Miriam O'Reilly has won on age discrimination but not on sex discrimination

[sethstarkaddersmum]

completely unbiased BBC link here

surely age discriminating against women but not men is sex discrimination?!

Doozle - I'm sure you're right about the snap arbitrary decisions thing. But there is still a preponderance of men at the higher levels in the BBC and when you have women who are working in that environment and are often breaking new ground as the first woman to do the job, very often they will be trying to second guess the men and make the decisions they think they would make. It's the same in every industry - the first women to get to the top are often the ones who are prepared to act more male than the men and if that means shafting other women that is what they will do.

I see what you're saying Seth but I just don't feel the women I've known in TV were necessarily trying to second guess men.

They were just very focused and success-driven in their own right.

Their decisions, I suspect, are based largely on their a gut feeling of what the audience wants (ie possibly younger, fresher faces).

The tribunal pointed out that the BBC managers in this case had no proof that this is what audiences wanted - just an instinct and this isn't justification in itself to discriminate on the grounds of age.

but no-one in their right mind would think that what a the female part of a middle-aged to elderly audience (like Countryfile's) would want would be to ditch the presenters who looked like them and replace them with younger women; the decision reflected the habit of thought that privileged what male viewers were presumed to want (pretty young women to look at) and didn't give a shit about female viewers. Which is surely a male way to see an audience.
If it was 50-50 at senior levels of the BBC and its governing body, and had been for some time, I do not believe that female viewers would be so ignored.

Yes you have a point. This is what one of the top female Beeb producers said about looks being important on telly. Quote from Telegraph.

"Whether a woman was ?pretty? or not was the main consideration when hiring a new presenter for Countryfile, it was claimed yesterday.

Series producer Teresa Bogan sent a note to bosses that suggested contenders should be attractive and intelligent above all else, a tribunal heard.

The note was revealed in a sex and age discrimination case brought against the BBC by axed Countryfile presenter Miriam O?Reilly.

It appeared in a handover notice Miss Bogan gave to the BBC?s head of rural affairs in which she described the ?urgent? need for host Julia Bradbury to have a stand-in when she was unavailable.

Heather Williams QC, representing 53-year-old Miss O?Reilly, suggested the comments indicated that a contender?s attractiveness was the primary concern of the decision makers.

She said: ?You chose to highlight what you thought would be relevant as to the consideration of whether you should be used or not.?

Miss Bogan refuted this
and said it was a ?personal observation? but conceded looks were important for television.

?If anything I think it is an observation on television,? she added.

?I think it is a visual medium, we?re looking for people who can do their job and if they look good on screen that is no bad thing.

?I watch telly like everybody else. We make our own observations, I think we see attractive people in general.

?By and large it tends to be more attractive women. People on TV generally look good and it is important that it looks good.

?There are a lot of attractive women on TV but I don?t think attractiveness is a fact of age. Jackie Brambles was in her 40s and I thought she looked great, equally I think Miriam looks great.?"

it's amazing how they make these comments like 'people on tv generally look good' with no thought at all to the fact that a large number of men on tv don't look good, particularly

FFS most men on the TV don't look good.

They look shit.

But most women look good.

That's not talking about actors, that's just presenters, newsreaders, commentators etc.

Agreed.

I guess I hope TV bosses will have to think a lot more carefully about these issues now.

In the past, they've been pretty much able to dismiss presenters with a wave of the hand (especially as many presenters are on freelance contracts).

Female TV presenter I knew some years ago was told by her producer (never asked if it was a man or woman sadly) that she had 4 weeks to lose 1.5-2 stone or lose her job. I was and said "but they can't do that!". She said, "I know that, you know that, they know that, but if I don't, I lose the job". So she spent the next four weeks on a starvation diet, lost the weight and (for a while anyway) kept the job. How many male presenters have had the same ultimatum I wonder?

I suspect a lot of it is that there's a reluctance to deal with intelligent older and stroppier women when you can have 20 something bimbos who will do whatever you say because they really really want to be on the telly.

On the cover of the Economist is the face of that guy who started Facebook. Now I don't want to be all patriarchal, but I felt like they were taking the piss out of women.
It was a close up of his face, not a bit of photo-shopping, his eyes were blood-shot, he was all blemished and pale (and he's only 26). He looked like your next-door neighbour. Fine, nothing wrong with that. BUt that would never have been allowed in a woman.
In fact that facebook guy is not actually as ugly as that picture made him out to be. Any woman who had done well in business would have to be "made over" or photoshopped or whatever.
I almost felt like it was saying, "when you're this powerful, and a man, who gives a damn what you look like. He certainly doesn't"

The really stupid thing about it is that Miriam O'Reilly is attractive. At least as attractive as Matt Baker who was chosen to replace all the older women. I really can't see why a program like Countyfile was moved to primetime in any case (seems an odd decision, and I have watched and quite enjoyed it in the past), or why stories about the countryside should be more appealing if they are presented by an averagely attractive younger man or an averagely attractive older woman.

