public apology or else she would make a complaint to the law society and attempt to end his career.

To me, this is clearly not a search for equality. It's plain and simple bullying, and an attempt to make men subservient to women. And the fact that the press did not pour vitriol on this woman, just shows how manipulated we can be by a movement founded in a good cause, even when that cause has ceased to be a positive one. it shows that we can be influenced by it, even when that cause gets perverted into becoming a vehicle for bullying, and discrimination itself. And that's dangerous.

So, those are the concerns that I have about the feminist movement in the 21st century. The goals of the movement have now been achieved. The movement is no longer required. but as with all movements, it is difficult to stop. And all this movement can do now is trawl the world for anything that looks like inequality but isn't (such as the tampon tax issue, or ratios of those in the work place), and thereby upset the balance I have described above between men, women and the environments they operate together in, or it can turn into the nasty, bullying domineering movement advocated by the barrister in example 2 above. Neither looks like a good option to me.

The women's' rights movement has done great things. There was a day when it was appropriate for men to take the leading role. To fight the wars. To do the hard and often manual work, to explore the oceans. But that day has passed. In this modern day, women should have the same opportunities and responsibilities as men. And they didn't have that. But now, thanks to the womes'' rights movement they do. And that's important, and valuable.

But it's done now. It's time to stop."

 

Corbyn 2
Blairites 0

 

The pay issue is of course more complex than simple news stories would have you believe. I have no doubt that there is a real gender pay gap, and I believe that gap should not exist - but I also believe that the gap for most people is not as obvious or as wide as it is portrayed. For example, if a profession such as carers is dominated by women, and that profession in general is low paid, then all other things being equal it will lower the average pay of women against men. There are a lot of carers. Yet the men doing the same carer job would get exactly the same pay for doing it. Other examples more likely mentioned in the press (better headlines?) are in these high flying city jobs where there does seem to be a lot more men in top jobs and earning a lot more too. But that affects relatively few women, although since the salaries are so huge it may well impact on the average. I don't agree with that, but again it may make the gap seem bigger than it is, and the fact that these stories get into the press may also make the issue seem more widespread.

From personal experience I have never worked in a job where women's pay was different except one a long time ago. In fact, I have probably been discriminated against a couple of times for being a man (don't want to go into the circumstances). The time when I know I was paid more was years ago in the army when women were not members of the same units they were supporting - they were all members of the now defunct Women's Royal Army Corps and paid less for the same day's work. But that anomaly disappeared a long time ago.

I am very much for equal pay, but I also feel very loathe to mention any of my concerns in case I am branded as a sexist ;/ anti-equal rights etc.

 

I agree with many of your points.

The last one being perhaps the most important, because it is very true to say that it is almost impossible to speak out against any 'pro women' movement or argument, for (justifiable) fear of being labelled as sexist and condemned accordingly.

The most recent example of this being the Chairman of Saatchi and Saatchi who gave an intelligent and honest response to an interviewer who questioned the gender balance in his industry, only for his response to effectively finish his career due to the hysterical, irational and illogical bilious reaction from feminist groups.

I consider it very unlikely that there are any significant instances of men being paid more than women for the same role. The consequence for any employer being disasterous.

In my experience, women are treated far more respectfully in business than men, from trainee right up the ladder.

Unfortunately, some women come into business with the idea that they are going to face prejudice, and they behave accordingly, determined to use this myth as an excuse for any injustices they perceive, or any hurdles that they face. This situation is only exaccerbated by the growing number of consultancies than quite openly specialise in promoting and empowering female employees over their male colleagues. It strikes me that auch companies are the antithesis of equal opportu ity and equality, and represent blatant sexism and inequality, in a way that would likely promot criminal proceedings if they sought to represent the other gender in a similar manner.

Fortunately, there are also many excellent business women as well, and indeed the best boss I ever had was a woman.

The unfortunate truth however is that we are heading into a situation where women are promoted in many industries based solely on their gender due to the concerted harassment and pressure from a society that does not have the time or the information to consider the issue rarionally and in an informed manner, and with a result not only that the most competent and deserving people are promoted (whatever their gender may be) but that more able employees will be working for less able female bosses.

It's a major problem imo.

 

It matters not.

Whoever the Labour leader is, they must present the credible policies and be
seen as a credible PM by the swing voters who usually decide general elections
(not the sheeple who vote for the same party no matter what) .

It seems that comrade Corbyn is not seen as such by said demographic,
and I'll wager only a negligible percentage of them have signed up as Labour new
members to ensure their vote keeps him as leader.

