This is my first – and long overdue – posting on Lords of the Blog. Having read some of the recent contributions from colleagues across the House I can see what a fantastic place it is to spread the word about the House of Lords and all the interesting and important work that goes on here, not forgetting all the wonderful people!
I am a lucky lady and as Leader of the Lords I have many hats. I am a proud member of the Government and the Cabinet and a proud Leader of the Labour Group in the Lords. But I am also proud to have two less partisan hats to wear. One as Chancellor of the Duchy of Lancaster (more of that another time) and as Leader of the whole House. This all leads to a very varied diary. Last Friday I was speaking at the Gloucester Labour Party’s Christmas dinner, today I’ll speak in the chamber during the SSRB debate as Leader of the House and this week I’ll also be reading a lesson at the Savoy Chapel in my capacity as Chancellor of the Duchy.
A fifth hat is an occasional role as a Bill Minister. I will be wearing this particular hat on Tuesday when I speak for the Government in the Second Reading of the Equality Bill. This is an important piece of legislation that will simplify equality laws in the UK whilst helping to narrow the gap between rich and poor, require businesses to report on disparities in gender pay, strengthen the UK’s anti-discrimination legislation and outlaw age discrimination.
We’ve come a long way in terms of equality over the last twelve years, and there is much to celebrate, but some facts are still pretty shocking. Women are still paid on average twenty three percent less per hour than men, disabled people are twice as likely to be out of work, people from ethnic minority backgrounds are nearly a fifth less likely to find work and older people still face discrimination day-in and day-out on things like car and travel insurance. Clearly this is wrong and we should do all we can to make our laws – and our society – as fair as possible.
The debate will be fascinating. There are many eminent speakers down on the Speakers’ List and, as in most debates in the Lords, I will learn a huge amount. I’ll get back to my briefing now but before I do, I want to take this opportunity to wish the readers of this blog – and colleagues across the House – a very Happy Christmas and a Peaceful New Year.
I’ve got the blogging bug now so will be back in the New Year. Do let me know if there are any aspects of my role as Leader of the House that you would particularly like to hear about.
Women are still paid on average twenty three percent less per hour than men
Why is that shocking? Well it is in one way. You haven’t taken account of time off from the workspace for family etc.
If people take time off, then they have less experience of the skills needed for that job.
Men by and large don’t take time of to raise a family, the go out to work to provide the money, enabling their partners to stay at home to raise children.
So unless you factor out people’s choices from your statistics, you will get numbers that you can use to shock.
In reality, its the mis use of statistics that is shocking
Wow. Are you for real?
Women in equivalent jobs earn on average twenty three percent less. Not “women” as an entire group. Individual women in equivalent positions with equivalent qualifications and experience.
This is not new. It is not surprising. That your knee-jerk response – and I note from your username that you are male, which makes you very qualified to jerk from the knee – criticised someone else for misusing statistics because of a frightful error that you had made and an unforgivable lack of basic research skills is frankly rude, sir.
Not at all. The orginal post said b****r all about equivalent work and experience.
It was all about women as a group.
That’s why the issue about equivalent experience matters. Otherwise, in other jobs its about profits. What profits you as an individual manage to earn.
That’s my personal preference. You should be paid for what you do, and not your sex.
However, you’re wanting the criteria to be sex, and not ability.
So I’ll ask the question again. Would you expect the average wage for a woman to be the same as a man, considering that on average they will have less experience because of raising children?
Nick
Nick
Experience is far from the be all and end all – I would certainly far rather a woman with less “bum behind a desk” experience than some entitled male oaf, for example.
You seem to believe that raising children gives one no experience of anything except raising children. You realise that “women’s work” being mostly unremunerated doesn’t mean it’s not *work*, don’t you?
However, I do have some questions for you.
Q1. What percentage of amendments come from you, and what percentage come from Lords other than the ‘executive’ [You’re all government, in that you tell us what to do]
Q2. You cost us 2,000 pounds a day, each. Are you value for money? Could we get better value by spending that money in other ways?
Q3. When are you going to change your language? You don’t refer to the eminent check out girl at Tescos.
Nick
Welcome my Lady, the more the merrier.
I look forward to the equality bill blog, I may glean more factual evidence than I have at present which leads me to believe the bias is just going to be turned 180.
As far as your hats go, in my opinion, one or two need throwing away. I`m no lover of Party politics especially in the Lords. Now if you were proud of the job you do on behalf on the Nation and it`s people I would warm a little more.
I`ll tell you how independent I am, I once worked in a closed shop industry,you HAD to be a UNION member. I refused to sign the form, not because I objected to being a member but the form asked me to obey all future rules the Union might make. My Union rep scrubbed the obligatory sentence for me.
Pride can be a weakness as well as a strength.
Have a good Christmas my Lady.
BTW aren`t redheads just a lot more fun and a lot sexier.
😉
So many hats! Why not keep the one associated with Lord President?
I am interested in your take on the Equality Bill. Why would a parliamentarian vote for it over the enforcment of existing legislation? Do you agree with all-women party lists?
Seasonal greetings, etc.
Welcome to LotB, Baroness Royall!
I haven’t been following the Bill, and I don’t know what’s in it, but I notice some of the things you mentioned.
“Women are still paid on average twenty three percent less per hour than men, disabled people are twice as likely to be out of work, people from ethnic minority backgrounds are nearly a fifth less likely to find work and older people still face discrimination day-in and day-out on things like car and travel insurance.”
