The gender bender agenda

Fabio P.Barbieri

I think the malignancy of this "equality" bill goes well beyond the gender agenda. I do not know whether I am allowed to link to my blog in this column, but my comments are otherwise too long to fit here: http://fpb.livejournal.com/321448.html. And I think that it does not concern Harperson alone: she is the glove puppet for an angry, desperate, unprincipled Prime Minister playing the last and ugliest stake for his political life.

Dee Ranged

Well said Melanie.

A thoroghly wretched specimen of a woman.

David Lindsay

It is notable that, although certainly having room both for upper-class people and for QCs, Old Labour governments felt no need for an "Equality Minister". They were too busy getting on with creating the NHS, clearing slums, and such like.

I didn't hear Woman's Hour this morning, but after Harman's fawning "interview on Today, there was nothing about this on Jeremy Vine (despite an hour on other aspects of this Bill, including an interview with Harman), nor even anything on Martha Kearney's World At One. I wonder why not?

It is women who physically give birth, and on whom small children are most dependent. Get over it. In egalitarian terms, the "pay gap" does not exist. What Harman is seeking is not equality, but special privilege.

Tom

Blair was the velvet glove on the clunking Stalinist fist.

For so long this Government has got used to getting away with social engineering by stealth but now that the spinmeisters have gone the true thoughts of what goes on in the heads of so many on the Labour benches comes out in this undiluted fashion. Last week Balls on grammar schools, this week Harperson on her specious "equality" agenda.

The worst part is they've got away with so much social engineering up until now and the public have only just woken up to it.

Some of these buggers asked for EU sanctions against Cuba to be lifted in return for voting through the Lisbon treaty, there's nothing "new" about the Labour party at all. It's just that under Blair they were so much better at hiding their warped thoughts.

logdon

Great headline and great article. These robot's would love an androgynous, genderless society in which we all knew our place especially the men whose cojones were still just about intact. That way we'd all be working for a faceless state bureaucracy. And they deny social engineering? Still, another reason why they will go. Brown talks of reconnecting? With what is the pertinent question after reading of this stupidity.

Joe Strummer

Positive discrimination in employment on the very spurious grounds of race,gender or creed quotas is simply stupid and only increases tensions between disparate groups in society when gender/ identity politics are exploited.

Women under this new legislation, if it goes ahead, will rightly be seen as obtaining employment not through ability but only by their sex.

The women themselves will most probably be thinking the same. This politically correct idiocy doesn't help anyone in the long run.

Ian C

She is so bright that she thinks that any employer is bound to take up her kind opportunity to be be allowed to positively discriminate when it's a split decision on who to pick.

The woman is an imbecile. It is a measure of her and the egalitarian Labour Party that can survive within it. Where else on this planet could such a lifeform survive?

Tiberius

Socialist policy yet again has the opposite effect to that intended with its anti-discrimination proposals creating a cad's charter.

[Ring, ring]."Hello, Ben, did you get your man"?

"Yes, dear - so to speak. Well the two guys would have been brilliant at the job, but I thought I'd apply the Harridan Principle, and positively discriminate for the woman, who has fewer qualifications and experience, but who would undoubtedly improve the quota of women to men in the office. I'm sure she'll be fine".

"I see - what does she look like"?

"Oh, you know - just ordinary. I don't think I can debrief after work with her in the lap-dancing club like I used to with Todd because that would be sexist, but the Holiday Inn is quite a pleasant alternative, and we won't have to shout at each other. This idea that the country will be more at ease with itself if we positively discriminate really does make sense".

"Really"?

"Well you're a woman, Tiff, don't you agree with Harridan".

"Well as I happen to know that one of your men candidates was white, I'm going to report you to the Commission for Racial Equality. Counting you, 75% of the staff in that office are Afro-Caribbean and it's just not right. And you can cook your own dinner tonight".[Hangs up].

peter

Funny isn t it.

Laws had to be passed to ensure equal rights to Jews like Melanie.

But when laws have to be passed to ensure equal rights to anyone else, oh no, Big Mistake,

Hypocrite.

Robin

Peter,

Back into your box with your pointlessness.

Brian O'Connor

I've never liked the logic so often used to justify affirmative action.

1) If women are discriminated against in the workplace, we'd see women achieving (less reward) than men.

2) We see women earning (less reward).

3) Therefore, women are discriminated against.

The fallacy is easily exposed.

1) If Ford makes cars, we'd see cars on the streets.

2) We see cars on the streets.

3) Therefore we see Fords.

Brian O'Connor

Peter wrote:

Funny isn t it.

Laws had to be passed to ensure equal rights to Jews like Melanie.

But when laws have to be passed to ensure equal rights to anyone else, oh no, Big Mistake,

Hypocrite.

That's about as ugly and revealing as it gets.

But worse, it's unfathomably dumb: it presumes as settled the very issue that is under debate.

No offense intended.

Corin

All that Harridan Harperdaughter is trying to do is tidy up the law. It is a matter of regularising what is already custom and practice in the socialist republics of Britain. Anyone in public service has already felt the weight of such discrimination against men. This merely removes any recourse to law which hardly existed anyway. Add it all up, family courts(star chambers), lesbian and unmarried adoptions, artificial insemination, cloning, rape law, arrest and detention without charge, anonymous witnesses, legal discrimination, anti-religious charity 'reform', dictating 'morals' to the churches, etc.etc. What chance has a White Anglo-Saxon Protestant Male got in Nu-Labour's Britain? Only your sex protects you, Melanie. You're worse than a WASP.

