Another blow for Harriet Harman and the Equality Brigade
Dear Harriet Harman,
Having received numerous letters from me over the course of this year discussing your poorly judged interpretations of equality and discrimination, it was wonderful to see the BBC making a programme that leaves you looking rather stupid. Much as the BBC website trailer for last night’s show on equality and parenting (which can be viewed HERE on iPlayer) tried to make men look like the bad guys and even included an interview with you, the survey of 1,000 people undertaken for the show left your perspective on equality in tatters.
The headline on the BBC website article was as follows: “Only 7% of men would be prepared to stay at home with a newborn baby if maternity benefits were replaced with parental ones, according to a survey.” This is certainly a concern, and casts some doubt on whether merely increasing paternity leave will get more men to stay at home. The BBC website also found time to churn out a few classic Harman-esque statistics on gender and pay: Every full-time working woman in the UK is paid on average £369,000 less than a man over their career; men dominate 87% of the top jobs in business; before children, 85% of working women are in full-time posts [but] this falls to 34% when they have pre-school children. In addition, the survey carried out for the show found that 54% of respondents thought men were the main breadwinners, although 67% did not think they should be, while almost one in five women said they experienced sex discrimination at work and twice as many men than women surveyed had asked for a pay rise in the last five years. Oh dear, how cruel society is to women – making them earn less, men still ‘keeping women in their place’, men discriminating against women for promotions blah blah blah. How can I possibly counter this?
Well, in fact, it’s remarkably easy to do so. The survey also uncovered a number of uncomfortable truths that shatter the myths peddled by the Equality Brigade: “Even fewer women – 4% – would hand over the role at home to the father, while two-thirds of working mothers said they only kept jobs out of necessity.” You hear that? 96% of women choose to stay at home and look after their children. The show also pointed out that men and women are level on pay in their 20s, but once they hit 30 the gap starts to widen and by the time people are in their 40s the average woman is earning 20% less than a man. Why? “I think it’s no coincidence that the gap starts widening when women tend to settle down and have children,” said Sophie Raworth, who presented the show. “And interestingly women who don’t have children tend to continue earning virtually the same as men as they continue in their careers.” This leaves us with the astonishing realisation of a simple fact: women earning less than men is not the result of discrimination; it’s the result of biology. Women carry the babies in the womb, women then choose to stay at home instead of the fathers and – surprise surprise – they end up earning less over their careers because of this time away from the workplace. I know that the show’s survey found almost 20% of women claiming that they had experienced sex discrimination at work, but this is so wildly subjective that it is impossible to draw any firm conclusions (how many of this 20% have taken legal action that sex discrimination would surely result in?).
It would be great if at some point you actually tried to address the reality of careers and salaries. To suggest that women suffer from discrimination as a starting point for a debate is disingenuous and ignores the fact that women who do not have children are just as succesful as men in their careers. Yes, I accept that parental leave, childcare and some individuals’ archaic attitudes towards women’s role in society all still need to be tackled, but your crude and ill-informed Equality Bill coupled with your abject refusal to engage with the evidence instead of peddling myths does you no favours. The truth hurts, so (in true Labour fashion) you just ignore it.
Yours sincerely,
A.Tory
“I know that the show’s survey found almost 20% of women claiming that they had experienced sex discrimination at work, but this is so wildly subjective that it is impossible to draw any firm conclusions…”
We really need people who could look into these figures thrown around wildly by government agencies and lobby groups.
We could call them, oh, ‘journalists’, maybe?
LFAT, to be fair, the blurb on the BBC website said this:
Presenter Sophie Raworth said having children badly affected women’s pay. Men and women are level on pay in their 20s, but once they hit 30 the gap starts to widen and by the time people are in their 40s the average woman is earning 20% less than a man, she said.
“I think it’s no coincidence that the gap starts widening when women tend to settle down and have children,” said Ms Raworth, who presents the show alongside Justin Rowlatt. “And interestingly women who don’t have children tend to continue earning virtually the same as men as they continue in their careers.”
Which is a fair and accurate summary, as far as I can tell.
As I have said before, if we agree that something should be done* about the mothers-pay-gap**, the whole problem is easily fixed.
* Whether anything ’should’ be done is a different topic, as a moderate feminist who is married with two kids, I can sort of see that there ’should’ be but I’m not going to get into a fight over it.
** The gap between mothers and fathers is actually irrelevant, as most couple pool incomes and expenses.
Good post. It’s long been my view that women are in the grip of a dictatorship by the “sisterhood” – a sort of loose coalition of left wing feminists – which demands women comply with their “vision” of how to live their lives. Truth is, many women don’t share the aspirations of the sisterhood, but don’t like to publicly say so for fear of being disloyal to their gender.
Julia, admittedly this was just one survey for one TV programme, but it really isn’t helpful at all. A proper investigation would be hugely welcome.
Mark, I know that you’ve looked into this issue as well. There should be no Equality Bill and no other action unless there is a genuine, evidence-based reason to do so. My concern is that the evidence simply doesn’t exist in the way that Harman presents it.
Stan, I agree that the pressure placed on women who do want to take a career break and stay at home with their children is totally unacceptable.
At night, once she has prayed to the Valkyries to deliver her a leadership victory, Harman dreams.
Sadly I haven’t seen this programme yet but that is a very interesting statistic. So only 7% of males would want to stay at home and only 4% of females would let them. I am not sure if this is simply a historic cultural thing as most facilities during the day for parents and kids are referred to as mother and baby/toddler! Is it that guys would feel less secure not being the breadwinner? A kind of chauvanistsic attitude but one that evolution has successfully instilled.