I really do not see how legislation can be of much help in some of these situations; older people are discriminated against by insurance companies because they are more likely to have accidents whilst driving. If the government sees this as a problem, then why not also ‘help’ younger drivers, who also fall under special interest from insurance companies. Or perhaps, raising the average pension is just too much for you?
Ethnic minority groups are, typically, immigrants. I don’t know, but suspect that second or third generation migrants will have jobs, and that those who’ve just arrived are unlikely to do so.
The long-term disabled are likely to have lost skills, rather than making employers hire people because they turn up, give these people the ability to acquire new skills and the confidence to get jobs for themselves.
I won’t go on, I would simply ask you to consider that, while you have identified problems, you’re solutions are almost as bad. These problems require money to fix. Money spent on the services that they could use to help themselves; training, pensions, and schooling are all that is needed to solve some of the problems that you mention.
Legislation is too simple an instrument for social problems.
Baroness Royale,
Her Ladyship is very polite about the wonderful people in the noble house.
An interesting figure for the unemployed is that not only are the disabled twice as likely to be unemployed but the unemployed are twice as likely to become disabled, so it may be a vicious cycle of deprivation of certain castes of people.
Since there about 4m in the unemployed category the “twice” may not be that valuable any way, but to back up her Ladyship’s theory it is an interesting idea.
The noble baroness has my excellent complements for her dedication to duty as leader of the house of Lords in recent months.
It can be no easy task at the best of times.
Lord Speaker knows how very wearing the responsibilty of representing Parliament round the world can be, (as do the royal family)but I am quite sure that the Leader of HofL has an equally wearing task, which the noble baroness some how, manages to smile all through!
Equality related stuff…
http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/uk_politics/8412746.stm
I think the statistics about ‘equal pay’ do rather miss the point. Women could have equal pay tomorrow if they were willing to be as self-centred, mercenary, one-track-minded as blokes and sacrifice happiness and a good quality of life for the extra dosh.
Who is to say that women, due to their superior intelligence, have looked at life with a more circumspect view and have found that success is measured by a wider number of metrics than just the size of a salary.
Of course one can say that the comparison is with ‘work of equal value’, but women still are not as narrow-minded as us chaps and so one is to expect that they want a broader base of measures of happiness.
I am not sure this is entirely true, Mr Gelert. Certainly one cannot exist in the world as it stands and open one’s on a regular basis without seeing the actual cultural bias towards the valuing of owners of penises – and specifically those penises of a paler hue, at that – as being, if not better, at least culturally more normal.
Our language, our culture, our society is subtly geared towards male as a default setting for people. Normatively masculine characteristics are defined as virtues, normatively feminine ones as weaknesses. Women hoe a fine row in public life between being too “emotional” or high minded or weak – they have periods and hormones, don’t you know!! – and being construed as ball-busting, man hating, unfeminine dykes on the other. We may say that women simply choose not to be as mercenary as men, but given that our culture finds aggressive, strong, self-sufficient women to be distasteful and slightly suspicious, it can hardly be said that all other things are equal, which is generally considered the baseline for a scientific comparison of behaviour differences.
I suggest we alter society so that it is not biased against women before we declare that women, whether through innate divinity or innate weakness (although the former is hardly a new argument and was used by opponents of suffrage to argue that women were too noble to sully themselves with base, masculine behaviours like politics) choose to be less well remunerated for the same work as a man.
Also, as a man, I take offense to the implication that I am a narrow-minded, mercantile buffoon who is incapable of making rational choices about whether to trade off money for “quality of life”.
Perhaps gender essentialism is not the correct way to go here.
Indeed, Bedd, or should I call you Prof Higgins?
“Clearly this is wrong and we should do all we can to make our laws – and our society – as fair as possible.”
But aren’t the laws potentially as much a part of the problem as the solution ? I know that the majority of visually impaired people are out of work, despite Disability Discrimination Act.
If an employer would be forced to pay a VIP exactly the same salary as a non-disabled person, then we may expect many small/medium sized enterprises [SMEs in the jargon] to employ the non-disabled person. What have they got to lose ? If the law is invoked, they can just choose not to employ someone, or the small risk of litigation is outweighed by the perceived risk that the person is unsuitable.
If they were allowed, legally, to ‘try before you buy’ on a 50% salary for 3 months, then employ the person full-time for 80% of the salary, then the pc brigade would be apoplectic about ‘exploitation’, but the person would have a job they might not have had otherwise.
Of course the lobby groups would talk about ‘entrenching discrimination’ and the like, but the point is, once the VIPs and other disabled people are through the door, they will get trained, learn new skills and when people can SEE how good they are, demand for their services will bid up the salary and they will be offered new opportunities as other companies compete for the talent.
The problem with relying on the law is that it doesn’t really change ‘hearts and minds’ so if the law retreats or is repealed, then behaviour ‘reverts to type’.
A strict legalistic interpretation of fairness is leading, I feel, to unintended consequences – as famously outlined by Alan Sugar who said that the way he got around the law on sex discrimination and women of child-bearing age was ‘not to employ any’.
I wonder what he is doing these days ?
Why, if a person with visual impairment could do the job just as well, would they be happy with 80% of the salary? Do they have less food to buy or smaller houses to heat?
But that is a different argument.
Same employer, same job, same output, same pay.
I’ve no problem with that. So if the person does (not could) do the same job as someone else, same pay. Male female, gay or straight, able or disabled, black or white, religeous or not.