Wadi Amin

Thank you for covering this preposterous 'initiative'.

I've been catching it throughout the day in snippets of news and just cannot believe they are still ploughing on in this unhinged manner.

They have really lost the plot.

Thinkster

The solution to issues like this is simple: Refuse to comply! As a businessman, I will hire who I want to hire (black, white, Muslim, Jew, Christian, Agnostic, tall, short - you get the gist) - as long as they can do the job and fit in with our company policies, which are fair, fun, common sense based and honest. And the rule of law will be there to cover more appropriate issues that are obviously designed to ensure everyone is treated fairly. And if by failing to comply we are locked up, well, Harriet can take my place and see how far she get running an organisation full of people who climb their way through life playing the victim card rather than raw talent. Oh, and most of the wives of the people who work for us are busy at home focusing their energy 'being there' for their kids - which is why said kids are not out robbing people. (I know that last comment may not sit comfortably even on this forum, but it just happens to be the way things are.)

Peter A

Peter,please change your name,you are making the rest of us look real dumb.Thanks.

Dino Zoff

eter,

That was a lame comment by any standard. Just because this is being proposed as a law doesn't mean it is right..... only right on.

However, I think I get where you are coming from (even if you don't) and it sure isn't equality.

Ann

Peter is just as stupid as Harridan Harperson, and just as racist. This is not about equality: it's about discrimination and inequality, little man. To decree from the Kremlin that an 'ethnic minority' candidate should always be preferred is racist. It's Nuermberg laws racist. It means that the percentage of 'ethnic minority' genes in two candidates should be measured and compared.

I believe that this is completely illegal under human rights legislation, both UK and EU. It was tolerated in Nazi Germany. Are we really going to tolerate it here?

EyeSee

How can you say women are held back, when an arrogant and stupendously idiotic female such as Harriet Harman is a Minister? What if men thought all women were like her.

Tim Murray

Bravo! You've pulled no punches. One cannot fight supposed discrimination with more discrimination. If there is discrimination, find it, and punish it. Women make less money than men for reasons other than discimination and every thinking person knows that. Where the hell are you men in Britain? Stand up to this misandrist, now, once and for all.

Verity

I have been saying for years that this is the first time in recorded history that the Fifth Column is actually the government itself.

This is all part of the destruction of the norms of our cohesive society which enabled us to conquer and run a great empire for 300 years. People that clever have to be stamped out. They've already stamped history out of the schools. Now they're going to ensure that we never succeed as a nation again.

And they are destroying the family, and the role of the male, as part of the same agenda.

These are the most wicked people ever to be in power in Britain and they have to be stamped out at the next election.

Harriet Hardman's a vile, slithery, slimey piece of work, along the lines of Tony Blair and Gorden Brown and Jack Straw, and it doesn't get any baser than that.

And I don't trust Dave.

Ann

Corin, which would you bet on: a white lesbian, or a black man?

The son of a Chinese and a Ugandan, or the daughter of a Chinese and a white person?

Ann

Verity will get in her pathetic jibe at Cameron, whether or not it's remotely relevant.

Frank Pulley

Verity

I admire your restraint. :-)

Charlie

Many people consider labour post 1997 as right wing government. However, when one looks at the social and educational policies, then they are basically watered down Trotskyism. Harman and Balls are both public school educated where entry requires the ability to pass a rigorous entrance exam and for the parents to have the ability to afford the fees. Harman sent her son to St Olave's Grammar School in Kent; where there are 7 applicants for every place. St Olave's offers the same standards as a good public school bit without having to pay fees. How would she feel if either she or her son had been refused entry to their schools and their places been given to someone less able? In reality this measure is likely to have an adverse impact on those in the average organisation, say promotion from deputy manager to manager in a supermarket or a medium sized construction company. This will hit the aspirational working class, the type of person who worked their way up from being a checkout assistant or shelf filler. No wonder social mobility has declined. The product of St Olaves who graduates from Cambridge or Imperial and works their way up though a top international company will not be affected and will have plenty of career options. However, the person who left school at 16 to work in a supermarket and has taken courses at night school to reach the position of deputy manager in their thirties does not have the career options. Nowadays if one does not make the next grade after a few years then one can be pushed to the side.Companies often view someone who has not made the next grade after 2-5 years of having reached their ceiling. This type of legislation will probably act as wonderful recruiting sergeant for the BNP.Increasingly Labour are like the pigs in Animal Farm. Labour is now the party of the middle classe white collar government employed administrators who treat the working class as guinea pigs in their many social engineering experiments.

Neil Saunders

To Wadi Amin

Of course New Labour are "ploughing on"; they realise that they will lose the next general election and are adopting a scorched-earth policy to leave as much mess as possible for their hapless successors to clear up.

Ann

Charlie, excellent analysis.

I will say, though, that ZanuLabour have been those pigs incarnate for quite a few years now. In fact, since 1997 (Ecclestone, Hoon, ah well, you know the names).