 

When I used to employ people to work as traders or sales in the financial markets, admittedly a while ago now, I always took whoever I considered best qualified and able to do the job I needed done. Gender did not gone into my thoughts at all. And the pay was the same, male or female.

It's not rocket science!...

 

The statistics usually quote the median salary which doesn't get affected by the few high or low earning jobs.

Here is the position in the US

please log in to view this image

So over 40 years women have gone from being 60% of men to 80%. Others may think the job is done. I don't

 

You've either missed the point, or not listened to it.

 

It ****ing annoys me so much

Completely meaningless statstic, and yet people treat it like their bible.

In fact, that's not a bad analogy. It's the new version of the Old Testament/New Testament/Koran/*enteryourreligioustexthere*

Total ****ing claptrap.

 

Powerspurs has actually highlighted one of the fundamental flaws in this argument, by comparing the salary of the average woman to himself.

This is completely misleading and illogical. In fact, it is meaningless. The graph might as well be measuring the average visibility of holographic aliens. It would make just as much sense and be just as relevant and meaningful.

This is for two reasons :

1. He is interpreting the graph as if it is showing that a woman doing the same job as himself at the same level and to the same ability, is earning 80% of what he earns. However, the graph hows no such thing whatsoever. In fact, it does not show that any woman is getting paid less than any man in any job.

2. The graph assumes that there is an average man and an average woman. Indeed, Powerspurs is even comparing himself to the average woman. In reality, neither thr average man, nor the average woman exist. What exists is millions of different men, and millions of different women, all in different jobs.


The graph provides a meaningless statistic, and consideration of it, provides a meaningless conclusion.

 

Here's the point: Corbyn has presented credible policies, yet the complete lack of coverage his policies have been given by the media is what allows the anti-Corbyn narrative to thrive - and since people in this day and age are too lazy to spend the five seconds it would take to Google what his policies are, they lazily fall in with the anti-Corbyn agenda because it's easier to follow the media's narrative than think for yourself (see also: people who believe the Metropolitan Police's version of events concerning Jean Charles de Menezes or Mark Duggan, which were parroted by the media no matter how much evidence to the contrary was revealed)

Case in point, one of the Blairites' arguments is that at no point has Corbyn communicated his policies to his MPs - which is both a lie, as he clearly did so during last year's leadership election and this year's leadership soon-to-be turkey shoot, so what they are actually saying is that they either weren't paying attention (and isn't that a comforting thing to hear your MP saying?) or were far more busy telling Auto-Correct they didn't want to type "inedible" in six consecutive e-mails.

You want credible policies? Here's a few of Corbyn's policies:
* Running the NHS as a not-for-profit public service (which 84% of YouGov users polled agreed with)
* Renationalising the railways (66% agreement - and that's likely increased with Southern's ineptitude)
* Renationalising the energy companies (66% agreement)
* Renationalising Royal Mail (67% agreement)

The NHS policy alone is more than enough to appeal to swing voters - and there's more
* Running schools as a not-for-profit public service
* Returning free schools to local government control (which again lines up with what the electorate actually want)
* All companies with at least 250 employees must give their staff fundamental worker's rights (which no doubt scares the **** out of Mike Ashley)
* To invest in infrastructure projects to stimulate growth as opposed to Tory "cut our way to growth" policies (a major reason why Labour were wiped out in Scotland at the last election is because the SNP were on an anti-austerity ticket, while Labour were on an austerity-lite one)

This also exposes the blatant hypocrisy among the Blairites: when Corbyn is putting forward these policies we have the likes of Chris Leslie and Yvette Cooper spitting feathers - yet just last week Whatsisname put forward carbon copies of each of these, did we hear the Blairites say he was unelectable and fling around baseless accusations of his supporters sending racist and/or homophobic threats? Strangely enough they did not.

 

Gender equality will certainly improve my chances of becoming a supermodel

 

Equality? If English women visit certain Muslim countries they are expected to wear some sort of coverall.Shouldn't these Muslim women in England follow the English womens example and remove those coveralls? We are supposed to be a free country,religion or not.
I guess Muslin women are only required to remove their clothing at bedtime for you know what.

 

What's that, Smithy?...

 

Smithy

 

The thing about the people who bang on about how people should integrate if they live over here is they're also the same people who spend two weeks in Marbella without bothering to learn a single word of Spanish.

 

So his message cannot get across because the :

- media are against him
- people are too lazy to spend 5 seconds or think for themselves


Well as neither of the above appear to be going to change any time soon,
I would say that Labour are an electoral dead man walking with Corbyn in charge.