No issue with that.
Why are you saying could? What does it matter if they can? Shouldn’t it be if they do?
What about the employer? Are you saying employer A should be forced to pay the same as employer B?
What about the biases in the original statistic?
ie. Doesn’t take account of part time work. Bais in favour of women surely.
“Women are still paid on average twenty three percent less per hour than men”
Now here we all were ready to welcome a new blogger and then you have to say this! You must know why the use of this figure is controversial because it includes full and part time workers together. When the gender divide is ~4:1/F:M for part time work it is perfectly obvious why this imbalances the figures unless you look at PT/FT separately.
As I’m sure you must be aware the UK Statistics Authority has already written to the Government stating that:
“it is the Statistics Authority’s view that use of the 23% on its own, without qualification, risks giving a misleading quantification of the gender pay gap.”
The Letter to Harriet Harman is here and also the same subject is covered in another letter
here
Please see response below from Baroness Royall:
First of all a big thank you to everyone who has commented on my first posting on Lords of the Blog. And secondly, an apology for the delay in coming back to you. It has been a particularly busy couple of days for me in the Lords, speaking in the debate on the SSRB report yesterday and speaking again in the Equality Bill Second Reading today.
I’m pleased to see that the Equality Bill has sparked a good debate on here. The second reading debate in the House this afternoon will answer many of these questions and will be available online
I take the point from Bedd Gelert about the need to change “hearts and minds” rather than just relying on the law, but I do think that landmark Acts of Parliament such as the Sex Discrimination Act (1975) and the Race Relations Act (1976) have played an important role in improving peoples’ lives here in the UK.
On non-Equality Bill comments:
Nick – Most amendments are not tabled by the Government. Not all amendments debated are voted on but we spend a great deal of time discussing non-government (in the executive sense) amendments. I think the House of Lords is great value for money. It does an enormous amount of work and is one of the least expensive legislative chambers in the world.
I agree that our language, like that of the House of Commons, can appear old fashioned. But it does ensure a certain level of formality and politeness.
Carl – I am very proud of the jobs I do, as you say, “on behalf of the nation” as a Cabinet Minister, as Chancellor of the Duchy and as Leader of the whole House, but that does not in any way preclude me from being very proud of my party political roles. Political parties are important to our processes of government and politics. I believe they are a good thing.
Ladytizzy – I greatly enjoyed my time as Lord President of the Council but since the reshuffle earlier this year when I became Chancellor of the Duchy of Lancaster that role now belongs to my noble friend Lord Mandelson.
Thank you to everyone for commenting.
Nick – Most amendments are not tabled by the Government. Not all amendments debated are voted on but we spend a great deal of time discussing non-government (in the executive sense) amendments. I think the House of Lords is great value for money. It does an enormous amount of work and is one of the least expensive legislative chambers in the world.
How can you say its great value for money when you don’t discuss the cost?
1,800 pounds a minute. Do you think that’s good value?
Nick
Nick
The Baroness does discuss the cost, relative to other legislative chambers. £1800 a minute is a meaningless number without context. It is certainly far, far less than, for example, the US Senate costs American taxpayers – and it does far less damage!
Ms.Harmans use of stastics to further her own agenda is worrying. It`s not the first time it has happened and the public realise that if she states it, you need to look it up yourself.
Repeating something, as both houses have before may make it seem gospel but it doesn`t make it true. I am really concerned that this is being allowed time and again. It is and will have an impact on law making.
Manipulating facts is a bad way of doing business.
“I take the point from Bedd Gelert about the need to change “hearts and minds” rather than just relying on the law, but I do think that landmark Acts of Parliament such as the Sex Discrimination Act (1975) and the Race Relations Act (1976) have played an important role in improving peoples’ lives here in the UK.”
You are of course correct Baroness Royall – I guess my concern is to see that legislation is to supplement other changes in society, and not as an alternative to it.
I have to second Croft on this – we rely on the House of Lords to contribute some clear (and ideally non-partisan) thinking to the often-hasty legislation coming from the other House. The use of misleading statistics, already criticised by the ONS, comparing full-time male to part-time female workers, particularly from the Leader of the House, undermines everyone’s faith in the Lord’s ability to do this.
For the record, when comparing full-time male to female workers, the gap is 12.8%; when comparing part-time workers, women earn 3.4% more.
http://www.bbc.co.uk/blogs/thereporters/markeaston/2009/06/womens_minister_used_misleadin.html
http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/uk_politics/8096761.stm
Oh, is it only 12.8%? Well that’s alright then. That’s almost equal, isn’t it?
Yep by the time you take off the extra tax and NI 🙂
McDuff can you say unequivocally that the 12.8% is like for like ? For the same company in the same area ?
Statistics are just that, by the manipulation of what they are measuring any argument can seem won. Most Companies have a going rate, not one for women and one for men. That would be illegal. It`s only as you climb to the top of the tree that differences may appear and in most cases for a good reason.
Please name me a Company where there is disparity in salary between a man and a woman ?
Oh come ON.
How mired in privilege are you, Mr Holbrough?
Are you honestly, seriously, coming in here and saying that the experiences of women in finding it tougher in the marketplace are non-existent? That there is no discrimination against women in 21st century Britain? No pay gap, and no glass ceiling?
Are the women who complain about such things merely being frivolous and emotional? Are they fighting wars that are unnecessary because, after all, women have the vote, what more do they want?
