Sheila's Wheels Come off

I am, as usual, very late to the issue, but alas life gets in the way of my witterings

I take it everybody is aware of the week-old news that insurers will no longer be able to take a person's gender into account

Now you may expect me to rail against this decision, I love to bash 'equality' with statistics and of course the statistics clearly show that men, as a group, cost more - that's a statistical truth

But I'm going to buck my own trend here, unlike say, Peter Hitchens, I do not believe that the enforcement of an equality law here is a bad thing

Yes, men cost more, but what you have to ask is - is it fair to charge the average man 60% more than a woman simply for being a man?

Surely, if he's 60% more likely to crash (or rather, claim), then yes?

While strictly speaking yes, it is cheaper to insure women as they are less likely to claim, what this really comes down to is where you draw the boundaries - why only stop at gender? You could show a difference between people with different hair colour, eye colour, height, weight, and of course skin colour - all of these features could in theory be assessed for risk

But we choose some very simple, easy to measure categories - is this fair on men?

'Because you are a man, you are more likely to crash' - well actually, for this to be true it has to be shown to be something inherent in men generally

However, we all know that this is not the case - many men are excellent drivers without a claim to their name (me included), and they are not even a minority, but we all know there are some, shall we call them 'twats', who drive like loons and write off three cars before their 18th birthday - these are the minority

Is there any link between these two types of men? Other than sharing the same chromosomal combination, no, a minority within the group force the majority to pay more because they all happen to have the same type of genitalia - as I said, it's a simple measure to use, it's easy to draw a line through sex and offer women a better deal

But it's not really fair, saying everyone of one group is more of a risk because of a small group within that, there is nothing to stop them drawing lines around any of the features I outlined (except practicality) - imagine saying 'black people claim more, therefore black people pay more'

Could be a perfectly true statement (almost certainly there's a difference either way), but it's not done, and nor would it be done, I expect, if women were shown to cost more - that would be discrimination, because quite frankly, it is, as it's pre-judging you based on your particular grouping

The only way around this is, as Hitchens junior remarked, is that men and women are different, racially you can't get away with that argument even if the stats bear out because races are considered equal, but the assumption is made that men's brains are hardwired to be more dangerous...because of the actions of a minority, which is exactly the same principle that leads to racial stereotyping

It means I am the same risk as Paul Gascoigne or Tony Blair, but clearly there are other factors at work - if I were a tiny minority then I could understand, but the fact is the majority are punished because we are arbitrarily put into the same box as the offenders, you may as well lump us in with murderers and paedophiles as we are far more likely to be them as well

Our sex has not been shown to be the overriding factor in the risk, some men are twats, but not all (or most) - it's just an easy, and very lazy, way of measuring us

So yes, it is discrimination and there is no reason why my gender should mean I pay hundreds more a year than my wife, mother or sister, unless you're a lazy insurer who wants to cash in on women costing less, us green eyed people would cost less too!

Massage, Ms Harman?

Harriet Harman's office has been told to stop using that ridiculous 22.9% pay gap figure

But what I wanted tp pick up on was this:

The Government's equality watchdog, the Equality and Human Rights Commission, said the ONS report was 'important' but insisted it should also have compared the pay of full-time men with part-time women - which gives a 39.9 per cent pay gap in men's favour.

Now the logic of including this escapes me - it's clearly designed to simply maximise the gap - is it fair to compare part-time jobs with full-time ones? Considering men earn even less part-time surely it reflects the gap between full and part-time, not gender?

But I thought I'd work out the alternative

Full-time men vs part-time women = 39.9% gap
Full-time women vs part-time men = 33.5% gap [in favour of women]

Surely Harriet should be using both?

Unless she just has an agenda...

Boobs Ahoy!

Yes, The Mail actually are running an article entitled

'Mummy, why do those ladies have no clothes on?'

Superb, truly superb - While Viv Groksop says she doesn't want to censor anything (natch), 'it seems the prudes have got it right.'

Ah, yes, the good old 'I don't want to agree, but I must, for the public good' line, it works much better than antagonistic campaigner mode (also known as Hattie's second law), an alternative title for this would be 'I'm not racist prudish but..'

