Stale, male and pale

[ladyblablah]

I bloody loved this description of the yawny white middle class man who dominate the upper echelons of many of our institutions and businesses.

On a very general level, I see very little inspirational about these grey types, just robotic, boxed in values, there 'by the grace of God'.

And at last a term to insult them.

Yay.

www.telegraph.co.uk/men/10968805/Is-being-a-middle-aged-white-male-so-bad-Prime-Minister.html

Middle aged male (Max Davidson) hurting…

Extract - final par: "There will be men of my generation, still in their prime, still with a lot to give, who will be feeling a little less valued this morning. They hoped they were living in the land of fair play, where people were promoted on performance, not on their looks, and that to demote anyone on grounds of sex or age was an affront to the values of the tribe.Now they are not so sure."

I feel you pain Max, truly I do. After all, we women (promoted only on looks according to you) have been feeling the pain of being "a little less valued" for the last, oh, 2,000 years or so.

"your" not "you" Grr.

that, right there, is privilege writ large

do i mean writ large?
anyway, it absolutely demonstrates the blindness (wilful perhaps?) to his privilege

quite funny - but an insulting comment. White males who aren't 25 can also be good at their jobs.

Where you forgot option 3
Option 3: Women are not applying for the jobs because they don't want them because of their laydee brains.

White males who aren't 25 can also be good at their jobs.

Of course they can be good at their jobs but that doesn't mean other people shouldn't get a chance when they are equally good or even possibly better.

I think it was Jackie smith or maybe Harriet Hartman who coined the term 'male pale stale'.

There's a council near me that does even have a single female councillor out of c. 30.

As someone involved in low level politics it is going to take such a long time to change things.

People can't even agree about quotas!

Getting in in politics takes up lots of time (not necessarily a great skill set ) which just isn't done thing a lot if women ESP mothers have.

Until ordinary men are prepared to stay home and 'babysit' do at least 50% of the chores then more women just aren't going to break through.

Politics will remain dominated by middle aged men with sahws.

"Politics will remain dominated by middle aged men with sahws."

Politics along with many areas!

grimbletart that article is thoroughly depressing! He is so bloody blind to the privilege that's at work...

But to favour males over females, or vice versa, is ideology gone mad.
Errr, yes. So why do we have the current make up of male:female p

Oops!

Errr, yes. So why do we have the current make up of male:female politicians, pray tell? Because a meritocracy it ain't.

Also, the world's tiniest violin is playing a sad song for the poor man who comes from the class who run the world. My heart bleeds.

Why is it always about share of the pie with the people who are at risk of losing privilege? I just imagine old white men clutching pie screaming "my pie!", as if it's inconceivable that the pie may grow as a result of being more equitable...

Meritocracy is meaningless where only a specific group is given the opportunity to prove their merit, or only their merit is recognised

Thank you, Petula. I might just be borrowing this for work.

And I think the cabinet is like work, in that many of us make the mistake of defining "best person for the job" as "person who has the highest and most relevant qualifications and experience" when 'they' are defining it as, "person least likely to make me look completely incompetent and two-faced and who won't criticise me when I'm not doing as well as I could."

(Some bitterness about personal issues with current management tree may be showing in this post.)

'Option 2: women are being prevented from realising their full potential'

Yes. Although technically this denies the fast-tracking of those women that do. Arguably, they over-achieve muddying the water. Youngest ever cabinet member etc....

Yes I hate the "best person for the job" argument. Because it implies that what we have today is a meritocracy and doesn't recognise the fact that the people who are overwhelmingly still in power look surprisingly like the people who were in power 200 years ago.

As if true societal change happens overnight and hey presto we're all equal now!

"Yes. Although technically this denies the fast-tracking of those women that do. Arguably, they over-achieve muddying the water. Youngest ever cabinet member etc...."

Monty, do you think over promotion of inexperienced women is a problem?

No, BillnTed. I don't. I think there need to be vanguards and role models.

This is 'within reason' obviously, but no one can seriously doubt that there are sufficiently qualified women available. However, we do need to be alive to the dangers of tokenism; if you over-promote too much then people won't believe they are there on merit. Was an ex-GMTV presenter the right choice? I don't know. Are women in their 20s a good choice? I'd rather see this element of doubt omitted.

Hmmm.

One of the things with politics is that people come from very varied backgrounds, and their direct MP experience only has 4-5 yearly entry points, on the whole. John Major was a 16 year old school leaver who'd been a bus conductor.

Tony Blair was the youngest ever prime minister, I think - there's always someone who is "the youngest" "the oldest" "has no experience outside of politics" "grew up overseas and doesn't understand the country" etc etc and I think it's unhelpful to see it as more tokenistic because Esther is female.

Part of politics is selling the message - TV and presentation skills are not unimportant.

You can't make direct compariosons to male politicians (espescially that achieved prominance two decades ago). Female politicians are subject to far more scrutiny and, if we accept that part of their remit is to represent women, then they need to have credibility. I'm not saying tv presenters can't be politicians, I'm suggesting it may not be the best option.

I think we've agreed that 'best person for the job' is a naive expectation.

So because there are fewer high ranking female politicians, the ones that are added to those ranks need to be a higher quality than any males added to those ranks? Is that what you mean?

Why the flying fuck is it in their remit to represent women?

Was David Mellor representing men? In his Chelsea shirt?

I shall regard all men as David Mellor then...

Good point, Norma.

Why the flying fuck is it in their remit to represent women?

This. So sick of this.

Bit fucking ironic that 'stale male and pale' is seen as so offensive by all the old white men considering the horrific words that have been used over time to describe everyone else.

A few choice ones

Slut
Nigger
Paki
Queer
Poof
Tart
Old bag

Etc

Poor delicate flowers...

I shall regard all men as David Mellor then

Does everyone have to? I quite like DH being DH, I don't think I could ever fancy him again if I had to think of him as David Mellor

Oh I love this! "Women need to be represented in parliament. We're totally ok with all-women short-lists and fast-tracking and we'll vote for women just because we need more women in parliament. Hooray for women and boo for stale male and pale."

So, if female politicians are not just being politicians but being female politicians, we need to be aware that they are some sort of vanguard. They represent the social progress fought for by feminists, they will act as role models, they represent women.

"Woah! So it's like totally unfair that there's more expectations. I'm totally sick of this".

And - lol also at "a punch in the face is fine because:

stabbing
kicking
garroting..."