Also, are you seriously suggesting that you are so bad at basic statistics that you asked “is that 12.8% like for like?” Of course I do not know unequivocally that every disparate wage is truly “like for like”. I also know that, over a population, a 12.8% difference is statistically significant. And women pay tax and NI too! Unless you are suggesting that the 12.8% puts women as a class into a lower tax bracket. Is that what you’re suggesting, Mr Holbrough?
In my experience there are two kinds of people who dismiss the notion that we should attempt to treat women in our society more justly and fairly.
The first are people who do not think women should be treated more justly. They do not value the work women do, so feel it is right that it should be entirely unvalued – such as it is when a woman stays at home to put the work in to keep a house and raise children when a man goes off to do the “real” work of, say, being a chartered accountant – or that it is somehow of lesser value and that low wages for traditionally female jobs like teaching and nursing are entirely justified, and that anyway women do it because of their “natural” nurturing instincts. They think women really are happiest in the home, looking after children. They believe men have “what it takes” to be captains of industry, while women are sadly deficient. They are, in a word, sexist.
Then there is the other type, who believes that women are equal and have a right to fair treatment, but who cannot believe that they are that badly treated that it is worth making a fuss about. There must be some explanation that otherwise explains away apparent unfairness and reveals it to be fair after all. Because if there is not, whether the man reasons to this point or, much more often, simply understands it implicitly as a tickling of his conscience, if there is a genuine disparity of justice which benefits men to the detriment of women, this would make the man a beneficiary in an unfair system and would render him culpable. And he often doesn’t feel discriminated towards – doesn’t feel like he hasn’t worked for his crusts, so therefore the complaints of women must be baseless and frivolous – understandable, really, since it’s what women do.
There are people who understand that it’s possible to be a beneficiary of a class privilege without being a wealthy landowner, and that just as “I’m not a racist but…” arguments about the earning power of nonwhite ethnicities are baseless and ignore systemic inequalities built into not just the system of work but into the cultural framework which tells us all how to value other members of society, so this is true of “the women are really equal” arguments even in the face of evidence that they are not. That men – white men particularly – have a privilege of cultural bias towards them that manifests itself in many small ways, not least of which is the immediate assumption of competence when being judged by another white man – a privilege many men do not extend to women, at least in “male” tasks like engineering, driving or running a legislative chamber. Or the privilege of being allowed to fail at a task without becoming immediately representative of all members of your class and merge into evidence later used to justify discrimination against other white men. Or even of living in a society where male superiority is ingrained deeply into the culture from all manner of historical directions, and where the notion of equality for our gender is not a recent aberration, with laws on which the ink is still dry required to back up our right to be treated as full human beings, where nobody would think to suggest that a man cannot drive, or run a bank, or record a band to record, simply because of some quality of maleness which disqualifies him for the task; of simply not being told, day in, day out from childhood that your gender means you Can Not Do Things.
Mr Holbrough, your position is fairly plainly in the second camp. “The problems aren’t that bad,” you opine, and where they emerge there’s “good reason” for inequality. Or, at least, a reason. Whether it’s good or not you have no clue and, I’d suggest, an active disinterest in learning whether it is good or not. The discovery that one is a beneficiary of class privilege, however slight, when one believes one has achieved everything solely on their personal merits, can be quite a crushing thing, and masculinity in this topsy-turvy modern era is a delicate construction that requires a great deal of nurturing to maintain. Nonetheless, I, sir, feel no special need to coddle you or anyone else on this matter.
Since Bedd is a fictitious Welshman, I should remind him the the ancient Laws of Wales in the oldest Law book of these islands, the name of which I shall not mention, distinguishes six different categories of woman.
I cannot fathom what the six are, but I reckon there are far more now than there ever were!
Men too.
“Since Bedd is a fictitious Welshman..”
How very dare you !!
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gelert
The Baroness does discuss the cost, relative to other legislative chambers. £1800 a minute is a meaningless number without context. It is certainly far, far less than, for example, the US Senate costs American taxpayers – and it does far less damage!
So what’s the issue with the Americans? It’s the standard defence. Namely someone else is getting away with it, you can’t prosecute me. The US isn’t the UK and so what they get forced to spend on their senate is irrelevant to the UK.
Or should we say other countries do matter? Like New Zealand. Similar legal set up, and what is the cost of their second chamber? Zero. I don’t notice New Zealand collapsing.
That’s the only relative cost.
That’s why they are so keen on discussing their ‘relative poverty’ In reality the only question is what they cost the public.
2,000 pounds a minute if you use the figures published in their annual report. That puts it in context.
It takes 1 standard british peasant working for a year to pay enough tax to substain the lords for 1 minute. (Assuming they consume nothing). Hard cold fact.
It’s not worth it.
Nick
PS. Don’t forget the interest on top. It’s all on borrowed money.
What a dire bore you are.
If you support the principal of unicamerality on its merits, come out and say so. If not, this prissy concern-trolling around the issue of cost is abject nonsense on its face.
Legislatures cost money. Ours has an upper house, which costs money – like all bicameral legislatures – but which costs less than the second house of other bicameral systems.
I, personally, am happy for even the meagre victories that the unelected upper house has won for my own personal rights and freedoms against the authoritarians who currently run wild through our democratically elected lower house. The Lords is far from perfect, but I believe we have benefited from having a bicameral system over the last decade at least. If we want a system of government that benefits us, we have to pay for it.
And relative costs, of course, are useful because they give a general idea of how much it costs to run a legislative branch of government.
