god i wish this were an april fool's joke - david willetts for example...

[chibi]

has social mobility decreased? well, it's YOUR fault lady (apparently)

so chain yourself to sink already, you are preventing some ambitious working class man from being paid less for doing the same work as a man moving up the greasy pole of ambition to the job of his dreams

reader, i laffed till i cried

www.guardian.co.uk/politics/2011/apr/01/david-willetts-feminism-lack-of-jobs

bah the link didn't convert
here

That whole story is a basket case. Christina Odone is there as rent -a-quote I see.

I don't think he is criticising feminism but I do think his is a bone headed way of analysing social mobility.

Why go for the gender option? I guess blaming women is a vote winner and an easy answer to complex questions.

I have heard this argument before and think it's mad.

Actually feel rather irritated now. What is 50 per cent of the population which has a vagina supposed to do? Not go to university to allow men a fair crack at it?

In areas of high unemployment I bet there aren't many women going to university either. It's a class issue not a gender one.

Apparently we women should all have gone back to the kitchen after WW2 and stayed there, and then the lower classes would still know their place and everything would be fine current economic crisis wouldn't have happened.
Willets conveniently glosses over the fact that women entered the workplace all over the world, and yet the enormous class divide is among the worst in the industrialised world here in the UK - nothing to do with the class system, of course...

Man needs a slap, pure and simple
.

Also notice how the strange animal known as a tory, (who reduced the stock of council housing via letting people buy them and closed down all our manufacturing), has still after so many years no idea at all about anyone who is on the social order below him, implying that all the working class should and can go to university, and by doing so will magically end up in jobs and be better off/middle class.

Clearly Tories are still suffering the affects of being inbreds hopefully they will become and endangered species soon.

For a man who is said to have 2 brains, that is a primitive argument.

He's called "Two Brains" because he thinks with his testicles.

That explains it.

Willetts is stating the obvious based on the stats and the Guardian is giving it a little special spin and polish & a nice emotive headline. The biggest % of people taking advantage of higher education have been girls from better off backgrounds. To point this out doesn't mean it's a bad thing. However, it means that there are groups of young people....especially those from lower socio-economic groups... that are not taking advantage. If the aim is equality of opportunity then it's important to know the stats, find out the reasons and aim more help/incentives/whatever at groups that are not participating.

I have been edged out by casualisation of my skilled job, work experience prospects doing elements for free, poorer wages, no job security, redundancy. Am doing a second degree and then seeking employment. At the moment I am desperate for a job in a call centre as it offers evening and weekend work around the kids. There are no vacancies in my city. 0.

DP and I are downwardly mobile. Not drastically, but we will not be as wealthy as our parents (who were working class, ended up professionals, good pensions etc etc)

sorry wrong thread

Althogh I am sure you all found it very interesting