Just to add, "it's women who have the kids" is a lazy putdown, and as stupid as saying "it's men that built the hospitals women gave birth in". Who gives a ****, it's how they're brought up in the next 20 years that decides whether that child contributes the cure for cancer to society, or becomes a murderer. In my Labour safe seat area, a woman has already been selected to replace my retiring male MP. So I'll vote against her in 2010, not just because I don't know who the hell she is but because she really is parachuting in off the back of my retiring MP's lifetime of hard work to his area where he's lived almost all his life. Will she also give 30 years? Probably too career-minded for that, you think Kate Hoey had the needs of the people of Brixton at the top of her mind when she replaced the late Bernie Grant? So if the Tories are going to do the same, I can protest vote with the Lib Dems.
Sit through another three minutes and you'll see ads saying that women are basically sex objects who obsess about their looks, hair, clothes, and the best nappies or detergent. Your point? Men are the butt of jokes in commercials because it is safe to do so. We all know that men, in reality, hold the dominant position in society, so they really have little reason to take offence. We could make fun of women, of course, or ethnic minorities, but that already happens in pubs and offices all over the country. It is a bit too close to the bone for commercials. I'm sure there was a bit more to that story than that. But don't let facts get in the way of prejudice. Well, you are, so you should be ecstatic. Although most of the menial, poorly paid and long-hour jobs still tend to be done by women and foreigners. Most disabled people don't get to work at all. OF COURSE PEOPLE WERE NOT CONTENT! Why do you think things changed?!? You seem to hark back to a good ol' times that never was. Perhaps your granny painted you a rosy picture, but have an honest chat with some elderly people out there. They paint you a picture where for instance a working female accountant had to get her husband's signature to by a settee on credit (that was the 60's), where pregnant teenage girls were put in work houses while the baby was put up for adoption (teenage dad was neither sought nor persecuted), where young girls habitually dodged the straying hands of male relatives. It was just a fact of life. They talk about male drunkenness and domestic abuse being the norm; about men being able to leave their wives and children without being held accountable for their financial care by law or society. Again, it was just one of those things. They talk about women being expected to work only until marriage and then stay at home to raise the children, and therefore not being allowed to pursue a profession or career. You want to become a lawyer or doctor? Why don't you try for office girl or nurse, deary --until you get married, that is. They talk about being paid far less money for exactly the same job because after all, their husband is the breadwinner already, thus conveniently ignoring the fact that if he was she would probably not be working in the first place. Positive discrimination may be a crap solution to the problem, but there is a problem to be solved. You can proudly say that you never relied on your disability (or skin colour) to get a job, but there is a reason that you and NethLyn can feel confident to compete based on personal merit and achievement in the first place. Generations of people campaigned, protested and fought very hard so that people would even see past your disability or skin colour to those personal merits and achievements. I never relied on my ethnicity to get a job; I take any prejudice in my stride as a fact of life. But I also know that if it wasn't for multiple generations very much, very actively challenging racism in the first place, I could be wearing shackles and picking cotton in a field somewhere.
While I agree with you on the parenting argument, I don't see its relevance here. As I read it, the remarks about childbirth referred to the length of parental leave. Would you expect someone who has just undergone surgery to be back in the workplace days later? What do you think a C-section is? I won't go into details about 'natural' childbirth, but believe me when I say that the female body needs a bit of time to readjust afterwards. And that's leaving the hormonal aspect out of the picture. So no, I don't think that "it's the women who have the kids" is lazy in this case. It's a fact of life, there are physical strains on their bodies because of it, and that's unlikely to change anytime soon. One of those things where men and women will stay 'unequal', and where it's fair to give women an 'advantage' in the form of a long enough parental leave. Sure, it would be great if fathers get equal benefits to take care of their new family, but I see that as less non-negotiable. You don't know who she is but you know she's parachuting.. Didn't you just say: Why the double standards?
My incoming MP has been picked by someone in the party out of a bunch of other women with no input from the public as the retiring MP will have had for 30 years (someone count the number of elections that spans, 6 or 7 depending on the 4/5 year gap). Political parachuting is actually as old as the hills, designed to cover, for example, the Prime Minister losing their own seat; like most things in the last 13 years, Labour decided to dress it up as rebalancing sexism, so you get a white woman MP for Brixton who doesn't give a **** about the area compared to the late black immigrant MP. If the black constituents vote for this than that's their lookout - and democracy, but it doesn't mean that the parachuted MP is fireproof to criticism. What I said about the ethnicity list was that it let people believe that I parachuted - and in cases where I refuse to give it and thereby get an interview where I didn't previously, it's not an issue because they're looking at my CV not my race. Also, taxpayers' money isn't involved/wasted in whether I get a private sector job or not. So it's not the same thing at all.
A women's magazine will top that to also include telling them they're not skinny enough, what to eat (that is to say – not eat) then proceed giving them instructions on how to give their boyfriends / husbands a [censored] ala Jenna Jameson style and how to afterwards prepare dissert. Women writing for women objectifying women letting them know how to be sex objects and how to starve themselves. This is true. This wouldn't surprise me one bit. I suppose it wasn't deemed "PC" to give a coloured person a black pen. Wonder what would happen if a coloured person were to give a white person a white pen, suspension for a month?
Labour tried to have an all-women shortlist in Blaenau Gwent in Wales and they ended up losing their seat in that area to the guy they pushed out who went on to stand as an independent. So really, this is a good thing. If the tories can sabotage their chances it only serves to keep that smarmy git Cameron away from power.