Now, are you going to get over yourself and present an actual argument about the benefits of unicamerality, or are you just going to Woe-Is-Us-Poor-Peasants some more?
I thought Bedd meant a grave as in grave of the dog Gelert? I seem to remember it’s a place not a person but if peers can adopt a nomen territoralis, no reason why bloggers shouldn’t too.
BM: “if peers can adopt a nomen territoralis”. They might do better to adopt a ‘nomen territorialis’? You of course refer to your post ‘The Office’ 29 May, 2009 but it could also apply to your as yet unamed constituency in an elected house.
Experience is far from the be all and end all – I would certainly far rather a woman with less “bum behind a desk” experience than some entitled male oaf, for example.
So you’re saying that it’s ‘experience’ or skill. You don’t want the male who’s the oaf. (lack of skill)
That’s why I’ve said it skill and experience based. It’s not about sex. Period.
What some feminists want is for it to be about sex. That skill and experience aren’t the only considerations, and that the sex of the person has to be taken into account.
I’m sorry, but that position is out and out sexism.
There is no place either for buggin’s turn.
Nick
But in the case of many men – and I would say that from experience you fit right into this mould, sir – that it is about sex.
Of course, they don’t believe it is, because to them “male” isn’t a gender, it’s the default position. That is why they can talk about the “sexism” of feminism with a straight face, without even realising that they are defending a stacked deck on the basis of fairness. Only a fool would believe that the current playing field is level, and only a boor would believe that attempting to level a playing field is discriminatory. If you feel discriminated against, perhaps it is because you have historically been rather gently treated. I know, your life was probably terribly hard and you worked for everything you got, I know, I know, nobody ever gave you anything.
There is a difference between being discriminated against, and having some of the benefits previously extended to your class marginally eroded. I suggest that if you do not learn the difference, you will continue to sound like a spoiled little boy crying because he has to share his cake with the other children at the birthday party.
And, in case it wasn’t crystal clear, I am saying that I cannot think of what manner of experience you could bring to a company I run where I would choose to employ you or any many like you. I would pick a less experienced, less skilled woman over you because you are such a frightful dullard.
What about pensions?
Equality? Where is the compenstation for 5 years of pensions that men missed out compared to women? 30,000 pounds difference, and that isn’t taking into account the life expectancy issues.
Why is it that women who want to get something extra just for being a woman when it comes to work, are not campaigning for equality and back pay for men when the discrination is reversed?
More evidence that its self interest that is the motivation, not that of equality.
Nick
Wait, Nick? Women are campaigning for “something extra just for being a woman” therefore they’re not being discriminated against, right?
So how can the discrimination be reversed in the case of men?
Would you like to make your case consistently, or would you prefer to just keep spilling your psychological issues with women all over the internet for the whole world to see and pity?
I’ve no psychological issues. The issue is one of fairness. i.e. No one group receives a privilidge or discrimination. It’s all about individual skill, talent and experience.
So, women getting discriminated against in the workplace against an equally qualified man, equally experienced man is wrong. Period.
Discriminatation against men by appointing a woman with less experience etc, just because they are a woman is wrong. Period.
Paying a pension out at an earlier age because someone is a woman is wrong. Period.
ie. I’m not discriminating either way. Pick any of the statements above, and flip the genders. Replace man/woman with black/white, gay or straight, which ever way round you read it, it will be fair.
There is no argument either for saying look, group X has been discrimated against in the past, group X now has to have benefits denied to others for a period. That’s equally as wrong.
Hence the question for you as to paying men the 30K they have missed out on by having a higher retirement age. It’s not mentioned by you. Quelle surprise.
Hence the conclusion, you’re just out for benefits for yourself, and looking for an excuse perhaps as to why life hasn’t turned out as it has done.
As for the 12% being statistically significant, it ignores the major issue. If you want to climb the greasy poll and make lots of money, its going to take time and effort. If you take several years out of work, you can’t expect to climb as high. Fact of life that isn’t in that statistic.
Nick
McDuff, you blog like a woman, with hairy legs. At home we sorted all this equality stuff out years ago. What’s mine is hers and what’s hers, is hers.
Nick
I don’t mention the pension because it’s an utterly asinine statement to make.
Firstly, if we were to value, say, the work women do raising children at the national minimum wage then they already subsidise men far more than £30K over their lifetimes.
Secondly, men have historically been far more likely to have the secure and remunerative positions where “early retirement” at 55 or even 50 has been an option.
The fact that you focus on the narrow circumstances in which men, as a class, can be said to have lost out, while either ignoring, overlooking or being simply blissfully unaware of the extent to which women have lost out and men have benefited shines a spotlight on your inherent biases.
Look up confirmation bias sometimes, Nick.
Senex
My word! How droll! It is funny because women who complain about unfair treatment tend to be ugly and not groom themselves according to the required standards of decency, ammirite?! Those pesky women, with their talking and their making a noise and their nagging you. Intolerable behaviour, and if they can’t even be pretty too, well, how do they ever expect to get any respect, eh, if they can’t even slap a bit of makeup on?
It is funny how blogging style can reveal stereotypical physical characteristics, though, isn’t it? For example, your comments seem to me to be rather similar to those of a man who is unfortunately rather less well endowed than his wife would like. However, before this point I have to say I wouldn’t have dreamed of resorting to speculation about someone’s physical appearance or substandard performance in the bedroom as a cornerstone of argumentation technique. Good job you reminded me about the specifics of exceptions to that kind of decorum, here.