Thinkster

@Neil Saunders: I don't think their scorched earth policy is to befuddle their successors, more likely, it is designed to undermine, disassemble, render powerless - and therefore control the intelligent middle classes who are the only sector of society capable of using the rule of law to halt the madness of dumbed down politically correct confused carnage that is New Labor policy. So, an automated (I'm in IT, and the stuff in development is terrifying!) surveilance state, hundreds of penalty charge based mini-laws that cripple the middle classes for minor motoring offenses etc etc will allow New Labor to simultaneously monitor and render powerless any threat to their own dictatorial 'revolution' - and make it hard for their POTENTIAL successors to even get to power. (Anyone who believes CCTV is there to deter hoodies and terrorists is deluding themselves.)

Verity is spot on by the way. People who say it like it is deserve to be given a medal. Shall we invent 'The Medal of Honesty'?

seb

Mel. Explain yourself. Why is it a 'mistake' to write off a demonstrably stupid cabinet minister like Harriet Halfabrain? Are we not allowed to live in the hope that, one day, her stupidity will bring her career in politics to a welcome end?

Neil Saunders

Yes, Thinkster, I think you're right!

However, whatever the reason, New Labour are certainly keen to rush as much of this lunacy as possible through Parliament while they're still in power.

Scottish Raj

Frank Pulley:
"Verity
I admire your restraint. :-) "

Muzzle? :-))

Scottish Raj

Frank Pulley:
"Verity
I admire your restraint. :-) "

Muzzle? :-))

Paul Hill

Where's "Phil"?-I demand a refund

Verity

Seb, you ask, "is it too much to hope that, one day, her stupidity will bring her career in politics to a welcome end?"

You make the same inexplicahle mistake that so many others on conservative (small 'c') blogs make and that is, you miss the truth about Harpic Harridan and all the bruvvers in the Cabinet: stupid is what they are not. Remarks like "Couldn't run a whelk stall" chill my blood because the saying demonstrates how very well they have played their hand.

They are not stupid. They are malign. They are driven by hatred and contempt. They are driven by a desire to pull down and they come from a long line of such Brits (I don't know whether this strain of humanity exists in any other country), who not only loathe their countrymen and their country's history, but pat themselves on the back for doing so - imagining themselves thereby somehow more elevated than normal patriotic people with age-old values of community and family.

They don't give a stuff about Muslims or blacks. Indeed, they rob Muslims and blacks of their humanity by regarding them merely as tools of social destruction and rods with which to beat the backs of the uppity native British.

They are now slotting women into this role of destruction, so I suppose their hatred is now totally fine-tuned and focussed: British men, among them our fighting men and the heroes who made the British Empire was it was and who basically invented the public health system - i.e., the elimination of TB- safe drinking water, etc- and made so many other mind-boggling discoveries and inventions.

They're malignant; not stupid.

field

Never noticed it before - but what an appropriate name:

Harriet Harm-Man!

Geddit?!?

JOB APPLICATION:

"I'm a devout Muslim woman, for whom only the Burka constitutes modest clothing (I hate those loose hussies in their Hijab). I have to pray five times a day whether I am at work or not. I am 21 and just got married to my husband with whom I hope to have a very large family over the next 15 years. I do have some disabilities. I am dyslexic and also dyspraxic. I am a little hard of hearing as well. I cannot speak English with any fluency.

Please hire me. Or I will contact my lawyer..."

Harriet Harman lost contact with Planet Reality somewhere around 1979 I think.

Alex Crosbie

Great piece Melanie, thanks for showing some women have common sense.

I've never understood how the Minister for women (even though there isn't one for men) could also be Minister for equality, the 2 can't possibly mix.

It's near impossible to get it through to some women that they aren't really victims in a man's world just because of their gender, especially since that's what they've been told they are from day one.

Feminism used to stand for something, mean something, now it's only aim is not to aid women, but to paint them as victims, it's really tiresome now.

I don't know if anyone else has noticed, but they're trying to bring this in using the elderly, all the talk and reporting is focusing on stopping discrimination against the elderly, which obviously not many people would be against.

Well Melanie, since you were born a victim and all, just like every women, I wonder how long it takes before it's proposed that women pay less tax than men, due to the classic feminist myth, the gender pay gap?
I believe that's why they want to take average statistics from companies every year (notice the word average? That's because if it was done on a person by person, job by job basis, they would see that no such gender pay gap exists), so that they can produce a bill in a few years that states that men have to pay more tax, it sounds crazy, but you mark my words, it will happen, either that, or women will get paid the same as men for doing less work, just like in Wimbledon.

Again, great piece, thank you.

Geoff Miller

Why dont employers just put up "White men not wanted" signs and be done with it?

We no longer present the news, we have been written out of the book on childrearing - though we are expected to go and die in Labours horrid wars (but dont expect much thanks unless you are a female soldier that dies).

Two things are happening.

Firstly we have lost heart that we have any place in Labours New World order and secondly will take our revenge at the next election.

Our wives will be right there with us as every man that is denied employment will have a family that suffers from this vile discrimination.

As it is working class white men who will suffer most it will be the BNP that benefits from those votes - not the Tories.

Can't wait!

Mercutio

It's nicely Orwellian, isn't it?

I never knew you could make discrimination a good thing merely by prefixing it with 'positive'. That's sure to convince everyone it's OK! I'm going make sure I engage in 'positive misogyny' and even maybe a little 'positive sexual harrasment'. Don't be alarmed, people, it's positive!