So, what's the story? Well, a five-year-old picked up a lads mag - conveniently the offending article is not actually pictured, but a similar one is lifted from Loaded - I don't see the relevance of using a different magazine with a different picture, particularly when Loaded (or 'Porn for wusses') is, in my experience at least, generally in the Men's interest, section while Nuts and Zoo are weeklies usually placed nearer the newspapers (now, I'll leave it up to whether I know this from buying them, or stocking them) - but we do actually have no proof of:

"two nubile girls in a steamy embrace, both completely nude but for a generous slick of lip gloss"

I guess we'll have to take your word for it, Viv - but isn't the picture rather misleading? As it implies that it's proof of the offending article, and if she's anything like my mother she'll be massively over-exaggerating - in mum speak 'completely nude!' normally means 'they have a small bikini on!'

And I really would like the Daddy's opinion on this, a man behind Viv was sniggering (as I would), and as I was reading this I was thinking 'if that was his Dad he would've found it hilarious', she conveniently brings him in at the end:

Three days later he returned to the same newsagent with his dad and pulled the copy of Nuts out from where he had remembered it was: 'Dad - take a look at this!' Pandora's Box is well and truly open.

Note how there is no reference to how Daddy reacted...probably pissed himself laughing

Truth is, I do actually agree with not putting these mags with children's comics, but the thing is - do they? I can't say I've ever been in a shop where Dora was next to Nuts, the weeklies are generally quite visible, but not in with the kiddie stuff, maybe the football stuff, but not comics - this really comes down to a question of what should be visible and what shouldn't - they want 'age appropriate stickers' and to remove them from 'toddler head-height'

Effectively what that means is somehow covering them up - because a sticker will do nowt unless it covers the images, it's not going to stop a toddler picking it up (not that a five year old is a toddler - toddlers, by definition, 'toddle') - and out of sight is top-shelf, like really high top shelf, because while you may be able to protect your under-4s from looking at things and noticing magazines, once they get to five and over they're a bit more observant, kids have eyes after all, the top shelf is there because 1) they can't reach, and 2) because it's a steeper angle for the little munchkins

They are far more aware, and I'm afraid I have to tell the author here that your boy is going to find all this out pretty soon - right now it's just new and entertaining, but he won't forget the image like a toddler would, and soon enough he's going to want to find these pictures, start seeing rude things on tv when he sneakily stays up late and becoming 'interested' in the female form by about the age of eight, if I'm anything to go by (and why do you think we men are amused by this? - Because we all did it!) - all she's trying to do is prevent her son seeing such images because she doesn't want him to see them, but it's an uphill battle that requires censorship of pretty much everything

She is perfectly entitled to try of course, but why should everybody else pay the price for her world view - in effect we'll be asking teenage boys to return to the days of reaching up to the top shelf, purchasing a sealed bag, and then probably carrying it home in a brown bag because it's 'taboo' again, and what will the age restriction be? Will 'Prudes United' (new tag!) allow a rating of say, 12 or 13, bearing in mind this is not even nudity and is the obvious demographic of these things? Or will it be a ridiculous 18 or 16? And will it be legally enforceable? Despite there being no nudity, and no breach of the Obscene Publications act

Those poor boys, denied their own fix of non-nudity, while the pseudo-feminists cheer and read their equally revealing fashion mags (but that's artistic) from the pram-height shelves, all because some people feel that:

These ladies' poses are not 'cheeky' or 'saucy' as the editors behind these magazines argue - their purpose is far more blatant than that.

In her opinion...given all the more (false) weight by the fact that the author knows sexy, because she worked for Esquire in the 90s - well that's settled then...

I'd like to know what the justification is, does it cause mental problems in young children? Does it create half-pint perverts? Or is it just that some people don't like these images and think they're inappropriate and want to force their opinions on a democratic society? Because as far as I can tell, all these do is use the female form to arouse males, there's no sex, not even frontal nudity, just body shape and a bit of flesh, something little boys can work out themselves without any literature

There have always been Mary Whitehouses, and they have always lost - lighten up and accept that you can't protect your little babies forever

Meanwhile, I'm think I'm going to be taking my six-year-old nephew shopping...