In answer to McDuff
Posted December 19, 2009 at 2:08 pm
A deeply emotive post McDuff but lacking in substance and fact. You mention the fact that teaching and nursing which you infer to be mailnly “womens ” jobs maybe seen as lesser than that of a lot of men and are of a lesser salary because they are womens jobs. Obviously this is untrue as men do indeed exist in those professions and the payscale and perks are often superior to some jobs seen as mainly mens work.
By deliberately analysing totally different jobs and comparing salaries gives the statistics a skew which could be used in anyway one wished. The man who clears the toilets in Parliament maybe paid a lot less than those who have seats is he discriminated against ? No his job is different and valued differently in a commercial world.
Women, in general, choose to have children, I cannot make them, we have laws against that. In the time they have off work looking after those children they lose experience that men do not. There are various circumstances that can be applied to explain the 12.8% gap.
There ARE many tasks that women excel in, I do not put the value on their skills the market does. You cannot legislate that an hour of anyones times would be worth £x , idealism, communism yes but it`s not going to happen.
I asked you to point out in a like for like scenario where women get paid less, you appear unable. A lot of women in this country are a great deal higher in terms of pay than most men. I will grant you that to prove themselves often they feel and will work a great deal harder than some men but they are there.
The use of the statistic 12.8% is null and void unless we know the accuracy and exactly what it measures and also what it doesn`t take into account. Mrs.Thatcher, female, HRH Queen Elizabeth II, female, Baroness Deech, female et al.
Should I be thinking ” ahhh poor women let`s pay them more cos they`re so hard done by “? I think not ! There are various circumstances that account for the 12.8% gap you just have no wish to take them into account. A man applying for a job is told the salary, he accepts or doesn`t. A woman applies for a job, accepts the salary and then bleats “sexual discrimination” that someone in a totally seperate industry gets more than them. Oh please !
Time to legislate everyones salary ? Time to legislate that certain people are promoted beyond their capabilities just to keep a balance ?
Show the evidence you have found that a like for like skill that is marketable is discriminated against without grounds. I know many women in many industries including, drivers and engineering that got to the top by merit, most earn more than me and my -white penis-. I object to law that gives men, specifically white men a handicap.
McDuff please be specific and show where women have a handicap in precise cases that aren`t covered by existing law.
The “precise cases” are not mentioned because they are specious. Baroness Thatcher’s career no more proves a lack of sexist inequality in our society than Barack Obama’s election proves that there is no such thing as racism in the USA.
Exceptions to general trends do not undermine the trends, unless someone was claiming that the trends represented absolutes, which I am not. But I do not have to be. Nursing is traditionally regarded as a female profession, and the fact that between 5-10% of nurses in the 21st century are male in no way constitutes some kind of crippling blow against the assertion – in fact, quite the opposite. Likewise,the gender balance in the teaching profession drops off dramatically as the age of children decreases, such that even now a university professor is far more likely to be male than female and an infant school teacher far more likely to be female than male.
Your fatuous strawman descriptions of pay inequality cases speak to your absolute contempt for the situation. Women do not “accept a salary then bleat (bleat, sir?) about different industries.” The typical sexual discrimination/inequality case is that of a woman being passed over for promotions or offered lower wage rises than men in her own company. Very few of these cases ever come to court, or are even challenged, because not only do women share with men a dislike of being “that guy” – the one everyone else looks at as being the troublemaker or the “bleater”, but also know about the additional social stigma that attaches itself to noisy women. One only has to look at this comment thread, with Bedd Gelert’s fetishisation of the meekness and virtuousness of women, to see one example of the cultural constructions which influence people’s perceptions of gendered behaviour. It is despicable to quote a inaccurate generalisation and use it to disparage an injustice faced by an entire class of people.
I’d ask you to answer me, if you can, when we became an equal society? Presumably you would not agree that we have not historically been equal – women could not vote until about a hundred years ago, and spousal rape (a crime which can, I admit before you cry foul with specious exceptions in the statistical samples, affect men, but which massively and disproportionately affects women) was not even recognised as a crime until 1991 – living memory for everyone in this comment thread, I suspect! So if you are convinced that there is no need to address any inequality, presumably you must feel that there is no unjust inequality, no unfair treatment of women on the basis of their sex, in our society at present?
Laws, also, do not change behaviours as much as you may suspect. You claim that “it is against the law” means that people do not do it – an absurd and asinine statement which you cannot hope to defend.
When, between 1918 and today, did women start being treated equally, such that they should stop complaining about the injustice and seeking remedies for it? Surely, if you believe that such remedies are all nonsensical and unnecessary, you must know the answer to this?
McDuff, I will be bried before I withdraw and agree to disagree with SOME of which you posted.
I have 4 daughters, 2 grand daughters obviously I want the best for them but I do recognise there is a difference in sexuality between them and men. The sexual element will alway`s exist and has to for procreation to continue.
Perhaps you`re right and I haven`t experienced glass ceilings etc., but very few of the women I`ve known have had a problem concerning these issues.
At present I am dealing with a case of alleged rape against my grand daughter who lives me and it is a continuous worry of any Father with daughters the state of our Nation and streets. My wife and various other partners have also suffered abuse at the hands of partners, I too once or twice but it was the MANLY thing not to retaliate or defend. I also suffered 10 years sexual abuse by MEN, it isn`t only confined to women. The three month sentence given to the one person who COULD be prosecuted was laughable.
