my colleague - not boss, called me 'young lady'.
once.
and i quite happily inhabit the real world.
rob, you may claim to have been arguing against quotas, and claim to believe that equal opportunities rock. but what you actually said was it wouldn't be possible to get more female mps, because women (as some sort of sub-species, presumably) weren't willing to graft as hard as men.
but my favourite was 'wouldn't it be great if women did not get themselves in the position of relying on men for money?' really, er, yes. hence my suggestion that men take a 50% share of the childcare responsibilities. because oddly, i quite fancy equality.
you pay lip service to equality, and bitch about women taking men's jobs. it's 'let the best man win' (as long as he's got a penis. because if the best man has the temerity to be a middle class woman then we'll blame them for the entire collapse of society).
re women serving in the infantry - i tried my damnedest to join the marines but they wouldn't have me. it's a complete pisser that women are prevented from doing jobs because of how the men feel about them doing the job in question. again, i have no issues with selection being based on competency. why should it be anything to do with whether you've got a penis or not? come up with a standard that a candidate has to meet and stick to it. not continue to discuss it and still let it boil down to 'the men don't like it'. i was also told i couldn't serve on a mountain rescue team for the same reason. having passed the competency and fitness standards (by default - i wasn't allowed to take the competency test, but i had to train with the team members for a mountain leadership course)
seriously rob, you have no idea. just for a minute imagine what it is like to be perfectly capable of doing a job, but not being allowed to because of your sex. and watching far less capable candidates waltz in and wave their tackle about. this is not about stopping the best candidate getting the job. this is about the best candidate not even getting to the interview. because of systematic discrimination. middle class wimmin taking our jobs? big fat hairy bollocks. and yes, that is a gendered term. derogatory, in case you were in any doubt. middle class women are claiming the jobs that they are as entitled to as everyone else, and getting them if they are the most capable person to show up. and working class men are having the torygraph (or whichever paper it was) broadcast their sense of entitlement for them.
you can't genuinely have been expecting me to say 'oo, no, i wouldn't want to be in the infantry, i might break my fingernails.' ffs. why the hell not? are women supposed to be nurturing and weak, rather than tout a pack and rifle and face getting blown to bits? is that a man's job? fwiw, both dh and the dc's godfather have both been blown up in different incidents, and neither are infantry.
but anyway, david cameron. 