Discrimination is discrimination

David Cameron is ready to use that Labour favourite - the all-women shortlist, to get more ladies in Parliament

Allison Pearson, like most people from the middle through to the right, says she is totally against giving women a leg-up, it's patronising

Quite right, Allison, it is - so why do you support it?

She says it's because the Tories, despite having the second biggest party and nearly a third of the seats, have only 19 female MPs (and one is Ann Widdecombe...) - out of the total 125 females - only 15% of the entire female collective, and only 9% of their own seats

The Lib Dems are marginally better, with nine out of their 63, but it's barely any better - Labour of course, have 94 female MPs, so they win!

Clearly with this dire situation, something must be done, and for now all-women shortlists solve the problem, in Allison's view

In other words she's happy to go against her own judgement because the situation is so bad and we really need some women in there

So say we get 300+ women in there - great, women are represented!

Except, why should they have my respect? They would be there as a result of a 'leg-up' as she describes it, simply because some people feel that Parliament should be numerically representative of society, it's almost like 'picking' our MPs (which, I admit, is hardly worse than at present)

I could understand that logic if we were a draconian nation where our women were oppressed, but I'm fairly sure they're not anymore - they are in fact, given every advantage and are increasingly dominating the best jobs - even if they don't run the banks, Hattie

Where are the hordes of women demanding a fair go, saying that they get no representation? I've never actually met one, those most keen on it, ironically, seem to the ones who are already elected - but apparently the silent majority of women sit at home, just wishing there were more of them to speak up for them

Because, the truth is, women can get elected, in the same way that they can get onto boards and run businesses - only most don't - now there are two likely explanations for this - either society is inherently sexist and keeps women out, or less women are actually interested

Now considering that every single party has been mad keen on women MPs for over a decade it seems a rather strange piece of reasoning for it to be the former, maybe the party say one thing but then in private say 'look, I know we said we wanted you, but you really don't have the balls for this and we'll be putting forward my old Oxford chum, Percy, forward instead'

So either this is happening in the old boys' clubs, or just women are really turned off by politics - perhaps that is bad in itself, and should be addressed - but that, in my view, then assumes that women are somehow a homogenous, special-interest group that need their collective needs pushed - it basically says that somehow Harriet Harman, Jacqui Smith and Ann Widdecombe are representatives of all women (rather than their electorate) - yet, I don't think I've ever met a man who think David Cameron or Alan Johnson or Vince Cable, 'represents' them as a male, nor have I ever heard them talk about men's interests - they seem to like political debate, economics, the law, and so should all MPs even if they 'have boobs'

Do we assume that all women voters vote for women and are drowned out by the gerrymandered constituencies, of which they always represent half? It's not like there is an actual party out there that gets over six million votes and only a tenth of the seats or anything, women are far more disenfranchised

Why is it that women are a collective group, but men are individuals? The domination by middle aged white men does not mean that we men (or white men, or middle-aged men) are any better represented because we share a few physical traits, we are not Freemasons! Fact is, I have about as much chance of getting into these elite clubs as a goldfish does, despite being a white male - so why exactly does replacing a few male members with ones with ovaries balance anything? We are basically saying that 'this half of Parliament represents women', when no one would ever say the men in there represent males, I would find it quite offensive if it wasn't so ridiculous

And of course, the irony is that if indeed less women are interested in politics, then promoting them by positive discrimination is not only patronising and unfair, it is actually making Parliament less representative, as the bulk of the candidates (men) are being denied a voice

So if we wish to say that it is somehow right that 50% of the electorate are proportionally represented, then surely the fairest way to do this would be to make men and women vote in separate elections for their own genders - it seems to me the only way to fairly produce a parliament without second-class citizens, if we assume that it is a fair outcome in the first place

Or how about you stop voting for parties that are dominated by an elite that happens to be male, and support a party formed by real people?