Next there's the idea of using 'positive discrimination for equality'. Orwell formulated the idea better by saying all animals are equal, but some are more equal than others. If only Harman had his wit.

And then finally it's all an attempt to solve a problem that doesn't actually exist because it originates from abusing statistics that don't control for confounding effects. Studies show men and women who have equal experience, work equally hard and working at the same job earn equal pay. The pay gap is entirely explained by different job choices, leaving the workforce to raise children and different preferences for part time work.

raymond joseph douglas

Can't stand Harman or her best mate primarolo.Trouble is we,in northampton,have an even more thick feminist to represent us i.e. sally feeble!(or keeble)

Thom

Does her promotion of (positive) discrimination not put her job as an "equality" minister in jeopardy? How can this position and role be anything but untenable when she's saying stating the opposite of equality.

Am I the only person who has a problem with the phrase "the sisterhood"?

Robbit

Peter (and everyone will know which one I mean) - how utterly pathetic! Please tell us which law was passed saying that employers are entitled to discrimninate in favour of Jews?

Norm

I found myself the victim of discrimination yesterday. I have a big old house (GII listed) which was split in the 70's. Over the years I've put it back together and spent a fortune on it. The council though still regards it as two houses and for years I've paid two council tax bills claiming 50% discount for one of them. This year the council removed the discount and wants £4000 in tax off me. So I thought I'd move into one part and my wife would live in the other part and we'd claim the 2 x 25% discount for single occupancy. Clever me I thought, but no. The council won't accept that because we are married and we can only have one marital home. The other remains offically unoccupied so I have to pay up. If we weren't married it would be allowed so I'm discriminated against because I'm married. The next thing is they'll want to put immigrants in the 'empty' part that no ones living in and that's the scary part.

Charlie

Anne, thank you for your praise. Verity's comments regarding competence should be followed. Since 1945 a significant group of left middle class people in local and national politics, as local government officials and civil servants in Whitehall, as teachers, academics, the NHS,journalists and in particular in teacher training establishments have been very successful in changing the way many people view themselves, their role in being citzens of this country, our history and how this country operates in the World. A left wing, a sort of watered down trotskyist middle class view has largely triumphed. Perhaps one of their greatest successes is the destruction of truly Liberal view of life. If one looks at the rise of Whig/Liberal politics from the end of the 17 Century the fundemental belief in the individual to take charge of their life, the curtailing of royal patronage , the belief that ability combined with honest hardwork should bring it's rewards has been almost destroyed. The royal patronage of the 17 and 18 th centuries has been replaced by the patronage of the state controlled by those with a watered down trotskyist view of life. One aspect of this change is that since 1945 there has been massive emigration of technically skilled, experienced people with plenty of drive from this country. Where historically there was a certain balence between the middle class white collar labour members and the working class crafstmen or persons who undertook dangerous work; this has gone. Experience shapes character and people with different characters are drawn to different types of experience. At present many people with technical skills the country needs are emigrating still, many people are not bothering to vote and some are voting for the BNP. This legislation is another potential disincentive to the aspirational working and lower middle class.Where companies tender for government work it will be tempting to promote someone who is not up to the job just to get the numbers right. This will be especially true where companies are based in the suburbs or in the country and where there are fewer BEMs. The danger is that tokenism will occur which will be detrimental to the truly able woman or member of the BEMs. Are we saying that Archbishops Tutu and Sentanu needed this legislation to achieve their positions?

David Fish

What makes me mad is the failure of any journalists I have heard to call Harman out on her abuse of statistics... especially the "gender pay gap" between full time men and part-time women. Which is the same as the gap between part time men and part time women.

Part-time men and women earn the same hourly rate

Among full-timers, people under 30-40 earn the same hourly rate

Among full-timers single/divorced/widowed men and women earn the same hourly rate

The ENTIRE "pay gap" compared like for like is down to the differential pay of 30-40 years or older couples (married or cohabiting) and is strongly related to the number of dependent children (8% for none, 35% for 4+)

The data for younger/single people shows that women can earn the same as men.

The gaps are due to (a) women tending to work part time women and (b) women in couples earning less than men in couples.

Both are plausibly explained by child-care, career breaks, choices to spend more time "home-making", etc. Does anyone have any evidence that counter this?

She gets away with spouting this tosh interview after interview. There should be a little "pledge card" of these facts for all journalists who interview her.

logdon

Peter, curb your anti-semitic bigotry, we have quite enough of that from the BBC. This is a serious platform and Melanie is one of the few who will stand up and be counted in our PC world where nothing is free and legislation is all. Having watched last nights Any Questions which covered this subject, it seems that women of independent mind are our last hope. Both Paulene Neville Jones and Ann Leslie trounced the odious, talk by rote Balls up of a minister, Yvette Cooper who waffled and droned on in some mangled glottaly northern/ cockneyese until the will to live almost departed from both myself and her audience. These people are monsters who will never listen, so entrenched they are with their own marxist superiority. In fact they give Marx a bad name, he at least suffered for his ideology whereas these little 'suffragettes' live like socialist royalty. Cooper has the audacity to talk of 'fairness' whilst claiming twice for a family home in London which, although her children live there and are educated in nearby schools, they try to fool us into believing it's a second home. 'We spend weekends in Castleford' she bleated as if that were some huge concession to her voters. It is quite disgusting and the hypocrisy is staggering. A bit like Gordon right now I'm glad to say.

