to rather intensely dislike Harriet Harman?

[grovel]

Naggy and bossy at the same time. And so tribal.

What an unpleasant little person you are, Maurice.

You beat me to it HerBex

THat's the funny thing about research that shows women to remain so disadvantaged in our society (even though this society is one of the fairest in the world in terms of gender) is that it is routinely ignored. Because advances have been made, people think the war has been won. Equality legislation is seen to have 'done the job'.

This simply isn't true. Although no one is denying that significant advances have been made, that doesn't mean gender inequality is no more.

? Men outnumber women 4 to 1 in Parliament.

? Only 4 out of 23 cabinet members are women,

? Just 31 per cent of elected councillors are women.

? Despite earning on average 2.1 per cent more than men at age 21-29, by the time they are middle aged women earn on average 15.5 per cent less.

? More than 50 per cent of law graduates are women, yet only 1 of the top 10 law firms has more than 20 per cent female partners.

? Only 16 FTSE 100 companies have female executive directors.

? Only 15 per cent of High Court Judges are women, and there is only one female Supreme Court Justice

? A woman is 4x more likely to be killed by her partner than a man.

? Rape is convicted at a rate of 25% less than any other violent crime.

Unless you believe that men are inherently more clever than women, you have to conclude that women are disadvantaged because of their sex.

The 'powers that be' do not deny these stats. They just try to slant the interpretation. For example. Less than 6% of rape allegations turn out to be false (the same as any other crime), yet many people think the figure is much higher because of the disproportionate media coverage of such cases.

People try to dismiss DV by claiming that men suffer just as much as women (not true).

People try to dismiss women trying to protect their DC from abusive men by claiming that such women are 'evil ex wives' deliberately coming between a man and his children for no good reason. Yes, such women exist, but they are a minority. Unless you believe that women lie about crime more than men. False allegations of ALL crimes tend to hover about 10%. That means nearly 90% are telling the truth.

Contrast this to 2.5 million single parent families (most of which are women). 1.15 million of them use the CSA to settle maintenance. Of that 1.15 million, 861,700 of them pay. Of the 861,700 that are paying nearly half (47.3%) are only paying £5 per week regardless of how many children they have because they are on benefits. Of the remaining 1.35 million single parent families, 60% have no maintenance arrangements according to the DWP.

But we women are imagining this of course. We don't need women like HH do we!?

Beautifully put!

I meant Sunshine, but HerBeX, you can have a round of applause, too.

sunshineandbooks - "Unless you believe that men are inherently more clever than women, you have to conclude that women are disadvantaged because of their sex."
Has it not struck you that perhaps women simply aren't as ambitious as men? That their priorities change at a certain age? (hence the stats re female MPS, ftse companies etc). Moreover, is that such a crime?

Maurice, why do you think women's priorities change?

And why don't men's?

They're too busy fucking themselves, huh Maurice?

And er, no, I think that the idea that women simply aren't as ambitious as men, is an excuse for sexism.

If anyone said that black people simply aren't as ambitious as white people, and this accounts for why they are under-represented in powerful positions, they would quite rightly be dismissed as a pathetic racist.

Let's change society, give women and men an equal playing field, and then we'll discover whether women are less ambitious than men, rather than being pushed towards certain behaviours because of the structures of the workplace and society.

If we start from an even playing field and women still end up poorer than men because of the choices they make (when those choices aren't coerced or dictated by structural inequalities) then the notion that they are simply en masse less ambitious than men, will have been proved. But since we aren't starting from a level playing field, that experiment can't be carried out yet.

? Men outnumber women 4 to 1 in Parliament.
Women have had the vote for quite some time now.

? Only 4 out of 23 cabinet members are women
Because there are less women in parliament, and many of those that are in there are unable to show the same commitment as many of the men.

? Just 31 per cent of elected councillors are women.
Again, we have had the vote. I vote for the candidate, not for their gender.

? Despite earning on average 2.1 per cent more than men at age 21-29, by the time they are middle aged women earn on average 15.5 per cent less.
Could this be because of taking time out of employment to have children?

? More than 50 per cent of law graduates are women, yet only 1 of the top 10 law firms has more than 20 per cent female partners.
Again, because comparatively few women are willing to make the sacrifices necessary to reach the absolute upper echelon. 100+ hour weeks on a regular basis? Are you willing to do that? I'm not.

? Only 16 FTSE 100 companies have female executive directors.
See above.

? Only 15 per cent of High Court Judges are women, and there is only one female Supreme Court Justice
See above.

? A woman is 4x more likely to be killed by her partner than a man.

? Rape is convicted at a rate of 25% less than any other violent crime.
What is Harriet Harman planning on doing to change these statistics?

There are plenty of ways in which men are worse off than women. I honestly believe that women have the better deal at this moment in time. I base this on the majority of women, and not a few isolated examples at the very rich end of society. There are far more homeless men than women. Far more men killed at work than women. For all women go on about discrimination at work, I don't see many women campaigning for more women to be doing dirty, dangerous jobs with a high risk of death.

I think extreme feminism does far more harm to the way of life of NORMAL women than it helps. Feminism should be about helping women in general, not just upper middle-class women with a chip on their shoulder.