(it'd probably still end up mostly male though)

More on Auntie

Johann Hari has once again got my attention by agreeing with my post about the BBC a few days ago (all things to all men)

I'm no Hari fan (although I'm seem to be agreeing with him too often lately) but he gave a good answer to some of my worries, but one main question remains in my head - I tried to ask this in the comments but the site was down, so I'll post it here, probably better here anyway:

What I would ask is what should we do about people who do not want to pay for it? They want to watch ITV, or Sky - but quite rightly feel aggrieved when their simple ownership of a tv forces them to fund something they don't want, and indeed the licence is regressive - a flat fee that obviously costs more to the poorer sections of society

My question is - it a fair system? Should we take the view that this is a part of taxation and the opponents should just accept the majority view and be funding something in the public interest, even if they don't use it

My main struggle is with the 'ownership of a tv' bit - it makes no sense, you want to watch another channel and you have to pay, you don't want to watch tv at all and you don't - seems outdated to me and doesn't fit into a public interest argument

Even though I may not always agree with Hari's politics I can least understand his reasoning, he has very different ideas about the world to me - I cannot say the same about the other top leftie commentator at the Indie, Steve Richards - who is an insufferable bore and is just a Labour cheerleader

Is feminism an anachronism?

I've been reading across the feminist debate the past day or two, why? Mainly because the other (political) news is boring, and I came across this debate in the Times

Now I'm sorry but I cannot address the issues of sexualisation and the influence of the rise of 'normalised porn' (lads' mags, lap dancing clubs, the internet etc) - it simply doesn't work on my level

As far as I'm concerned I'm a liberal and believe in freedom of opportunity and a broadly free market, I don't like people who want to stop consenting adults doing what they like, and nor am I interested in how society affects the behaviour of girls and if it's bad - it's of little interest to me

What does interest me is politics, if I believe in freedom I cannot believe in discrimination and gender balancing - so as long as women have an equal opportunity to succeed that's fine by me, the outcome only interests me if there clearly is an impediment based on sex, which I struggle to see

On this point Janice Turner points out, briefly:

These are truly boomtime girls, part of that first generation to beat boys at A level, outnumber them at university and often out-earn them in the workplace. A decade of national prosperity won them that feminist ideal: economic equality.

That for me, is it - that's the goal, and in my view, today, girls are no more discriminated against than boys - if anything the system is weighted towards them - I have yet to find a young woman who feels held back by their gender

It seems pretty clear that most of the issues regarding opportunity come out of those educated prior to the 80s - I know and appreciate that my mother was discriminated against and it prevented her getting very far, but she was educated in the 60s and 70s - there's very little we can do about that now, she still has over a decade left til retirement and so remains a discriminated part of the workforce

And yet still people like Harman push on with these plans and their (dodgy) stats - their plans will only 'benefit' future generations, not those people still in the workforce who did have it worse

Why can't people like her appreciate that? You won't change working habits in the over-50s, those who were denied an education in sciences and told to be secretaries - you should surely be looking at the under 30s and 40s - how are they doing? As Janice points out, it's clear to all that young women are doing pretty well, given an advantage in education, given preferential treatment in the best graduate jobs

But still they persist with their agenda - trying to balance a gender gap that still exists in the cold war, there is no study of age groups used in their publications - which show that younger single women are virtually the same as the males (if anyone would like to wade in with stats, feel free) - and yet they address the gender gap so evident in the older workers by focusing on education and university leavers...

It boggles the mind - it just seems to me that it's common sense to say, 'look at the women coming out of education today' and note that there's obviously going to be a 40-year lag on this issue

And that is also why feminism is pretty much dead - women know that their daughters are facing no real hurdles, all the barriers have gone, they did win, and now people like Janice Turner want to focus on abstract issues about sexualisation and morality - the common person has never really taken to academic debate and it's unlikely the average woman will concern herself with such theories, that's for the chattering classes, for people with too much time on their hands (like me!)