Ann

Charlie, quite so.
As a genuine liberal, I feel the same despair as you. I will manage to muddle through as I have done all my life, but it's the next generation I feel sorry for.

Rosemary Blake

Melanie, we are so lucky to have a social commentator like you. Your depth and integrity is a lesson to those whose sheeplike stances and gimmicky assertions bore most of the population (regardless of class or gender) to death. You are so right about the dreadful Harriet Harman.

Roy

Melanie hits the mark when she rightly mentioned the men not having the cojones to stand up to her (Harriet Harman). There don't seem to be any 'men' around period in the political scene. God knows what consolation we could gather from any other writers if we didn't have Melanie Phillips to plug the gap. Along with, I must say, many who add to this column like Verity (on form). How miserable and lonely it would be to be left with the appeases, the colaberators, the miasma of weak individuals. Ones who wouldn't say boo to the proverbial goose. Never mind standing up for Britain and helping put a stop to its suicidal decent into the fog of multiculturalism and Islamic perfidy. How stupendous it would be if the leader of the opposition would only give an hint that new rigorous ideas were on the drawing boards to reinforce a new Britishness, a new era of correcting the countries course away from the rocks, the rocks that are clearly visible above the foam and spray.

Hereford

I note that the BBC absolutely loves this one. The Chairman of the FSB had to run the BBC fem presenter gauntlet yesterday.

Charlie

Anne, I do not despair. Despair and anger show the individual is possessed by the spirit of defeat. In fact a common sense view is emerging and the people have the confidence to voice it in public.After Dunkirk, Admiral Ramsey, the Naval officer in charge of the evacuation said" All British victories start in defeat". The creation of the Euston Manifesto and, defeat of K . Livingstone; revelations about Socialist Action and the Campaign Group of Labour MPs ( some former members of Socialist Action) show the true Liberals are regaining their confidence and some members of the working class are realising how they have been patronised by the middle class Labour members.

Geoff W

I believe the rape law was changed to ensure that a man who has intercourse with a woman against her consent, and without belief in her consent, cannot go free just because she didn't put up a physical fight. Provided she says 'no' - surely a clear indication of her lack of consent.

Apologies, but I happen to think this was a good change. The rape conviction rate is low for a number of reasons, including low reporting due to fear or shame, difficulties over proof, and the inevitably difficulty of consent. This legal change will hopefully ensure greater conviction of guilty rapists (remember, if she didn't say 'no', he'll probably be ok, and if she did way 'no', well...), and then in time greater reporting of the crime too.

Feminism has been, and continues to be bandies around by those with little understanding or interest in it. This was an example of protecting a vulnerable social group in a particular circumstance.

Tom

It was wonderful to see Ann Leslie shred the "scallop salad nibblers with their scallop salad delusions" over their delusions on this last night on Question Time.

The appalling Yvette Cooper sat there with that po face of hers all the way through this debate, but then a little bit later when discussing Spelman, someone in the audience reminded her of her two little housies. How that face dropped!

This is it, this is where the New Labour project leads us, nothing but mad socialist harridans pretending the world is against them when all it is, was and ever will be is that lumbering chip on their shoulder that they've never got rid of since university.

Is there nothing they haven't wrecked?

Verity

As a poster above posited someone in a burqa applying for a job, I don't feel it's off-topic to continue with this thought for a minue, because it is of critical importance.

Muslim women are being given privileges over native British women because "religion" requires them to dress in Hallowe'en fright wear. Thus they can go into banks and airports masked.

This privilege elevates them above the British and - intentionally - places British women in Dhimmi status. We should be aware of this, and this is why you have all these bints in weird headgear floating around demanding special privileges. (Like not removing a burqa so a bus driver can confirm that the holder of a bus pass, for example, is the real owner.)

Here's the nub: There is no mention in the Koran that women should don desert tribal wear as part of their "religion". Nowhere. Nor in the Surahs.

The burqa and the niqab are simply traditional desert gear to keep sand out of the nose and glaring sunlight out of the eyes. Men wear the keffiyah for the same reasons. Normally, it is worn to cover the nose and is folded so the fold protects the eyes.

End of story. It is intelligent, practical wear for desert nomads and has absolutely nothing to do with Allah or Mohammad. Mohammad advised women to "dress modestly". He also gave the same injunction to men. In other words, don't cause problems by flaunting your bits. Perfectly rational advice.

Now, most of these girls - and it seems to be mainly rebellious, uppity girls and women who hope to make a few thousand pounds in "compensation", who wear burqas these days; their mothers didn't - have never read the Koran. When they say it's a religious requirement, they either know that it's not and are lying (taqqya), or they are ignorant gits who believe what their imam, with an agenda of his own, has told them.

I hope I haven't rudely dragged this thread off topic, but it is germane to this British government's agenda to creating a grievance society among ignorant and/or opportunistic immigrants. In other words, one more bludgeoning around the head for the owners of this country. And in this Kafkaesque world, if you object, you will be arrested.

G

The rape conviction rate remains low, Geoff W, because an awful lot of young women don’t know what rape is.

Too many of them have regrets about what they do – often under the influence of alcohol – and, afterwards feeling violated, go to the police feeling they’ve been ‘raped’.