I don't know how to do that Maurice, but fear not, I'll google!

TartyDoris: now there's a proper feminist.

Come on herby and sunshineandbollocks. TartyD has made mincemeat of you both with her last post. So what ya got??

"Men outnumber women 4 to 1 in Parliament.
Women have had the vote for quite some time now. "
But they haven't had the habit of standing for parliament and selection committees are notoriously conservative for both mainstream parties.

? Only 4 out of 23 cabinet members are women
Because there are less women in parliament, and many of those that are in there are unable to show the same commitment as many of the men.
Bullshit. As with any "commitment", when women take time off to do caring responsiblity stuff, they are seen as less committed whereas when men take time off to play golf or meet tabloid journalists for boozy lunches, they're seen as more committed because they're "networking" doncha know.

? Just 31 per cent of elected councillors are women.
Again, we have had the vote. I vote for the candidate, not for their gender.
The structures exclude women because you need a wife to do your organisation for you and most women don't have wives.

? Despite earning on average 2.1 per cent more than men at age 21-29, by the time they are middle aged women earn on average 15.5 per cent less.
Could this be because of taking time out of employment to have children?
Yes. So we need to re-organise society so that having children doesn't economically disadvantage women. If all women decided that having children is too big a financial hit, the human race would die out. It's a valuable, socially necessary activity and needs to be supported by society.

? More than 50 per cent of law graduates are women, yet only 1 of the top 10 law firms has more than 20 per cent female partners.
Again, because comparatively few women are willing to make the sacrifices necessary to reach the absolute upper echelon. 100+ hour weeks on a regular basis? Are you willing to do that? I'm not.
Why are men prepared to do it? Why aren't they functioning as husbands, lovers, fathers, friends? Why is the workplace structured in such a way, that only saddo dysfunctional workaholics with servants can be successful?

? Only 16 FTSE 100 companies have female executive directors.
See above.
You see above

? Only 15 per cent of High Court Judges are women, and there is only one female Supreme Court Justice
See above.
And again

? A woman is 4x more likely to be killed by her partner than a man.
Um

? Rape is convicted at a rate of 25% less than any other violent crime.
What is Harriet Harman planning on doing to change these statistics?
She's not in government. What is the Tory Govt planning on doing to change these statistics?

There are plenty of ways in which men are worse off than women. I honestly believe that women have the better deal at this moment in time. I base this on the majority of women, and not a few isolated examples at the very rich end of society. There are far more homeless men than women. Far more men killed at work than women. For all women go on about discrimination at work, I don't see many women campaigning for more women to be doing dirty, dangerous jobs with a high risk of death.
Men are richer than women and have more leisure time. But oh, poor old men.

I think extreme feminism does far more harm to the way of life of NORMAL women than it helps. Feminism should be about helping women in general, not just upper middle-class women with a chip on their shoulder.
Read a few books.

Oh get a room

Not only does she have the best name on MN since anyfucker but she is also making the ivory tower feminist brigade (ITFB) look like monkeys.

She's making herself look like a twat.

Correction Malcontent: she is making you, herbex et al look like twats

But you don't need any help, eh?

Opinions do not equate to empirical evidence.

The ITFB? That's a new one... Am I a member of that yet?

Look. she's spouting misogynistic claptrap. No two ways about it.

"feminism shouldn't just be about helping middle class women with a chip on their shoulders"

It isn't. It's feminists that brought about a universal right to vote. It's feminists which fought for maternity rights (hardly something that's reserved for MC women). It's feminists who helped make domestic violence illegal. I could carry on for hours. Feminists aren't just trying to help middle class women. They're trying to help all women. And some men too, y'know...

But nope. We're the man-hating, middle class snobs...

Regards,
A working-class Mum.

Doris hasn't provided any evidence for her commonplace opinions.

Obviously, she looks like a genius to the benighted.

And the grammar in that middle paragraph was appalling, wasn't it... :(

And obviously you think we're all twats Maurice, we're feminists and we don't rate what you say.

But at least we can back some of our assertions with some evidence.

I haven't seen any from your side of the fence.

Because there isn't any.

As HerBex has already shown, careers such as politics and law rely on a long-hours culture. Women can't compete because in the main they are still the primary carers.

I can accept that it is not possible for anyone - male or female - to have a high-flying career and be the primary carer. What I have a problem is that it is still overwhelmingly women faced with that dilemma.

Given that women make up 52% of the population, and that more than 80% of people become parents, do you believe that it is fair to disadvantage more than half the population because of their biological makeup?

If children are the responsibility of both parents shouldn't male parents be taking up some of the slack and ameliorating the cost women are bearing? They are not. If they were you would see women doing as well as men but about 5 years behind if that's how long they took a career gap for. That's not the case. The detrimental effect on a woman's career tend to last for the rest of her working life. This is because she is often the one having to take time off for sick children, inset days, etc, long after the children have ceased to need a SAHM for the preschool years. There is no reason men couldn't do this (and research shows women would like them to) but men choose not to in the main. When they do pull their weight, they get castigated - Nick Clegg and the school run for example.

Or do you believe it's ok for one half of the population to exist on the exploitation of the other half?