AIBU to find the whole "lets fire the men and bring on women" approach to this cabinet reshuffle REALLY offensive?

[VanGogh]

That's just it really. The bloody cabinet reshuffle.

All over the news this morning I've been confronted with "tired, pale and male out" women in.

Personally, I don't give a fiddlers the gender of a person in a role so long as they are the right person for the job. This whole "men out, women in" story pretty much guarantees (IMO) that any woman promoted will now be perceived both by the public and her colleagues as "she's just here because she's a woman" rather than the right person for the role.

I find it offensive to women. Am I on my high horse? AIBU?

I think so. There's a consistent idea that the right person for the job is a man. That's always the argument against recruiting women for anything - in general, women are fairly rubbish and would be doing all the jobs men do if only they could be better. But for unknown reasons, they're not. So we shrug and appoint the best person - inevitably a man, for unknown reasons - to the job.

It's a handy way of never acknowledging structural or perceptual problems for women and never doing anything about it. And claiming the higher ground while you do it, which is a fairly neat trick.

You are not being unreasonable and I regard myself as a feminist. If these women are any good they should have been oven jobs long ago. If they were not up to it they should not be given jobs now.

YABU. I agree with Apocalypse. I also think there's an important principle that government should represent ALL it's citizens and that its make-up should reflect this.

What I find 'offensive to women' is the centuries of male domination in all arenas of power.

Indeed: but blame the Press not the P.M.

Who of course can only work with the material he has. I remember that when Major formed his first all-male Cabinet he got pilloried for it: but his predecessor had appointed so few women as junior ministers that he had very little scope. The only woman She ever appointed to the Cabinet was in the Lords and therefore no threat to her - pure coincidence of course

If these women are any good they should have been oven jobs long ago.

Well that pre-supposes that it's only merit that gets people these jobs. I think we all know that is not the case.

If I heard a commentator correctly on the news the morning, there are more female Tory MPs in this parliament than there has ever been before.

Many of them were elected for the first time in 2010. It is totally normal for a new MP to spend a few years on the benches before being considered for junior government roles, moving up (if any good) to junior ministerial roles and eventually the senior ones.

I'm not sure many could have been promoted earlier.

No I'm not offended by it. Our current government is loaded with smarmy white men. If they all took a good hard look at themselves, and asked themselves the question "Am I here solely because of my intellect and ability to contribute, with nothing whatsoever to do with my gender?" Well, they'd probably say "Of course!!" But still....

Actually, I should add that I'm not from, nor do I live in the UK. But I've never been convinced of the arguments against positive discrimination.

Who says it's about gender anyway? Maybe a number of people have had time to develop their skills and show their capability to the pm.

Do we have the press jumping up and down when a bunch of old men get powerful positions-no, they just assume they are there on merit.

Sadly when women are in positions of power merit never seems to be mooted as a reason why they are there, it's assumed that there is an alteration motive.

Give this new cabinet a chance before making any judgements.

I'm not totally sure of my facts but after the last election I thought there were a lot of new MPs who were women which would mean they needed to build experience.

The press make a big deal of it because women are underrepresented in parliament (and the press). Hopefully these women will prove themselves over time just like and it will not be an issue.

Thinking about it, this whole appoint the best thing reminds me of people who claim to be colour blind. Seems a noble kind of a thing on the face if it, they don't see or judge anyone by the colour of their skin etc. Great stuff.

But the side effect, while they're being so happy with their moral and ethical wonderfulness, is that they're attempting to ignore and erase the experience of people if colour, their oppression, how they experience disadvantage and racism. It creates pressure to pretend that it's all ok and no structural or historic barriers exist.

Bit of a con.

I have a bigger issue with why there isn't a decent pool of female MPs to give them a decent chance at getting Cabinet jobs in the first place. We've moved on from pre-Tony Blair when there were more men called John in parliament than women, but we're still nowhere near equal.

Seeing the boorish, jostling, childish behaviour you see in parliament, particularly directed at the women MPs that are there, that division isn't going to reduce any time soon.

I agree with Apocalyse.

These women have been deemed good enough by dint of being promoted; random women - you/me/them were not randomly plucked from the High Street for the roles: interviews and performance reviews would have taken place.