Many people don’t like to talk about it – for obvious reasons – but rape case officers have to spend an awful lot of time explaining to a lot of these young women that the description they have given of events does not amount to ‘rape’, it amounts to regret – and that is all.

This accounts for a huge part of the disparity between rape complaints and rape convictions, but we can’t see the details on all these cases so all we see is the figures followed by cries of “oh, look at the disparity”.

If New Labour gave two figs about lowering the complaints of rape, it wouldn’t have allowed the law on alcohol sales to be abused beyond belief so that we see young women lying in the gutter with their knickers round their neck every Friday and Saturday night.

If young people were used to a zero tolerance attitude on alcohol abuse many of them simply wouldn’t develop the bad habits that they do in getting sozzled so often.

Moreover, there is no other crime that has so many people convicted for maliciously alleging it as rape. Where does that leave the alleged ‘rape’ statistics?

Geoff, do yourself a favour, stop reading the Guardian, the ‘Independent’ or whatever piece of phoney academic study you’ve been reading and try to speak to a few rape case officers off the record in a non-work context and you might have your eyes opened to what goes on in the real world.

Oh, and by the way, can you guess which commentator’s plea for zero tolerance on juvenile crime – including alcohol abuse – falls on deaf ears again and again and again?

phil

Harriet Harman has actually re -written Alice in wonderland-without doubt this is the craziest legislation I have ever seen -It was defended vociferously last night by the incredible Yvette Cooper on question time who as usual never ceased to talk over everyone else- I pray this increasingly dead government will go as soon as possible -legislation is now being sold by the yard rather than thought out by the brain -Finally if H H thinks she will improve the position of woman and ethnic minorities with this gobbledegook she is sadly mistaken -it will achieve the opposite ,as surely no judge will override the considered opinion of the employer and their shortlist's will inevitably not include potential problem people..
Anyone want to employ the minority man Mr hill or his apprentice peter? :) under this legislation they would probably top the shortlist for manager of the race relations office.

Ann

Charlie, I didn't use the term 'despair' literally - I am an eternal optimist ;-)

G, quite right. Geoff is talking nonsense. I happen to have had professional dealings with rape case officers only 3-4 weeks ago, and looked into concrete cases. It is as you say.

Tom, you forgot to point out that most of these 'socialists' are VERY well off as a result of ripping off the population.

Robbit

Yes, Phil. That Yvette Cooper last night. My God, wasn't she utterly insufferable. Along with her Ed Balls, and HRH HH the real premier league of Champagne Bolsheviks.

Joe

Read Harriet's new book and the the impending follow up entitled "B%^&$*ds called men" and "all men are B%^&$*ds".

David Lindsay

Phil and Robbit, last night's Question Time with Grayson Perry, Yvette Cooper, Baroness Neville-Jones and Dame Ann Leslie was a scream. It took me ages to spot the transvestite (I think). Who do other readers think it was?

Shame on Chris Huhne and David Dimbleby for not dragging up. And shame on Yvette Cooper for dragging down. The whole tone of the programme. As someone put it to me, "I think Cooper's constituents have warned to cut the ee bah gum act and sort out her fraudulent finances instead, so she's reverted to New Labour Estuary English. Very Nineties, and enough to make your ears bleed."

On This Week afterwards, was Diane Abbott joking when she explained "for the benefit of viewers" who Andy Burnham" was? It is very telling that Abbott is much better-known even to the politically well-informed than are several members of the Cabinet and almost all members of the Shadow Cabinet.

John Williamson

What everyone seems to have missed is that the positive discrimination element of this piece of quasi-legislation contravenes Article 14 of the Human Rights Act !

david skinner

Lesbians with their feminist hat on, demand that their brains are hardwired exactly the same as men, however, when they put their lesbian hat on, they demand that their brains are hardwired differently to those of heterosexuals, but presumably the same as homosexual men. If that is the case why are they not attracted to homosexual men as homosexual men are to one another?

Harriet Harman has no problem with creating a genetic difference between lesbians and heterosexuals but a big problem with creating a difference between men and women.
http://www.pinknews.co.uk/news/articles/2005-7921.html

Corin

Corin, which would you bet on: a white lesbian, or a black man?

The son of a Chinese and a Ugandan, or the daughter of a Chinese and a white person?

Ann, sorry to take so long to reply, busy day. It all depends on the quotas. If a candidate ticks all the quota boxes then the pressure to employ, even if they aren't good enough, will become irresistible. All the more so if the other candidates are WASPs or Jews. Heaven help the small businesses. How can 2% of the work force be LGBT etc. if you have less than 100 working for you? All right 10%, if you believe the propaganda. There's another problem. Who provides the quota statistics? Do we accept Government stats on Islam or Islamic stats? Clearly the latter, if we are to be unbiased. However, on Jews and Christians, we should accept Government stats to avoid being biased. And so it goes...

Paul Hill

Are there TWO phils on these boards ?

Spelling ,capitilisation,grammar syntax all hugely improved and no accusations of anti-semitism after three sentences.

Please tell me I'm right

Frank Pulley

Rape used to be quite simple to define: achieving coitus through force, fear or fraud; or violation of a child too young to consent.

It did not include a woman getting pissed, getting laid, then having a dose of the seconds when she has sobered up.

Neither did it mean her being automatically believed, if out of chagrin she stitched up, with a cock and bull story, an ex- boyfriend who has ditched her for somebody else.

