Righteous indignation
Back when I was still a teenager I approached my first ever General Election with reverence. I thought long and hard about whether to vote for the Green Party or for Labour, I actually read policy documents and I made the best choice I could on the evidence available. I voted for Harriet Harman in her first ever election as a candidate. For years afterwards I was happy when I looked back, happy that I had voted for a strong woman who would Make Things Better. But now, although that was over 20 years ago, I admit defeat. I'm embarassed that I made such an error of judgement and if I had a time machine I'd go back and move my cross. (I'd also change a lot of other things that would result in far more fun but I digress!)
What has brought this to a head is this article that I came across in that dreadful rag which I have to read for work. There are so many things that just offend me to the core. Positive discrimination is so fundamentally wrong. If I go for a job, the last thing I want is to get it because I'm female - if I can't get the position fairly then I don't want it at all.
Now I've never worked in the City and it's extremely unlikely that I ever will. However I would think that the stupidly long hours demanded by City firms would be offputting to many female candidates and that this, in combination with the age people tend to take charge of banks kind of matching the age that career women decide they must pop a sprog out before their batteries run out, might explain some of the continuing skew towards men in that area of work. Or they could all still be horribly sexist - I'm prepared to be corrected by people with actual knowledge. But for Harman to just blame the entire financial screwup on the fact that it is a male-dominated industry is just obnoxious.
This isn't the part that really got under my skin though. It's this little throwaway quote:-
"We have to worry more than men and we are definitely worrying more about the recession than men are"
I'd like to come up with something more coherent than "Fuck off" but it pretty much encapsulates all I want to say to her. I hate that I ever voted for such a sexist scumbag as her.
Sexism against men seems to be becoming more and more prevalent and it is a really bad road to go down. Something will end up breaking soon if we don't work out a way for equal respect, but instead we just have a constant stream of fuel to the fire.
What has brought this to a head is this article that I came across in that dreadful rag which I have to read for work. There are so many things that just offend me to the core. Positive discrimination is so fundamentally wrong. If I go for a job, the last thing I want is to get it because I'm female - if I can't get the position fairly then I don't want it at all.
Now I've never worked in the City and it's extremely unlikely that I ever will. However I would think that the stupidly long hours demanded by City firms would be offputting to many female candidates and that this, in combination with the age people tend to take charge of banks kind of matching the age that career women decide they must pop a sprog out before their batteries run out, might explain some of the continuing skew towards men in that area of work. Or they could all still be horribly sexist - I'm prepared to be corrected by people with actual knowledge. But for Harman to just blame the entire financial screwup on the fact that it is a male-dominated industry is just obnoxious.
This isn't the part that really got under my skin though. It's this little throwaway quote:-
"We have to worry more than men and we are definitely worrying more about the recession than men are"
I'd like to come up with something more coherent than "Fuck off" but it pretty much encapsulates all I want to say to her. I hate that I ever voted for such a sexist scumbag as her.
Sexism against men seems to be becoming more and more prevalent and it is a really bad road to go down. Something will end up breaking soon if we don't work out a way for equal respect, but instead we just have a constant stream of fuel to the fire.