These women would not be able to step in and do my job (life protecting/information critical) today; So I have that job.
I/you/we are not deemed experienced/competent enough to fulfill these Cabinet roles: they have been.

I think the women will be promoted on merit. I think women are more than capable of holding positions in the cabinet and that actually it's a disgrace that there are not more women in positions of influence.

We can only work on the basis that gender is unimportant if we ignore that: * there are less women in promoted posts in the business world or in politics.

• women are still paid less than men who fulfil the same roles.
• anti-social hours and inadequate/expensive childcare provision in this country impact disproportionately on women as they still tend to be the primary care givers Once all those issues are resolved then we won't need cabinet reshuffles to bring in women - they will be there.

Bump is much more succinct than me.

If Cameron is going to have a 51% female Cabinet, then he will merely be representing women in the populace.

If he has a more than 51% female Cabinet, you might be right, he might be just foisting crappy female MPs on an unsuspecting populace.

Seeing as there's far less than a representative mix of anything in the HoC, anything they can do to encourage women into politics has to be a good thing.

Sadly, in most people's minds, the best person for the job is always a man.

But scaevola and janie women have been elected as MPs since 1918. We are over 50% of the electorate and the way we vote decides which government we get. Shouldn't the 'time served' system be short cut to allow Cabinet to be a bit more representative? People do have lives and experience before being elected to draw on. And going up the PPS etc ranks hardly creates expertise, sadly idiots with an "anyone can run this" attitude come in and decimate the NHS/justice system/welfare state/education - insert governmental area of ypur choice.

I think it shows how sexist men still are. If a few women were being cast out and men replaced them, would there be this uproar? of course not but now those women have to prove themselves to everyone...just because they are female.

Perhaps, for me, it's the way it's being reported "men out, women in"

If this were just being reported as a cabinet reshuffle today then when the announcements are made later it would feel "genuine" IYSWAM

The whole press secretary's communication to the media, "leaks", mainstream media ALL reporting the language they have been given about women being promoted feels wrong, it's condescending and patronising.

I wholeheartedly agree that people should be represented by a fair and proportional example of the country's demographic.... Where are the cabinet ministers from differing cultural groups?

I HATE that most of the time of seems that men are said to be the best person for a job because they have a penis. But I don't think that today's "get rid of the men for women" will do anything other than damage women in politics. After all, they've only got the job because they're a woman.

To paraphrase Thatcher I can't believe I'm doing this
"I did to be that I got there because I was the right person for the job. It didn't matter as a man or a woman. I had the right qualities for the job, the right beliefs, the right principles. I wasn't a quota."

There is no way in the world that the 'cull of the middle aged white men' couldn't have happened, given the demographic of the current cabinet.

I don't believe that the huge bias towards men is because women aren't up to the job, and if it is then the Conservative party needs to take a look at why that is. The selection committee to shortlist candidates to stand for Tim Yeo's old seat chose 3 men out of the 11 possibles of 7 women and 4 men. Either there is a bias towards men or there is something wrong with the women coming forward or the way they are prepared. People used to always say women don't come forward, they don't like politics, they can't cope with the hours, but that clearly isn't the case.

Women can't be adequately represented in parliament if we don't have women MPs and, in particular, senior women MPs. The Maria Miller debacle showed how thin on the ground they are when they had to scrape up an anti marriage equality, anti abortion woman to take over as women's minister.

I saw on twitter

William Hague to be replaced by black woman, Philip Hammond

It made me smile, which is better than weeping I suppose.

All this 'bad day to be a middle aged white man' crap is a bit disingenuous. Middle aged white men have routinely met with zero resistance and now everyone is shocked that they have to share with other people, who are people just as much as they are people. To paraphrase Ross Gellar 'every day is middle aged white man day'

Just heard Michael Gove is chief whip

I agree the way its being reported is rotten, but is anyone else a bit about the timing of it. . . .

Oh hell yes wellnow*

"Look we have lots of women in out cabinet, now reelect us"

Quite frankly, Liz Truss has made such an expensive mess of childcare that the only reason I can think she's been promoted is because she's a woman. She's lurched from one disastrous and unpopular policy to another.