Equality will not ever happen, it cannot. You cannot legislate nature to stop, Canute tried I believe.
If my argument has offended I apologise, my stance will probably not change. This is possibly due to my upbringing,life experiences and my social status. Maybe if you could change all of those my attitude might change.
As I stated my attention is elsewhere and I am unable to continue giving reasonable debate in circumstances. My apologies, I withdraw.
Baroness Royall: Welcome to the blog.
There are two types of peer in the house. Them with a coat of arms and them having a coat with arms.
Which one do you belong to?
And there was I think the two sorts were those who fiddle their expenses, and those who think its a mystery that people were fiddling.
🙂
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/newstopics/mps-expenses/6852178/Baroness-Adams-the-peer-who-claimed-200000-but-has-spoken-only-once.html
Did she come to the house via the Noble route, the Lords’ Appointment Commission or the Honourable route through Number 10 Downing Street?
McDuff. The only reason you failed to mention pensions is that its an absolutely clear example of discrimination against men. You’re trying to make the case that it’s women who are discriminated against.
Now, I’ve no doubt that some women are. I’ve no doubt too that when it comes to men ALL are.
What you aren’t making clear, is what the criteria should be. What’s the test?
My view, is that its experience and qualifications that are the test. In the case of performance related pay, its performance that matters. ie. The test has to be clear and easy one to understand.
You’ve not proposed anything about the test. You want it to be anything you want it to be, so long as women benefit.
That’s why the completely false use of a statistic by a Lord matters. Particularly because it has been shown to be wrong and politicians already told not to use it in that way.
ie. If someone has more experience, I would expect them to be paid more. Likewise for qualifications. Likewise for performace. For women, if they take time off work to do something else, then they will on average have less experience and so end up having, on average lower wages.
If you think this is wrong, perhaps you should start a women’s only airline, with pilots who’ve acquired skills raising children. No doubt it’s a relavent skill to have.
It’s a objective test that matters, not a subjective opinion
You’re absolutely off the deep end, aren’t you?
Do you also believe that all white people are treated like second class citizens, because there’s no such thing as racism and any laws designed to redress this imaginary concept therefore unduly burden pale people?
I do not see how anyone who is not viewing the world through a filter of complete bitterness could possibly believe that all men are discriminated against. All you have to do is count the CEOs and do some division!
You’re a lunatic, sir.
And, as I pointed out, if you’re going to claim that a five year difference in retirement age counts as discrimination against men, then you also have to count years of unpaid work that women provide to subsidise men, and the increased chance of early retirement! I’m not ignoring it, I’m pointing out that the only skill you appear to have honed is a tabloid-style cherry picking of data that suits your personal grudges. Hardly the kind of thing I find at all useful in a person.
Can you fly a plane, sir?
Did she come to the house via the Noble route, the Lords’ Appointment Commission or the Honourable route through Number 10 Downing Street?
Can I fly a plane? Yep, I can. Albeit gliders. I’ve all three diamonds if you know what that means.
I’ve no personal grudges. You however, are coming across as a female equivalent of a mysogynist.
That’s why I’ll repeat the question, because its the only relevant one.
What’s the criteria that are applied for discrimination? Any discrimination.
It’s discrimination on a objective basis against a group because of some identifying characturistic. It’s not treating people as individuals, its treating them as a member or perceived member of some ‘group’.
That’s why you’re attitude is wrong. You think that discrimination against men is justified because some other members of another group women have experience discrimation. ie. You think its buggins turn.
Well, that is discrimination. You want prividges and you want to deny that to another group.
I on the other hand want to stop any form of discrimination. You want to benefit from it.
That’s the difference. You’re in favour, otherwise you would’t have written what you have just said.
Nick
That is absolutely not the case, sir. As I keep pointing out, you seem to believe that women are not currently discriminated against. That the playing field is equal and level and equivalence is achieved.
It is abundantly clear to anyone with eyes that men are still privileged relative to women. This privilege is not just limited to wages and jobs, of course, but it is certainly the one on which metrics can be measured.
That some men believe that “loss of privilege relative to another class” is equivalent to “discrimination” is neither here nor there. People tend to believe that if they are on top that the “natural order of things” should be protected.
Incidentally, as a white male, the benefits I accrue when women are treated more fairly and justly by society are more as a result of my belief that fairness and justice are good things to have around. Of course, it helps that I happen to like women, and can thus feel free to notice rampant misogyny on behalf of men freely without believing that it somehow emasculates me.
I would discriminate in favour of women over men, but only if the men were sexist buffoons. I can’t stomach the conversations with that type.
“then you also have to count years of unpaid work that women provide to subsidise men”
What work ? Keeping home ? Bringing up children ? I believe one partner generally works to pay all bills, holidays, luxuries for all, so if it`s this you talk of then it`s null and void. The women you mention also benefit from the mans wage, of course it can work the other way and does. Do you know anything of how relationships work ?
I know a lot about how relationships work. I also know a lot about history and economics. If you believe one partner works to pay the bills you haven’t been paying attention since the 1960s, although if you believe one partner does the lion’s share of the work with keeping home and bringing up children then you probably have.
It is, of course, notable that the supposedly equal partnership of homely wife and working husband works so well that we only got rid of laws forcing women into that position in the early 20th century, and those only slowly and under the duress of a couple of world wars. Your legal fetishism aside, however, the passing of a law doesn’t eliminate the cultural contexts the laws were passed in. Laws against racism didn’t eliminate racism, and laws against sexism didn’t eliminate sexism.
