Feminism versus egalitarianism?

Have spent the day emailing everyone I can think of (MP, union, women friends, Polly Toynbee, newspapers etc) urging all to call for Willetts' dismissal. What he says is a load of cock, and typical Tory blather - when joblessness rises, it suits the neolibs to push women out of the labour force ( I recall in the 1980s my sis in law was told she should be ashamed of herself for looking for work when there were 'family men' on the dole). The current rise is joblessness is a result of raids on the public sector and the decimation of industry - and women are the worst hit - not massive beneficiaries at all. And now we're supposed to feel guilty for having a job? Blimey. I'm amazed he can get away with saying what he did - it's inflammatory and divisive, and if he'd blamed any other social group for rises in joblessness, we'd be calling for his job. Can we mount a campaign to get him sacked?

Smallwhitecat - just wanted to say that you made me :o :o :o

Apparently he already has form for slagging off grammar schools which pissed off the Tories no end, so he may not be around too long.

Anyone got a source for the full text of the speech?

Of course women have benefitted - it just shows how crap it was when there was 0% women in various professions. It stands to reason that the 100% men were picked from a pool which did not include the best people as it excluded women!

I don't think his analysis is entirely wrong - I would agree that middle class women have benefited more than working class men over the last 40 years. And I'd agree (and rejoice to some extent) that that is to do with women's liberation enabling middle class women to be more able to do what middle class men have been able to do. He hasn't actually said that that is bad (technically he's said the opposite), he's just said it in a way that means he thinks that if that hadn't happened then more working class men would have been able to move up into the middle class opportunities that have arisen. He might be right.

I think his error is more about the implied assumptions - That playing off vulnerable sectors of society (women and working class) against each other is humane or a valid way of looking at social mobility. That a society in which only the middle class (and above) have an acceptable lifestyle (or even that class to that extent exists) is OK. Or that a rate of change that accommodates only small sectors of society at a time is acceptable rather than awful.

BUT the really awful thing in what he says, to me at least, is that his words, even when read to include an acceptance that the gains made my middle class women are good, fail to even acknowledge that working class women bear a double burden. He seems to be implying that if only working class men had made it, all the women could have "married up" and everything would have been fine.

This article is in the guardian too. Their article includes a particularly repellent quote from that great supporter of women Cristina Odone. Grrr

I'm not usually in favour of eugenics, but does anyone else think that poisoning the pages of the Daily Mail a la "The Name of the Rose" would do wonders for society as a whole?

or maybe we should just all decamp to the Daily Mail comments pages en masse, carry on as normal, and see whose blood pressure gives in first

Oh and if we are looking at comments, I thought this one was a peach:

Education has been dumbed down to accomodate the less intellectually able.It is a demonstrable fact that men are,on average,more intelligent than women.Aspects of feminism have provided equal opportunity for women,which is excellent but it is now time to stop tinkering with nature before our civilisation rots from within and is attacked by stronger masculine forces from outside.This society is over feminised and incompetent,unprepared for defending itself and it is vulnerable.

I'm not a middle class woman ( I don't think, never figured out the class rules as such), yet I work full time. So have I helped widen this gap or not?

This has got to be a fucking April fools....that a universities minister would say this, is so is so many layers of stupid, it is difficult to know where to begin.

Working class women come in for a special kind of scapegoating when they have children, especially if the father has fucked off.

Willetts' views are not uncommon at all. I'd love to ask him if educated women who then SAH when their children are young are "wasting" their education, training and job opportunity and those things would be better going to men in the first place, because that's where that conversation usually heads.

Have to say that IME apprenticeship arguments look good on paper but IRL are really just ways of keeping working class kids in blue collar work.

I am choosing to think that this is an April Fool. I have been hoping that the same is going to turn out to be true of Michael Gove and George Osborne.

Ah I see. That's why working class women who have children are so revered by Tories.

They are meant to be kept quiet busy having babies who will support us all in our old age cos the pensions are fucked init!

Also what about working class women and their opportunities. Where do they fit in?

Christ I hate this fucking government.

What has poor Susan George done btw? (the blonde sexy actress from the 1970s)

Ah Vanessa George

Ha ha ha ha ha ha [hollow laughter]

So the lost opportunities for working class men have absolutely nothing to do with the Thatcher years and the annihilation of manufacturing & mining industries in this country.

I guess it quite correct to say that a having higher proportion of women in the workplace - particularly in professional and managerial posts WILL have an effect on the number of men doing the same. That is common sense surely. There is only a finite number of positions. So an "unfortunate" side effect of feminism - well that is one way of putting it... Unfortunate for whom?

The world has changed entirely. My dad wasn't especially educated but started as an apprentice and worked his way up to the Board. I can't imagine that will be nearly so common now. Isn't that more to do with education policy over the last 20 years though, rather than simply feminism (though I realise the 2 things are entwined)? There are few apprenticeships anymore.

The focus is on academic achievement for everyone, even though there are huge swathes of kids for whom this is not realistic, ones who would be better off learning a trade and working their way up doing something they are good at and enjoy.

Colleague: "Is it an April Fool?"

Me: "I don't think so"

Yes - they hate us.