As for 'no' always meaning 'no': humanity would have been extinct several millennia ago if that were true and the way things are moving now, that may well have been a good evolutionary development.

Verity

One of my posts was held for moderation. Now it's been approved, but it's been put back to the original date stamp:
June 27th, 2008 2:58pm

You can see that this looks a bit historic.

I suspect few of the people who are going with the flow of this thread would be motivated to suddenly go backwards in the mad hope of unearthing a new post from 12 hours previously.

So there was no point in approving it after 12 hours.
I don't think I made a killer contribution to the argument, but I wrote a comment which was eventually, after 12 hours, approved to go into the vacuum of already-read comments.

Gosh. I must come here more often.

Geoff Miller

Harman has done us all a favour.

Now, the Labour Party is officially anti white male.

Once this message gets out there is no reason to expect the Labour Party to gain any votes from white males or their concerned wives and mothers.

Harmans Liberal elite will not be affected but its now "open season" on working class white males - once the hard core of the Labour vote.

They will lose that - as shown in Henley this week.

Labour is now only a minority party - and the polls all show that.

david skinner

Surely by now the realisation is dawning that this women’s equality issue is a smoke screen, a softening up for what is really to come which is that if, according to myth started by Alfred Kinsey that at least 10%, if not more, of the population are gay, then public bodies like schools, the police, and local councils should be forced by law to short list homosexual - only candidates. This is in spite of an official government survey that found that only 1% of the population are gay, that only 0.2 per cent of UK households were headed by a same-sex couple and that the number of civil partnership registrations dropped by 55% last year.

http://www.pinknews.co.uk/news/articles/2005-8121.html

http://www.pinknews.co.uk/news/articles/2005-6417.html (Introducing Spencer Livermore)

http://www.pinknews.co.uk/news/articles/2005-6416.html.

http://www.christian.org.uk/issues/2008/family/stonewall_18apr08.htm

Greg

I work for a high tech systems integrator. You need to be both a generalist and a specialist in this industry (i.e. multi-talented).

I have seen part-time women workers thrive if they have adopted a self-disciplined Pareto approach to the job (i.e. I have only so many hours, so I will focus on what really matters).

They have been the model that has proved that it is possible to juggle career and family, although it is certainly not possible to be "superwoman" ... you simply can't do everything.

PS: As you have rightly pointed out, in general it's the women who are the child rearers. However, it is interesting to note that this part-time Pareto model has been successfully adopted by some male colleagues as well.

david skinner

Obviously this person, since he has got the full set of rights will be able to go straight to the head of the queue.
http://abcnews.go.com/Health/story?id=4581943

Frank Pulley

David Skinner

The smoke screen ... indeed! I hope that you read Paul Johnson's piece this week-end on another page of this magazine:

http://www.spectator.co.uk/the-magazine/columnists/796532/and-another-thing.thtml

An apposite extract:

"Instead, the three most powerful lobbies in the country, who have taken the place of the old triumvirate, are the homosexuals, the mullahs, and the greens. The homosexuals are the top interest: they are everywhere and particularly numerous, powerful and well co-ordinated among the elites. They are strong among the police, including in their well-disciplined ranks several key chief constables. Hence if a member of the public were foolish enough to report two homosexuals for open misbehaviour in a municipal lavatory, he would soon be under arrest himself, for although homophobia is not yet an offence, ‘conduct likely to lead to a breach of the peace’ is, and is used to deal with such protests. Not so long ago, the homosexuals took on the papists in open battle, and won hands down. Indeed, I can’t think of any body in the country which can beat them, inside or outside Parliament, in business or the media, let alone in their traditional stronghold in the entertainment industry, though there of course their power is now total. If a comedian were to make an unscripted anti-queer joke on the BBC, rather on the lines of one or two which slipped through the net into early James Bond movies, he would never be employed again."

Read it all if you haven't already. As usual it's packed with historical knowledge and sagacity.

field

David Fish says:

"The data for younger/single people shows that women can earn the same as men.

The gaps are due to (a) women tending to work part time women and (b) women in couples earning less than men in couples.

Both are plausibly explained by child-care, career breaks, choices to spend more time "home-making", etc. Does anyone have any evidence that counter this?"

I am sure this is accurate. It's very much my impression.

I wonder also what the figures would show if one factored in money received per full year of attendance. Many women in a 30 year career may be absent from work for maybe 6-7% of that time on maternity or sick leave. This may be their legal right, but in terms of the organisation they work for it is value lost.

I'd also be interested to see how gender-related income stacks up against qualifications achieved. It is my impression - and I may be entirely wrong - that young attractive but underqualified women can do very well in organisations and achieve rapid promotion.

Ann

"What everyone seems to have missed is that the positive discrimination element of this piece of quasi-legislation contravenes Article 14 of the Human Rights Act"

Sorry, John - I said this at
June 26th, 2008 7:05pm
(true, I didn't quote chapter and verse, but I think the point was made).

Verity

Obviously, comparing the average part time female worker's compensation with the full time male worker's compensation is lunacy.
That it sprang from the mind of Harridan Harpic is no surprise.

But women of childbearing age in the workplace are not worth what is paid to a male who is developing his career and puts in extra hours to advance himself.

Women not only take maternity leave - and if she is high on the chain, her absence cannot be covered by a temp. That means her colleagues have to step in and shoulder the extra load.

