Women: inequality is their fault

June 26, 2008

harman.jpgBlade has not, over the years, noted much by way of a commitment to feminism within the pages of The Daily Mail. Of a piece with the paper’s quaintly traditionalist/ludicrously patriarchal stance is today’s story about “Harriet Harman’s new Equality Bill”, an evidently outrageous measure which, among other things, will “thrust more female and ethnic minorities into senior posts” and “force firms to reveal the salary gap between their male and female staff to highlight how women have slipped behind and shame employers into bringing them into line.”

The Mail analyses the impact of the Bill with what some observers might contend is a subtle absence of neutrality. Reference is made to Harman’s “earnest feminism” and her nickname – “Harriet Harperson”. The story is illustrated with the image appearing here, captioned as follows: “Harriet Harman stands behind Deputy Speaker Sir Alan Haselhurst in the House of Commons.” Blade doubts that this is an ironical allusion to the “Behind every great man…” aphorism and more likely a visual reminder of Ms Harman’s place in the world. But perhaps most tellingly, one of the sorority is wielded in opposition to Ms Harman. The Mail quotes Katja Hall, head of employer relations at the Confederation of British Industry, on proposed pay audits thus:

“They are very expensive and very time consuming, and do very little to deal with the real causes of the pay gap. [They] are not the result of discrimination – they are because many women would prefer to work in the HR department than the finance department, or that they prefer part-time work.”

So that’s clear, then. Women are not paid as much as men because they don’t want the same pay.

 

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From the inside of the maze, ethically outwards

February 9, 2012

Curious times in the media; strange days at The Times.

Would ‘Dacre Cards‘ – the system of licensing journalists proposed by Daily Mail editor Paul Dacre – have prevented the embarrassment now palpable at the Times over the NightJack story?

Times editor James Harding’s evidence to the Leveson Inquiry seemed heartfelt and contrite, albeit that the paper’s former long-serving and much-respected lawyer, Alastair Brett, seems to have been, er, rather dropped in it. Clearly, mistakes were made with regard to NightJack by young reporter Patrick Foster who, once he had hacked into NightJack’s account and thus discovered his identity, then embarked on a quest to expose it via legitimate methods. This, as Inquiry counsel Robert Jay QC put it, was “rather like working from the inside of the maze out”.

But had Foster been licensed via a Dacre Card, would this unsavoury episode in the Times’s history have been avoided?

We suspect not. A raft of laws were in existence at precisely the time when many News of the World journalists seemed to believe that they were entitled to hack any phone they liked. Those laws forbade them from doing so, and yet made no difference. Aside from the obvious objection to them – that they will squeeze out freelancers and citizen journalists – Dacre Cards would simply amount to something to circumvent.

What is really required is an ethical shake-up, from top to bottom. Society generally – not just journalists – needs a sense that some things are just plain wrong.

Supreme Court on Twitter

February 6, 2012

Something remarkable happened today. Yes, the Supreme Court launched its Twitter feed. It even has a Twitter policy, one of caveats, disclaimers and little by way of illumination but regardless: who would have thought that the successor body to the House of Lords would stoop to engage with the world of tweets, hashtags and retweets?

We look forward to the day when court business will be conducted via Twitter. Meantime, check out this link for an excellent blog on the Supreme Court.

Not so right said Fred

February 2, 2012
fred hat

So Farewell, then, Sir Fred Goodwin.

Now you are just Fred.

Not Right Said Fred, but plain Fred.

The Forfeiture Committee did for you.

No one had heard of it before,

But Dave said it had to act, and it did.

Trouble is that no one knows what to think.

Is it ‘Alas, poor Fred‘,

Or ‘Hurray! Sir Fred is dead!’?

We don’t know.

Do you?

By A. Mob, aged 1,378 and a half.