I can also see why females wouldn’t let them. Traditionally dads like to do the whole DIY thing. Which for 2 days out of seven disasters can be averted but if they had 7 days out of 7 to create dangerous objects then I think for the sake of health and safety then men should be the ones to go to work – it keeps them out of mischief!
It looks like Harriet has got this very wrong – maybe she is one of those females who got a touch too much testosterone in the womb. Better check her finger lengths!
LFAT, of course there shouldn’t be an Equality Bill and all the associated snooping and form filling nonsense, I was just saying that the cash differential between ‘working mothers’ and ‘everybody else’ could be sorted out at zero net cost by simplifying the welfare system.
Thanks Bill (I think).
Candid, there are certainly some cultural stereotypes that need cracking, but we sure as hell do not need biased and inappropriate legislation to do it.
Mark, I’m not sure about the mechanics of the welfare system so I’ll have to pass on that one, suffice to say that there must be a better system out there than what we have now!
“Candid, there are certainly some cultural stereotypes that need cracking, but we sure as hell do not need biased and inappropriate legislation to do it.”
- So how are you going to crack ‘cultural stereotypes’ then – seeing as ‘inappropriate legislation’ aint gonna do it.
I’m interested because I employ 11 men, some of whom need to have something ‘cracked’ – one told me he didn’t like working for a woman – so I stopped paying him – he didn’t like that either. You just can’t win!!!
Unlike the Labour Party, I do not believe that you can legislate what people think. Cultural stereotypes are notoriously difficult to eliminate, but crude and unwieldy legislation risks creating more resentment and will never ever solve the problem.
Seeing as the gender of people entering traditionally male-dominated careers (e.g. finance, law) are now almost completely balanced from what my friends within those professions tell me, there is an argument to say that there is no need to do anything because the bias from previous decades is already being rapidly flushed out of the system. Education is always the key to changing attitudes in the population, with legislation only being needed for individual cases of discrimination. Sorry, but these things take time – you cannot wish away the problems in the post-war period, despite what Harriet Harman might think.
@ LFAT:
“Unlike the Labour Party, I do not believe that you can legislate what people think.”
Exactly! And, as you sort of suggest, if you try to do so then people will (quite rightly) question your motives for doing so. Harman has no interest in equality – her only interest is promoting the groups she supports above those she does not.
Absolutely agree with you. I’m a woman – probably in the minority when I say that I have no desire to have children – nor does my partner. Not that we’re selfish – we both have nieces and nephews – we just enjoy our lifestyle the way it is.
As a woman without children I see no obstacles to me achieving equal pay with my male counterparts. I also know of very few women who actually would prefer to go to work instead of staying home and looking after a new born baby. They choose to. So to blame their subsequent lack of shooting up the pay scale on sex-discrimination etc is utter rubbish.
There used to be a saying ‘equal but different’. It’s a tricky concept, I suppose, as people tend to equate equality with being the same (identical traits, inputs, outputs). This is a lovely idea which immediately falls apart when it comes in contact with humanity. Every single individual is different – some like Marmite, some want to have kids, some are good at maths and some aren’t. Some have talents, some get lucky, some are beautiful, some are ugly.
The best, therefore, that I think you can do is to treat every single person the same in any given field. How our society chooses to value particular fields of endeavour is another matter but bluntly brickies will never earn as much as brain surgeons.
Anyone who takes a year off work for whatever reason – be it having a kid or taking a long holiday – will suffer financial penalties. But on the other hand you could argue that the intangible rewards of having a family or a holiday offset this. In this regard, sure, women shouldn’t be pushed into having to look after the kids at home but I have intellectual problems with maternity pay/leave. The standard is that of an ‘ill man’ – you can’t sack a guy for having a cold and you can’t sack a woman for being pregnant. Ironically I’d argue that this position demeans women by treating procreation as something other than a choice but that’s a different squabble…
@ Candid:
I completely agree with you. My lovely wife works part time and I work full time. She loves her job which is as a receptionist in a small construction company, earning about £500 per month. If she wanted, she has the skills, knowledge and experience to be the PA of a CEO or whatever. Therefore she could earn tons more than she does. Luckily, we dont need her to do that and she is not interested in the slightest. My lovely wife enjoys her 2 days off during the week without me around her feet! She goes to lunch with her friends (so she tells me!!) on her days off. Something she could never do when she worked for a large company full time.
What is the point, proving Harman wrong, what will that change?
It would be like proving Gove wrong with his FOIs relating to violence and arson and schools,
in both cases it is BS, but neither of the two of them are susceptible to reason.
So long as the Tories subscribe to fake BS themselves, they’re telling Harman, that is the operating agenda.
GOVEM@parliament.uk
So ask him to stop doing it, the NASUWT are the thug gang trying to deliver Harman’s agenda from the NCCL era, which has a remarkable similarity to the equality bill.
NOTES
(3) Letter from Harriet Harman, then Legal Officer of the NCCL, to Home Office minister Brynmor John, 25 April 1978. (4) Hansard, 10 February 1978, col. …
http://www.ipce.info/library_3/files/sap/sap_notes.htm – 30k – Cached – Similar pages
I remember Harriet when she was helping out the pedophiles (PIE/PAL) at the NCCL. It would assist, if Mr. Gove would stop helping the NASUWT, they are campaigning for legal teacher/schoolgirl sex.
In a real sense, Mr. Gove, is helping Harriet.
Gregory