More than thirty years on from the Sex Discrimination Act, we find that it is not just political parties that have trouble with female representation…
“Progress on women’s representation across a wide range of professions is painfully slow, and in some cases has gone into reverse…. there is a lack of concerted action to address these issues and suggests that achieving equality cannot be left to chance.”
We have to be careful not to confuse equality with parity. The former is a good thing and discrimination that hinders it should rightly be subject to prosecution. The latter is neither good, nor bad really – it’s a possible outcome that derives from a multitude of factors only one of which might be discrimination.
I tackled the press release for the same report here…
Sex and Power: Who runs Britain in 2007? Thank Gawd it ain’t Maggie Thatcher!
Do you think it is against the Sex Discrimination Act that Guido Fawkes keeps deleting my emissions on his sheets? Could he fear the challenge of my blog Forks Guide, and is his response typical MCP to the opposite gender coming up in the world?
Here we go again, round and round in circles!
To be honest Bob, we will never have “equality” until silly, divisive and patronising schemes like quotas and women’s shortlists are stopped. For years now we’ve been saying:
“oh, look at those poor women, ethnic minorities, and other minority groups, they can’t possibly make it on their own, they’re much too weak and feable, let’s help them by giving them special treatment, forget whether they’re capable of doing the job”
Sorry, but no, perception is everything in this world, and these schemes that often end up appointing the most unsuitable people to unsuitable jobs (let’s face it, it happens) just reinforces in everyone’s mind the perception that women, ethnic minorities, and other minorities are in fact perhaps not so capable of doing the job after all, and so people are far less willing to appoint them to positions of authority and the “minorities” themselves as a grouping become certainly less willing to compete like everyone else has to.
The result? – well, what we’ve got today, inequality!