So the MOD commissioned a report to look into the needs of military families today, it's called "Living in our shoes" www.gov.uk/government/publications/living-in-our-shoes-understanding-the-needs-of-uk-armed-forces-families
If you have a quick look at the link and see the front page of the report, you'll see the image they decided to use to represent the report that is supposed to review the needs of the modern MOD family, it is an image of scruffy boots, pristine pointed heels, some dishevelled looking converse and pretty polished ballet pumps. Ah yes, the M, F, M, F household with the man slaving away in the military with the delicate wife in her pretty heels with nothing important to do in her impractical footwear. The neatly presented little girl shoes, and mischievously placed boys converse....ok I appreciate I'm interpreting this with a specific agenda, but can you see what I mean?
An image that should encapsulate what the MOD is today looks like something out of 1970. Where does it leave female serving personnel, or homosexual households, or anyone that doesn't prescribe to this outdated vision of the family. I appreciate there is not one image to represent a family, which is why they shouldn't have even tried especially given the context of the report.
As a military spouse who has encountered sexism, regularly, as a result of my husband's career choice, in trying to pursue my career and have my husband's employer understand his career does not always need to take precedence and that our childcare responsibilities are shared (within reason, obviously it is a different lifestyle with a certain level of understanding of the commitment it involves from both of us) it is just incredibly frustrating. How can they understand our "needs" if they are still advertising the military family in this way.
So I complained to the review panel, and said I really didn't think it was an appropriate image for the report and asked them to re-consider, because it is not very inviting and ostracises a lot of their employees and families- in direct conflict with the point of the report.
The MP Andrew Selous who sat on the panel, replied to my complaint. You may want to have a quick look at his Wiki page to see if you can preempt his reply, if you're not familiar with him already as I wasn't. Needless to say the crux of his reply was that I was wrong, that the image was "deliberately" picked because the boots could be worn by both and it could be a lesbian household. This from the man who wouldn't vote for same sex marriage because "Jesus disagrees".
I just need to vent, I don't know what I'm looking for. I sent a very long response to him to explain why the image isn't appropriate and the response I had gotten on my social media from military employees and spouses, male and female, but I suspect I will be placed in the offended snowflake bucket.
Why can't people just LISTEN.
(Name changed as I wrote about it on my social media so don't want people linking me up to my previous posts if they're on here).