to be absolutely furious about football chief and emails referring to women as 'gash'??

[BeanAboutTown]

Sorry if there are other threads about this, couldn't find any.

Richard Scudamore, head of the Premier League, has been merrily sending emails referring to women as 'gash' and 'skinny big-titted broads', 'irrational' and lots of other incendiary misogynist shite.

Oh but he's apologised. That's nice eh, nothing to see here

Apparently he reports to the Premier League Board, which is two people, one of whom is errrrrr Richard Scudamore

AIBU to think an apology is nowhere near enough and he should bloody well resign?

It's been reported that the Premier League's women's officer has been told not to make any comment. Wouldn't want the shiny-suited money-making boys' club to be unnecessarily disturbed by any harpies would we

Anyone for a Premier League boycott next season? (Congrats to Man City by the way) How about we all give our money to the women's game instead

I think it is a really helpful tool to substitute black for woman in sexist comments as it shows up how much society is more than happy to do women down all the time but is in uproar over racism. They are both as bad as each other but we seem to tolerate sexism on an hourly basis in way we don't with racism. It is time that distinction stopped.

The point here is that even in private correspondence this man was a fool and has been shown up in his true colours. The fact that he thinks it would have been fine had it not been found out because it's fine to be sexist in private shows what an idiot he is. It is like saying although a lesser extreme it's fine if I beat up my wife or say all blacks have a low IQ as long as I only say it at home.

And I misread your post - other than you said! Sorry.

Well that gets stickier as you have then got to look at minorities as oppressors, including women, religion, etc.

That becomes less easy to state and less welcomed when you do.

No, my fault for not being clearer - 2 laptops open at the moment, one for work and the other for MN, and not really giving either my full attention . The point I was trying (unsuccessfully) to make (in response to your question) was that social ills can be traced to other sources than the white male hegemony.

I think they were open to the PA in the same way that a PA will open all letters that land on her desk. I have no idea about the rest of this man's behaviour, but it wouldn't be the first time somebody had difficulty understanding the difference between their work life and their personal life when dealing with a PA.

If it was a completely private e-mail account there would be no reason for the e-mails to pass through a work computer at all.

Not trying to defend him - I think he's a nincompoop. But the exact status of the emails and the access probably do impact on the available disciplinary measures.

I'm not sure they do. He brought the premier league into disrepute through his private actions. In any case I believed he used his work email account?

Good point - he put "private and confidential" rather than " personal" in the "apology".

Just looked at my works disciplinary procedures - I must not do anything in my private conduct that might discredit my employer.

I'd argue that Scudamore's private comments have discredited much of the PL's work with women.

I agree but wouldn't necessarily like my chances at tribunal if the case was about comments sent between friends on Hotmail in their own time. I think private conduct is probably intended more for "public events in your own time"

Buffy. I think it is as you say. But there is another distinction also. Men tend to dominate whole groups and women individuals.

Men tend to dominate and women to smother. It comes back to that genetic imperative and it having nowhere to go in today's society. So, very broadly, stereotypically, a man will control a population, allowing it some autonomy as long as it is to his benefit. Women will smother and coddle and tightly control, taking away all autonomy of an individual.

So the social ills you can trace back to women tend to be less obvious and individualistic. You can think about historical instances where a woman's attempt at control was enacted as smothering to the great detriment of a nation, Agrippina, Lady Macbeth for example. Such women bring up their male offspring with fatal flaws or become the fatally flawed puppet master themselves.

Much of this also then has the bonus effect of reinforcing the masculine view of women not being able to handle power, of being weak and flawed... or, on the flip side, if a woman is successful in control and power, she is evil or loses her femininity. So the masculine hegemony is again reinforced.

See - I totally disagree with this, and find it rather an outdated way of thinking. It certainly doesn't reflect how my teens view women in power, for example. Angela Merkel springs to mind immediately - neither evil nor unfeminine (whatever the hell that means), but a very astute, clever person who is an exceptional leader.

I work in a female dominated organisation - women there are as capable of exhibiting all the negative stereotypes of the male hegemony as they are of demonstrating strength, vision, leadership and so on.

See, I think when we observe characteristics, such as smothering or domineering, controlling or organising, etc. we are always looking at socially produced characteristics, and not innate qualities of biology. If any given quality of character was innate to biology, all people of that biology would express it. So my question about the qualities of 'smothering' - gosh what a pejorative word! - etc. would be what is it in the existing social structures that produce those characteristics in that SOCIAL class. For example, I read Lady McBeth as basically exercising power in the only spheres that are made SOCIALLY available to her, and would assume in the case she had actual political agency she'd just, you know, take power for herself and act on her own behalf. If she wasn't an entirely fictional construct onto which we were projecting our own assumptions and fantasies...

women tend to have their access to power mediated by men

I think that's over-generalising to a massive extent Buffy. I'd also be interested in your definition of 'power'.

I'm also conscious that this discussion has moved away from the OP somewhat

So bringing it back to the OP..... I'm a footie fan (Man U) and am not so amazed that RS is still in post. Just this season we had a manager head butt an opposing team's player on the side line, on tv and in the Prem. Footie appears to be above any concept of what is acceptable sometimes.

As for RS specifically, his emails were part of his official duties as the PA used them to organise his diary. They are in his professional domain. IF I ever linked my emails to my work accounts and this came up I'd expect to be sacked for gross misconduct (tho' I'd resign first probably).

Hmmm - not sure I agree with your definition of 'power' in terms of competency at all. In fact, thinking of all the women who hold the power in the organisation I work for (and the organisations I've worked for on a freelance basis) definitely not! I am more inclined to agree with power being limited to fewer women at the top, but whether or not that's mediated by men....

Anyway, yes Pan - back to the OP . I completely agree - the levels of understanding of what is acceptable when it comes to football (at all levels imo) is very limited.

Hiding this thread now - am too distracted and not working effectively!

Well, further to the discussion of power, what I would point to is the way that public institutions, and I include businesses in this, only fifty years ago would have had no women in those positions of power that are now in your organisation Sir. At some point, the men in those organisations have sat in panels to grant access to those women to those positions. In the historical sense, then, this power has been mediated by men. Those top level roles very often are sort of man shaped in that they are not really accessible or friendly to someone with extensive childcare responsibilities. In the sense that one has to alter one's way of approaching any given role to be more 'man like', those positions are mediated by men. So many of the structures that regulate and determine public role and economic agency assume a basically house-kept man that I would argue that public and coporate life is still mediated by men, even when individual women take up those roles. It is in this sense that you can argue that Margaret Thatcher was not feminist because the basis of her power was her ability to act think and behave in ways which made her fit into a pre-existing male order, where a feminist would have challenged that order to enable more women to take part - by for example, insisting that the House sat during parent friendly hours instead of starting and finishing late.