University suspends lecturer in racism row

[Caligula]

Gosh. What a bizarre man. \link{http://education.guardian.co.uk/racism/story/0,,1738570,00.html\guardian story here}

MT, are you trying for the coverted 'Most consecutive posts on a single thread' award?

Doh, foiled again!

\link{http://observer.guardian.co.uk/business/story/0,,1697003,00.html\sexism in the city?}

Monkey - thanks. Will add it to my reading list. Reading "The Politics of Bresatfeeding" at the mo - a jolly read for any merchant banker esp. the ones that do multi-million £ deals for Nestle !

DC - ALL City law firm are white and male dominated. Could you please name a top City firm of lawyers, bankers, stock brokers,etc. that is black/Asian/Chinese/etc. AND female dominated ?

The firm I worked for had many ethnic minorities and women. It had a reputation for encouraging and employing such applicants. However, employing such people is one thing. HOW you treat them once they are in is another.

I did not have to watch things go wrong - they ARE wrong !

I just came to the conclusion that the well being of my child, both physical and emotional, is more important than money and social status.

I don't wish you to reveal your identity of course, but could you please name the institutions in the City where a breastfeeding lawyer/banker/stock broker, etc is allowed to go in for several breaks a day to express milk, store it in a fridge (Obvioulsy not the one in the canteen used by the partners !) and leave EARLY to breastfeed her child to sleep ?

Even if such rooms are available, the PRACTICALITY of being a corporate lawyer or merchant banker makes "extended" breastfeeding impossible. By extended people usually mean longer than 6 months. Let me tell you why.

I worked on large corporate deals that involved waking at 5am every single day for months on end and leaving at midnight on most nights. I took a cab each way, a journey of over 45 minutes.

How do you have time or energy to express milk for your child ? What would the male partner/client in charge say if you said "sorry chaps, have to leave the meeting of this multi-million £ deal for 20 mins. to express milk"

That is the reality of being a female corporate lawyer.

As for merchant banks, my friend, a female hotshot well known in the City, acquired a chest infection one winter. She coughed for weeks but never went to see a doctor. When I asked her why she was not taking time off to see a doctor, she said because she didn't want to give the impression she was one of those wimps who need to see a doctor and that it would give her male bosses a bad impression. The infection was allowed to fester and it turned into bronchitis -again left untreated.

DC - you are going to come back to me and tell me these are mere anecdotes, but I honestly think that what you describe is La La Land, not the City - or may be we are just talking about a different City ?

Any way, sorry everyone for hijack

I keep thinking of things I want to say in response to DC's I think I shall limit myself to a great big parrumpetty-parp!

Ellbell - I admire your reserve !

'Obviously, DC, anyone who does an arts degree is an idiot. In fact, i think universities should stop offering arts degrees at all, and schools should stop teaching arts subjects. Its the only way to weed out those that endanger the intelligence of society by daring to read History or [gag] English!

Dr Ellis obviously has serious issues. A pyschologist would have a field day with him. '

I'm doing an Arts degree AND a Psychology degree.... perhaps I should give it a go?

I don't think I have ever worked in any tolerant environment: those that prefered men (I worked in the haulage industry) were clear about it; those that perferred women (the charity sector) also clear. Thiose that had no gender preference (VAT office, now of course defunct) couldn't deal with other aspects of tolerance-eg, appearance / accent.

It's easy to believe there is no prejudice somewhere when you're not in one of the groups at the receiving end of it.....

I think academia in general is pretty tolerant. Certainly a dearth of female professors, but it's pretty laid-back generally.

Ellbell, respect- I wish I was as restrained!

Tamum, in my experience your average academic is Gordon....as liberal and open person as I have ever met!

Absolutely. Did you know he's gone to NZ?

NO!!!!

When did he go?

Has he gone for good?

A great loss to the UK , but I think that it will suit him down to the ground, if I am honest.

He went in December- his uni post was coming to an end (he was never properly tenured) and the place he goes to every year on sabbatical snapped him up. Huge loss to the course, we all miss him. He went in December :(

He didn't have tenure when I worked with him. Such a nice guy, who never played the system.

As you say, a great loss.

He'll love NZ though.....I can see him going on walking holidays!

Actually, my last firm was owned by Chinese, we had a turnover of around 20 billion, did a large % of all trading in gilts. For a while my boss was a Chinese woman.
Personally know several dozen directors of banks who are very non white, one is politically active as a radical Moslem.

Look at the senior people at HSBC as well.

There are more non-White people earning >100K in the City than any other part of the economy.
Though not very often at law firms.

UBS supports a network for gay staff. Can you imagine that happening anywhere else ?

Again, and I will type it slowly this time, and use one syllable words. "The banks ae less bad, not as good as I would like". You are an arts graduate aren't you ?

Not saying every firm in the City is better than all others. I was talking averages, the standard of numeracy in City lawyers is quite low, isn't it ?

Banks aren't that nice to any of their staff. The variable is the flavour of the crap, but again I've worked in several other industries, they were worse, but in terms of what banks think of as important, money "minorites" get paid more there than elsewhere.

I just came to the conclusion that the well being of my child, both physical and emotional, is more important than money and social status.
Right, and you kid thinks what precisely ?

I don't wish you to reveal your identity of course,
I'm Dominic Connor, the trick is in my ID :)
Ooops...

As for for sending in the police to harass pregnant women,
Old Mutual for a start, huge badly firm, GNI as well. You will have seen my former office there being the north side of the wobbly Milennium Bridge and in several dozen films and TV programmes.
As for storing expressed milk in the fridge, there is more than one City woman who will share with you what happens when men have stolen milk from the shared fridge with "Sarah's milk" written on it. HintL They go a differernt colour :)

Actually my wife is a "corporate lawyer" did extended feeding twice. But yes law firms are generally pretty crap.
If you read my stuff, carefully this time, you will see I was referring to investment banks, not law firms.

As for your friend with a chest infection I've seen men do the same dumb thing. Got grief over taking time off myself.

Surely it's no secret that the 'city' is an amoral and venal place, in practically every sense and that racism and sexism perhaps don't dominate simply because a Hobbesian ruthlessness covers all the bases?

Funnily enough though, this 'red and tooth and claw' rubbish is spouted a lot by right wing extremists like whatshisface. And they like to use and abuse Darwinism too. Thankfully, those strategies are very easy to spot and refute.

Dominic Connor

If you try a little harder I'm sure you could be a bit more rude and patronising, but you will have a hard job.

You may have good , well reasoned, points to make but if you set out to offend you will put people off reading your threads.

Your call, naturaly. You can post whatever you like, but don't patronise and then expect us to be swayed by your mighty intellect.

Quite, mb. I find that generally the people who feel a need to instruct other people to read their posts properly tend to be the most verbose, funnily enough.

Since we are all just addle brained little women and all

oh oh can I be Jo??

Oh blimey, that leaves me with Beth (dying) Amy (airhead) or Meg (boring). Can we share Jo? :o

I am Jo and will throw pickled limes at anyone who disagrees (I stole them from that wimp Amy)

Ooh Amy not's a wimp, she has the makings of a super-bitch. And she gets Laurie in the end - not boring old Mr Bear or whatever he's called.

True, Caligula. She improved enormously as the books went on. Hey, I do hope we're not being too girly.

I don't think any of my posts were rude to YOU personally, were they Mr Conner ?

I won't bother getting bogged down in your rudeness.