Feminism will continue to exist in academic circles, as pretty much every line of thought does - but it is no longer necessary for the masses, because it has no tangible aims, and that is why Hattie looks absolutely raving, because most women know she's at least 20 years late

Equality and 'equality' are not the same thing

Hear the news that Mandy wants to give poorer students a two-grade advantage? - in essence those from bad schools or under performing areas will be given an advantage over their privately educated (or even grammar school educated...) peers

A scheme used by some universities (like Leeds) is based on achieving a higher than average score - i.e. therefore you are the pick of your school and could do better in a top school

It's a reasonable idea - but it has flaws, for starters just because you are a good performer at a bad school does not mean you match up to AAA students at private schools (or especially grammar schools), nor is it a solid fact that a bad school or being 'poor' will affect your achievement - I'm clever, poor, went to a private school (on the AP scheme I might add, which already puts me in the top 10% of applicants) and was lazy, so I got Bs - I could've got As, but when you only revise for the subject you might get a C in it kind of limits your potential - my point is that I had potential beyond what I got, why not give lazy, intelligent people a leg up? Start doing it by intelligence tests, because that's basically what they're doing, just for poor people

In effect they are undermining their own standardised testing system - flawed as it is, but saying, 'oh it's because you're deprived' (based on very broad statistics) and then lowering expectations, it's just asking for trouble - maybe they were just lazy, like me? Now they have an advantage - and of course, now what you will get is people abusing the postcode lottery to go to bad schools

I'll stop short of expecting degree standards to sink any further because of this - at least in important areas like medicine - they will get wheedled out at some stage if they can't handle it, but it's certainly opening the door for this sort of thing

I can understand the logic - there is an issue to address, a better background does quite clearly provide an advantage against those with talent who are poorer - but this social engineering is just an acceptance of the status quo

It is a misguided attempt to make the stats look 'right' - a good healthy number of working class people in the best degrees and jobs - only that doesn't address the real social issues at the root of this: the bad schools, it's just accepting them and lowering the standards for all concerned

It will make the equality nuts in government very happy, but they are just dressing up the situation - hiding behind their feel-good figures while the education system rots - this should only be a short term measure to help those who are suffering now - the long term aim should be to provide good education to all, not tolerate poor education, that will help no-one in the long run

(nicely balanced article from the Beeb if you ask me...will it show up in certain people's comprehensive review of BBC bias? We shall see)

---------

Meanwhile, Mark Easton has again gone for the jugular with Hattie's mad ravings

He points out the alarming misuse of statistics, as witnessed by the ONS - this has nothing to do with my views, or Easton's, on equality, but the way in which the government manipulate figures to promote an agenda and basically lie to us - think what you want about the feminist argument, but the figures being used by the government are outright lies and it's criminal - frankly I would still care if it was the other way round, or about harmless things like soil types or some other drudgery

You know, I can understand a government trying to bury bad news with fudged statistics - governments can't admit wrong - they should, because we'd benefit, but that's the sad reality of it - this however, is just lying to make a situation look worse and get away with your own crazy ideas

---

Oh and Janet Street Porter has gone feminist

Attacks on women are always personal...attacks on the fat, lazy, idiotic, northern-loudmouth who is Prescott are completely valid politically, however

p.s. Minette Marrin at the Times says it better than I ever could

At least she likes one man

The Union-leading husband of the rabid feminist we call Hattie is apparently to be gifted a safe seat

He will be given the seat for apparently supporting Gordon (although this is the Mail we're talking about here)

Like her or not, this ain't right - people shouldn't be being placed in Parliament because of who they know, that's not democracy

Well, in actuality the whole concept of a 'safe seat' is thoroughly repulsive to democracy, and I'm certainly not naive, I know it's how almost all of them got there - but as this is the 'equalities minister' we're talking about it seems fair for me to be a little idealistic

When even the resident feminist is getting jobs for the boys you really do have to wonder if our Parliament will ever regain some authority

Furthermore, he's getting this for supporting one of the worst Prime Ministers in history, who will soon be defeated and drag down scores of real MPs - this isn't even in the interest of the party, let alone the country (I have long since abandoned that ideal)

Politics at its worst

Harman is the worst kind of bigot

That being 'one with power'

I promised myself I wouldn't go too mad on this, she's 'in charge' for two weeks and is doing whatever she wants, we all knew this would happen, and plenty of others out there are whinging about it, I don't need to lose sleep over it

But dear god, she's mad!!

