Miriam O'Reilly has won on age discrimination but not on sex discrimination

I love the comments made by Jeremy Hardy on the news quiz, radio 4/.

I tried a mask on last night against coughing germs. My wife said I looked better in it.

she was a money broker BC, which is the kind of job you need a servant maid or wife if you want to continue After Children

Got a non-Japanese friend in Japan, who is really lovely in many ways, I mean really lovely, but she hates Japan because nobody's got a maid. "IN Singapore, HOng Kong and China, everyone's got maids" she says. Hmmm...not everybody is it.
( the main reason she's pissed off is because she had to give up her career, whereas middle class women in those countries don't have to because of the maid class.)

Good point HerBea - they teach kids that crap in schools. Bet few people think til later "but what if my ancestors weren't Anne Boleyn/Charles I/part of the tiny minority living in a castle?"

My ancestors were servants. Well the women were, the men were soldiers, miners and alcoholic wife-beaters (sometimes at the same time). I'm proud of them, they worked bloody hard, and due to the absence/rubbishness of the men, it's their hard work and saving that kept my family alive and healthy long enough for me to actually be born. So no, not everybody had servants. It's just the ones with the servants made the news, because they had nothing better to do than fight their neighbours and kill everyone who got in the way.

@ Elephants & HB.

sc. everybody who would have been in my social circle
everybody who counts
everybody who is fully human....

It's a bit like when people talk about "ye olden days", isn't it?

"Everybody had servants".

Um... well maybe not everybody

I saw that last night too, just caught the end so got that question. Almost everyone is talking about it as sex discrimination, so even though the BBC won that point at the tribunal, they've lost the public opinion argument. James Caan was being a total tit about it, "consumerism" - yes dear, is all you can say to that.

Mind you I had woman's hour on this morning (when will I learn??) and they were talking abour Carmen. Some opera bloke (director I think) was saying "everyone finds strong/beautiful/intelligent women a turn on" or something v similar. Well, I don't. Because I'm a straight woman. I doubt any of my gay male friends do either FOR GODS SAKE. Straight men rule to the extent that we all have to find the things sexy that they find sexy now? Might seem off topic but it seemed to chime with this idea that "the consumer" or "everyone" wants to see young attractive women (but not men, apparently).

Seth It is on iPlayer, it was the last question, probably starts at 50 - 55 minutes-ish.

Sorry I meant what you said seth. That they only went to court on ageism despite that everyone knows it's sexism.

It is on I-Player right at the end - it only had a couple of mins unfortunately. But there was a good debate about the Asian groups targetting white women. I can't remember if it was Diane Abbot or Jeanette (or both) that was arguing very strongly it was a gender issue (I switched on part way through)

it did go to court - she won on age and lost on sex.

I still don't understand why she lost on sex discrimination.

wish I'd seen Question Time - wonder if it's on I-Player?
how far into the prog was it?

This was discussed on Question Time last night. Jeanette Winterson was ace and honed in immediately on the sexist aspect as did Diane Abbot. James Caan on the other hand would be mainly an arse, quoting consumerism as the reason to perpetuate the cycle (despite the fact he had no evidence that the target audience would actually give a fig if Miriam were presenting). Interesting though that the panel didn't seem to get that they automatically talked about this as if it were a gender issue rather than the ageist argument that actually won Miriam the case. So everyone knows it is a gender issue yet they couldn't take that to court?

It makes your realise how much our behaviour is controlled by the patriarchy when you see that women have to use grooming to ingratiate themselves

the good news was how much Gill was clearly out on a limb. Obviously her blog commenters are going to be generally on her side, but it was nice to see the full gamut of young, old, feminist and anti-feminist, all thinking he was talking rubbish.

I remember that thread and your excellent post. AA Gill was so offended by her wasn't he
When a woman refuses to wear the veils of femininity the patriarchy gets very antsy and angry.
Which takes us back to Jeffrey's point that behaving or looking feminine is a sign of deference . It so is.

yes you start to see dressing up differently once you internalise that Sheila Jeffreys idea don't you Sakura? When I see women tripping around in high heels now I think they look less not more powerful.

interesting point about Zuckerberg pic.

and that's probably why Mary Beard got so much flak from A.A.Gill recently when she presented her Pompeii programme with wrinkles and grey hair: he experienced it as a direct threat to male power. How dare she go on tv without making herself pleasing to the patriarchy! And he was convinced he was being reasonable - he actually said he wasn't being sexist and insisted the point applied to men and women - showing that blind spot you get when the person quoted in Doozle's (?) Telegraph article said people on tv are generally attractive.
(And one of the brilliant commenters on her blog managed to show up the hypocrisy rather well: Gill complained about Beard's teeth; apparently he is a big admirer of Kenneth Clarke and never comments on HIS teeth!)

thread here

"But I suppose men have a range of stereotypes to 'choose' from, whereas women are either sexualised, or invisible"

Yes, exactly
But also, another thing I've noticed is how surprisingly similar male and female faces are when females don't do alter themselves with hair, make up or clothes.
That photo of Mark Zuckerburg was a close-up, you couldn't even see his hair, it could well have been a female face, and I think that's what shocked me, that it could have been female face, but I knew immediately that it wasn't because it was devoid of make-up or any colour.
Sheila Jeffreys reckons the femininity that women wear: long hair, clothes, make up, mannerisms are used by society to mark them out as the subordinate class. I wear make up myself, but the more I think about it, the more I think she has a point. Females have these "markers" about them, marking them out as female, but without them they would be invisible in our society (as you say), but I wonder if women would be taken more seriously as human beings if they all gave up on make-up and long hair en masse
[not that I'm brave enough to be the first to lead the way ]

Sakura, just going back to your point about the untouched photo of Mark Zuckerburg, I took it as reinforcing the stereotypes of computer geeks, more than anything.

But I suppose men have a range of stereotypes to 'choose' from, whereas women are either sexualised, or invisible.

Remember the days when Terry Wogan and Gabby Roslin used to present Children In Need together? When it was decided that Gabby was passed her sell by date she was replaced with Fearne Cotton - a disconcerting 43yr age gap. Good old Beeb! I have been saying for years it is institutionally sexist.

thanks! I'll sleep a little sounder than usual tonight

Just checked Sakura - yes it's gone :o

Wikipedia tells me there's a 38 year age gap between those two. And that it was based on the US show "Live with Regis and Kelly", who have a 39 year age gap. I see the latter show also had a "co-ed search" when Kelly (the woman) was off, searching for a female student to co-host with grandpa Regis.

It's all a bit wrong.

do you remember Des and MEl? I nearly exploded in feminist rage.
Please tell me it's gone

Lol @ "watch with grandfather"

I work in TV (behind the camera) and the union did a review last year and found 70% of women in TV left once they were over 35. This is a very depressing stat which shows discrimination in the entire industry is rife and totally stacked against women in all roles in TV and film.

Basically, once you have kids, if you are not earning enough to hire a nanny you leave then.

I know, there's no excuse for that repeated pattern of old-man/young-woman casting, unless for some kind of "watch with grandfather" special.