Surely if wrinkles are unattractive in HD (one apparent comment by Jay Hunt) then John Craven was the obvious candidate for the chop? Or are wrinkles attractive on men but not women?

And one of the most telling points raised by the tribunal is this:
The discrimination was not justified. The wish to appeal to a prime-time audience, including younger viewers, is a legitimate aim. However, we do not accept that it has been established that choosing younger presenters is required to appeal to such an audience

So the BBC (run by white, middle aged - short - that's very important) men are obsessed with youth but their get-rid-of-the menopausal-old-bat-and-stick-a-pretty-face-in-ther e-instead formula doesn't get the audiences in. Julian Fellowes, the Oscar winning script writer, has said that television executives are 'obsessed with this mythical youth audience,' whereas the average age of the televison watcher is 52. Drama in particular is watched by older people, but ask any script writer and they will tell you the first words out of the executives' mouths will be: 'Can we cast young?'

Actually that's very depressing.

Or are wrinkles attractive on men but not women? nooka

Oh yes. John Craven who kept his job on Countryfile was not warned about his wrinkles on Hi-Def and he's 68, 15 years older then Miriam. I've nothing against John Craven but it's horrible when you see UK TV morphing into a terrible version of Fox TV which usually has a pouffy haired old git doing the paternalistic thing next to a pouffy blonde cutie. 'And over to you Ted!' with a flirty smile.

I know, there's no excuse for that repeated pattern of old-man/young-woman casting, unless for some kind of "watch with grandfather" special.

I work in TV (behind the camera) and the union did a review last year and found 70% of women in TV left once they were over 35. This is a very depressing stat which shows discrimination in the entire industry is rife and totally stacked against women in all roles in TV and film.

Basically, once you have kids, if you are not earning enough to hire a nanny you leave then.

Lol @ "watch with grandfather"

do you remember Des and MEl? I nearly exploded in feminist rage.
Please tell me it's gone

Just checked Sakura - yes it's gone :o

Wikipedia tells me there's a 38 year age gap between those two. And that it was based on the US show "Live with Regis and Kelly", who have a 39 year age gap. I see the latter show also had a "co-ed search" when Kelly (the woman) was off, searching for a female student to co-host with grandpa Regis.

It's all a bit wrong.

thanks! I'll sleep a little sounder than usual tonight

Remember the days when Terry Wogan and Gabby Roslin used to present Children In Need together? When it was decided that Gabby was passed her sell by date she was replaced with Fearne Cotton - a disconcerting 43yr age gap. Good old Beeb! I have been saying for years it is institutionally sexist.

Sakura, just going back to your point about the untouched photo of Mark Zuckerburg, I took it as reinforcing the stereotypes of computer geeks, more than anything.

But I suppose men have a range of stereotypes to 'choose' from, whereas women are either sexualised, or invisible.

"But I suppose men have a range of stereotypes to 'choose' from, whereas women are either sexualised, or invisible"

Yes, exactly
But also, another thing I've noticed is how surprisingly similar male and female faces are when females don't do alter themselves with hair, make up or clothes.
That photo of Mark Zuckerburg was a close-up, you couldn't even see his hair, it could well have been a female face, and I think that's what shocked me, that it could have been female face, but I knew immediately that it wasn't because it was devoid of make-up or any colour.
Sheila Jeffreys reckons the femininity that women wear: long hair, clothes, make up, mannerisms are used by society to mark them out as the subordinate class. I wear make up myself, but the more I think about it, the more I think she has a point. Females have these "markers" about them, marking them out as female, but without them they would be invisible in our society (as you say), but I wonder if women would be taken more seriously as human beings if they all gave up on make-up and long hair en masse
[not that I'm brave enough to be the first to lead the way ]

yes you start to see dressing up differently once you internalise that Sheila Jeffreys idea don't you Sakura? When I see women tripping around in high heels now I think they look less not more powerful.

interesting point about Zuckerberg pic.

and that's probably why Mary Beard got so much flak from A.A.Gill recently when she presented her Pompeii programme with wrinkles and grey hair: he experienced it as a direct threat to male power. How dare she go on tv without making herself pleasing to the patriarchy! And he was convinced he was being reasonable - he actually said he wasn't being sexist and insisted the point applied to men and women - showing that blind spot you get when the person quoted in Doozle's (?) Telegraph article said people on tv are generally attractive.
(And one of the brilliant commenters on her blog managed to show up the hypocrisy rather well: Gill complained about Beard's teeth; apparently he is a big admirer of Kenneth Clarke and never comments on HIS teeth!)

thread here

I remember that thread and your excellent post. AA Gill was so offended by her wasn't he
When a woman refuses to wear the veils of femininity the patriarchy gets very antsy and angry.
Which takes us back to Jeffrey's point that behaving or looking feminine is a sign of deference . It so is.

the good news was how much Gill was clearly out on a limb. Obviously her blog commenters are going to be generally on her side, but it was nice to see the full gamut of young, old, feminist and anti-feminist, all thinking he was talking rubbish.

It makes your realise how much our behaviour is controlled by the patriarchy when you see that women have to use grooming to ingratiate themselves