Railroading changes to rape law, sticking wife-beating issues into the national curriculum, making hypocritical remarks about men-only leadership

All in the face of the mostly moderate British public, this is a woman with a massive agenda, blinded by her own warped ideas on the world - but it's nothing new, I just wished to express my exasperation

The good news is she'll never be electable and will be gone within the year, but Alice Thomson puts a different spin on it - at least she's sparking debate, even if we do all hate her

I'm not sure what to think - yes, it's been awful having such a pathetic excuse for a government and it's far more fun to get angry at Harman's 'conviction' politics, it's nice to hear some actual views for once, no matter how insane

Only, my concern is that she actually has power - fine, start debate - but this is not just starting debate, this is starting debate by controlling government with your agenda when you have no democratic right to do so - right-wing fascists start debate, would you like to put one in charge of government so we all take notice?

No, I thought not - it's dangerous, and while it may be more entertaining, there is a real crime here - our government are so bad that we actually have people supporting having this looney in charge just for the fun of it

*And in that link, the Mail win this week's Gruniad award:

The Government claims that violanguagelence against women is costing Britain an astonishing £40billion.

**I would also like to lend weight to the theory that this is part of Brown's plot - we'll all be begging for him back by the end of next week

My First Century

Woo, I've written 100 rants about various topics

I could use this as a reflection, but I'd rather ignore this special occasion to point out how arbitrary it all is to mark randomly assigned numbers and dates

So anyway, with all this nonsense over apparent ageism, Sarah Sands has written an excellent piece - pointing out that we all must go at some point and that Baby Boomers are the most evil of generations

It's true, they are the ones with the sense of self-entitlement, we young are a cynical and resentful mobile workforce

So what if Arlene Philips was sacked? Apparently if you sack a 66-year old it's always for the wrong reasons and the equalities minister has to stick her oar in

We are talking about a show already presented by a 103-year old here, but then it's sexism because it's a woman thing - men don't need to be pretty or young

So the logical conclusion is to never sack anyone over the age of 40...and certainly not over the mandatory retirement age - which I might add the employer has the ultimate right to enforce (although not for much longer)

As the Beeb rightfully point out - the remaining judges are 65, 53 (Bruno is 53??) and 44 - if anything that show could do with some equality below the middle-age mark, but equality doesn't work like that does it?

Chicken Soup

I've been a bit quiet the last week or so, laid down with the flu - yep, real flu, never had that before - it is in fact an outbreak down under and is actually physically worse than swine flu, but whatever, it doesn't get the reader numbers up

Anyway, I'm mostly recovered now - I did notice Guido was having his own story with swine flu, he really shouldn't worry - it's complete bollocks, it's milder than real flu and almost completely harmless, half of me only thinks the governments responded because the media liked it (by 'half' I mean all of me)

Missed a fair bit so I'll work my way in slowly - the one issue that's got me is this ridiculous gay 'issue' - it's all gesturing, I never realised how much the gay vote was worth, must be nice to be a wanted demographic - but Labour are the dogs for attacking the Tories first with a completely underhanded swipe

Once again it showed off their true colours, trying to smear the Tories with emotive labels and make them seem nasty, when they're the ones doing all the name-calling - this ridiculous battle-line idea Brown is clinging to is shameful

But the bit that really got me - saying 'to oppose the Equalities bill is to oppose equality' - cheap underhand trick, mark my words give it five years and all our legislation, such as a dodgy terrorism measure, will have titles like the 'saving puppies' bill - so if you oppose it you're nasty - 'who opposes saving puppies!?'

Sounds daft, but this is already what they're doing

Ze List

Here's a list of interesting articles that I should note or I'll forget

The Mail have a story about minor royals costing us a fortune in police resources - I say scrap police protection for non-essential royals, particularly if they're going to abuse their position - restrict it to the direct heirs (Charles and his sons) and matters of state business, people like Princesses Eugenie and Beatrice have no right to be protected while they backpack around south America like every other teenager, funded by birthright and yet never giving anything back to the country

Mark Easton has written a brilliant piece once again criticising the government's use of dodgy stats, and doubly great for me, he is criticising Harman's ridiculous stats about the gender pay-gap - I will endeavour to promote this page whenever a feminist angers me

I love Mark Easton so much, he's getting his own tag

Raining on my parade

Some feminist drivel that I'm too enraged to actually write about

I have however, finally found out that Johann Hari is in fact, male (I'm not joking, I honestly didn't know)