My question to you, Mr Holbrough, remains unanswered. Assuming you are not so dense as to believe that sexism never ever ever existed anywhere, when did it vanish and render the laws designed to level the playing field for women so monstrously unfair to the poor, put upon, middle-class white male demographic?
McDuff, please do stop portraying all the traits of a rutting stag, you merely prove the points you stated didn`t apply to you.
Your attack on my apostrophe`s and now insinuating I am dense do not further your logic or make for a reasonable debate. Kindly desist from personal attacks and stick to the material being debated. Thank you.
The question of sexism I think you`ll find I answered elsewhere, it does exist, will always exist and needs to. Life is unfair, Government is unfair, tax is unfair. The law we have does the equality job superbly, nowhere have you shown argument where women are unfairly treated in a like for like environment.
What this new bill proposes is special treatment for minorities. This will breed contempt for it and Government. Companies will not jump at the chance to embrace it or the people it seeks to have rise, perhaps beyond their calling.
“If you believe one partner works to pay the bills”
It is still the norm for families to have a single employed partner especially when young children are involved. As far as relationships and the amount of work put in by each partner THAT is for them to negotiate and most couples can do this fine without law. We each have our respective things we are better at than a partner, I would not ask my wife to reroof the house, nor would she ask me to hang out washing except in extenuating circumstances. It works for us as it does for most people I know.
Am I sexist ? Probably, but I`m a man and I don`t live with you or anyone that objects to my ways. Will I fight the wars, or put women behind me in times of danger ? Yes and most women like me for it.
I work darn hard at decorating, repairing cars, gardening et al., and no I don`t do nappies and babies. My load is equal although different, if you wish to believe what the feminists state that we do little that`s upto you, it`s not true. As you say things changed from the 1960`s when men worked 70-80 hour weeks, we still work just as hard though but it`s on our families.
The concept you put forward of men & women working equal amounts and then the women coming home and doing more rarely exists in this modern age. However I can give you lots of cases where women don`t work, don`t do a lot around the home and are out with mates on Friday night getting drunk.
“when did it vanish and render the laws designed to level the playing field for women so monstrously unfair to the poor, put upon, middle-class white male demographic?”
The moment this bill becomes law is the answer.
And please kindly stick to the facts, not my spelling, grammer or density. Thank you.
“it does exist, will always exist and needs to.”
So your position is that sexism is a necessity? Noted.
“Am I sexist ? Probably, but I`m a man and I don`t live with you or anyone that objects to my ways.”
And if laws were only responsible for regulating who did the washing up I’m sure they’d be unnecessary. However when you attempt to bring your sexism into the national workplace, which contains many people of both genders who do object to your ways, I’m sure you can see why we want you to stop doing it. If your wife would rather you do the washing and she do the roofing, I’m sure she wouldn’t have married you. However, Mr Holbrough, I was never asked consent to be part of an electorate with you, and as thus we have to find some way of establishing a middle ground. The claim that all individuals should be happy in your middle class idyll is noted, but discarded as unworkable and unrealistic. So, onwards.
“Yes and most women like me for it.”
-compare/contrast to:
“if you wish to believe what the feminists state that we do little that`s upto you, it`s not true. “
In other words, the subset “most women” is pruned to rid it of women who object. I’m sure, in fact, that you never really meet women who object to you, and if you do you ignore them or find some way of disregarding what they have to say. So I don’t really think that a self-selected sample is statistically relevant here.
Incidentally, there’s nothing wrong with being nice to people. I’m sure I’d be grateful if you did my roof too! (well, in theory, since my “roof” is actually someone else’s apartment floor…) But there is a difference between sharing work equitably and claiming that the share of work is necessarily intrinsic to gender and should remain that way.
“My load is equal although different, “
I’m sure people tried to use “separate but equal” to defend discriminatory inequality before. It turns out, it’s rarely as equal as you think.
“What this new bill proposes is special treatment for minorities. This will breed contempt for it and Government. “
I believe we have hit a full line on the privilege bingo card. White men have been claiming some variant of the “special treatment” noise every single time new anti-discrimination laws are proposed. What makes this version of the same, tired old arguments that peppered every attempt to advance the rights of minorities so special, Mr Holbrough? Why should we listen to you any more than the hundreds of middle class, comfortable, white men who came before you and insisted that unless they were allowed to discriminate at the same rate and manner that they always had, the entire world would fall apart? They were wrong, and their arguments were identical – in some cases word for word – to your own? Why are you right when they were demonstrably wrong?
“However I can give you lots of cases where women don`t work, don`t do a lot around the home and are out with mates on Friday night getting drunk.”
Those slatterns! Daring to behave like men!
Are they not working because they’re suitably middle class and can thus be supported on a single wage? Or are they not working because they’re shiftless and on benefits? Just so I know which stereotype your lots of cases fit into?
Have you heard of confirmation bias, by the way, Mr Holbrough?
“The moment this bill becomes law is the answer.”
What a poor, put upon soul you must be! Tell you what: as a white male myself, and therefore one of these “voting for christmas” types, I’ll agree that if the world really does start to get much more unfair that I’ll come round and do your gardening so that some of your excessive workload will be shifted off your tired, weary shoulders, mmkay? Since I don’t have a roof or a garden, that sounds fair to me!
Now, what will you do if it turns out the predicted apocalypse does not happen and that white middle class males continue to enjoy relative privilege even after this new law has passed?
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