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?!

This was discussed on Question Time last night. Jeanette Winterson was ace and honed in immediately on the sexist aspect as did Diane Abbot. James Caan on the other hand would be mainly an arse, quoting consumerism as the reason to perpetuate the cycle (despite the fact he had no evidence that the target audience would actually give a fig if Miriam were presenting). Interesting though that the panel didn't seem to get that they automatically talked about this as if it were a gender issue rather than the ageist argument that actually won Miriam the case. So everyone knows it is a gender issue yet they couldn't take that to court?

it did go to court - she won on age and lost on sex.

I still don't understand why she lost on sex discrimination.

wish I'd seen Question Time - wonder if it's on I-Player?
how far into the prog was it?

Sorry I meant what you said seth. That they only went to court on ageism despite that everyone knows it's sexism.

It is on I-Player right at the end - it only had a couple of mins unfortunately. But there was a good debate about the Asian groups targetting white women. I can't remember if it was Diane Abbot or Jeanette (or both) that was arguing very strongly it was a gender issue (I switched on part way through)

Seth It is on iPlayer, it was the last question, probably starts at 50 - 55 minutes-ish.

I saw that last night too, just caught the end so got that question. Almost everyone is talking about it as sex discrimination, so even though the BBC won that point at the tribunal, they've lost the public opinion argument. James Caan was being a total tit about it, "consumerism" - yes dear, is all you can say to that.

Mind you I had woman's hour on this morning (when will I learn??) and they were talking abour Carmen. Some opera bloke (director I think) was saying "everyone finds strong/beautiful/intelligent women a turn on" or something v similar. Well, I don't. Because I'm a straight woman. I doubt any of my gay male friends do either FOR GODS SAKE. Straight men rule to the extent that we all have to find the things sexy that they find sexy now? Might seem off topic but it seemed to chime with this idea that "the consumer" or "everyone" wants to see young attractive women (but not men, apparently).

It's a bit like when people talk about "ye olden days", isn't it?

"Everybody had servants".

Um... well maybe not everybody

@ Elephants & HB.

sc. everybody who would have been in my social circle
everybody who counts
everybody who is fully human....

Good point HerBea - they teach kids that crap in schools. Bet few people think til later "but what if my ancestors weren't Anne Boleyn/Charles I/part of the tiny minority living in a castle?"

My ancestors were servants. Well the women were, the men were soldiers, miners and alcoholic wife-beaters (sometimes at the same time). I'm proud of them, they worked bloody hard, and due to the absence/rubbishness of the men, it's their hard work and saving that kept my family alive and healthy long enough for me to actually be born. So no, not everybody had servants. It's just the ones with the servants made the news, because they had nothing better to do than fight their neighbours and kill everyone who got in the way.

Got a non-Japanese friend in Japan, who is really lovely in many ways, I mean really lovely, but she hates Japan because nobody's got a maid. "IN Singapore, HOng Kong and China, everyone's got maids" she says. Hmmm...not everybody is it.
( the main reason she's pissed off is because she had to give up her career, whereas middle class women in those countries don't have to because of the maid class.)

she was a money broker BC, which is the kind of job you need a servant maid or wife if you want to continue After Children

I tried a mask on last night against coughing germs. My wife said I looked better in it.

I love the comments made by Jeremy Hardy on the news quiz, radio 4/.