In my experience, when she comes back to work, the first thing she will do is develop a little shrine to her baby on her desk or in her office. Pictures, baby boots, hearts. Clearly, she's not all the way back in the office in her mind.

These are the realities.

Women who have careers and don't take maternity leave prosper at roughly the level of their male peers.

Ann

"In my experience, when she comes back to work, the first thing she will do is develop a little shrine to her baby on her desk or in her office. Pictures, baby boots, hearts. Clearly, she's not all the way back in the office in her mind"

Heaven knows on which planet you had this bizarre 'experience'. All the mothers I have ever worked with came back to work after maternity leave with a great deal of energy and focus.

The comparison was between average compensation PER HOUR. The lunacy on this particular point is entirely in your fertile imagination.

Verity

Ann - You put 'experience' in quotes. Why?

On "what planet" did I observe what I reported? Planet London.

"The comparison was between average compensation PER HOUR". Yes. Thanks. I am familiar with the argument, which is not new.

A little civility towards posters with whom you violently disagree would not go amiss.

Ann

Motes and beams, Verity. You yourself used the term 'lunacy'. Is it the case that you can dish it out, but not take it? You make comprehensive statements that permit no exception, and then complain when people disagree.

Ther was no lack of civility, merely the cut and thrust of debate. Much stronger language is used here by many. If you can't take vigorous debate, maybe you shouldn't participate in it.

d morgan

spot on. gte some power so your measured views can reflect on this society, rather than harman's of this world, or perhaps you have enough sense not to be embroiled in political mess, the time is coming when were all going to have to get politically active as this country, because som much is out of control and so badly run, and it adds to much stress to life for all people for it to be so.

Verity

I don't accept your explanation of "oh it was just debate", Ann. I gave my experience of new mothers coming back to the office and you met this with sneering disbelief. You put my word experience in quotes - 'experience' - and then asked what planet I was on. I do not call this measured debate.

Whether you like it or not, in my experience, new mothers are not panting to get back to work at all. They go back because they want the money or don't want to lose their place on the ladder, but what they really want is to be at home with their baby. I see nothing unnatural in this. Your experience, given the volume of your disbelief, is different.

I'm not returning to this thread because a personal slanging match is not the point of this blog.

phil

Verity I am sure knows the expression "you sew the wind ,you reap the whirlwind" as she has been posting sarcastic and arrogant remarks for a long time .Now she has spat the dummy out and taken her bat and ball home -Ann winner by TKO (lol

EC

Ladies, Ladies !

I do hope that you return here because there are some questions that I would like to ask of the heavyweights, if you pardon the expression, on this thread and I'm hoping that your good-selves will respond them.

1) Has the contraceptive pill liberated women or enslaved them?

2) Following on from 1) Did the Banks' & BSocs' decision to take a wife's earnings into account provide the initial trigger for disasterous house price inflation?

3) Equality of opportunity is a noble cause but can a moral imperative be guaranteed by 'man-made' legislation?

4) Equal pay for equal work is a no-brainer but why would you want to be 'equal' to men in every other respect?

5) With regard to 2) & 3) hasn't this led to the situation whereby there exists equality (with men) for the few and obligatory labour for the many?

Genuine enquiry.

Stan

I wonder if this proposed equality bill will work both ways? For instance, I work in a job where I have three female colleagues who all earn far more than me for doing the same job (around £20-25K a year more including benefits). Two of my colleagues have had a year off in the last three to have children and one of those recently started a second year of paid maternity leave. By the time she comes back she will have had two years off out of the last four and yet she still earns more than me and gets a company car. Finally, I used to have two male colleagues as well - both paid similar rates to my female colleagues - but they were both made redundant at the last round of job cuts. Why them and not the women who were never there? Because women who are on maternity leave - or just returned from leave - are untouchable.

Equality in the workplace? I wish!!!!

Charlie

When talking of part time work, people are assuming all work is office based. What about engineering, construction and particularly overseas work. Continuity on a project is important and and what about having to fly overseas at short notice? In reality, if there is a problem then a person may have to leave at 12 hours notice. Sometimes a 3 week posting becomes a 1 year posting.In reality part time work is suitable where the caseload is predictable and always in an office. Where much overseas work was based around 2 year postings, nowadays companies tend to employ local staff with British employees being sent for specific tasks lasting from days to a few months. Also there are fewer married posts and far more unattached/single postings where there is no accommodation for a family. The problem with much legislation of this type it is trying to achieve equality of outcome and not equality of opportunity. The road to hell is paved with good intentions, but many of the midle class Labour Party lack the experience to be wise and the hubris prevents them from admitting their mistakes.

Ann

LOL, Phil. Could we make that an innings and 60 runs, please? I detest boxing.

Charlie: yes, virtually none of them had run any sizeable organisation (or indeed, any at all) before coming to government and making all their huge mistakes on us without anyone in control, and then refusing to admit those mistakes.

phil

ann 3 sets to love more topical

Nigel

The Women and Work Commission report in 2006 and preceding it a series of research reports of the Equal Opportunities Commission concluded that there was little evidence of discrimination and the way to increase women's earnings are to encourage full time work with only the shortest of breaks for children and encourage women to consider entry into a wider range of jobs and careers. All good feminist stuff with not a whiff of quotas or legal prefence. Thoroughly exposing Ms Harman's intentions.