Karen Bruce, Labour activist in my contituency, has a website. I quote from her latest blog post entitled “What will the parties do for women?”:
“I was sorry to miss being at the LSE’s ‘what about women’ election debate I was meant to be at this week. I have just watched it on video and it was a great debate. You can watch the debate between Harriet Harman, Lynne Featherstone and Theresa May here. It’s a disgrace though that women (apart from the leaders’ wives) haven’t had the chance to be more prominent and at the forefront of the general election campaign as they should be. You may not get the chance to see women from the three parties debate in a high profile TV debate such as the leaders’ debates, but it’s well worth watching it via the LSE website.”
Sorry, what? “It’s a disgrace though that women (apart from the leaders’ wives) haven’t had the chance to be more prominent…”
Since when was it universally accepted that leader’s wives (or husbands, or whatever) should be prominent in politics? They’re not politicians! When leader’s wives get in front of the cameras, all that comes out of the media is who looks prettiest, or who’s the most fashionable. It would do us all a favour if they stayed in the background and didn’t detract from actual, political discussion. We need to be voting on policies, not who has the nicest family.
There’s more:
“Labour has taken action and through the new equalities legislation employers will be banned from having secrecy clauses. Employers will also be able to take positive action to allow them to diversify their workforce.”
Nooooo! Positive descrimination is bad! You can’t descriminate against men just to get more women into a workplace!
Argh! Karen Bruce looks to be a staunch supporter of Harriet Harperson…possibly the most terrifying, dangerous woman in politics today. Her closing sentence:
“Next Thursday I’ll be casting my vote to keep Harriet and her colleagues in a position where they can keep up the good work already done for women, there’s a lot more to do and only the Labour Party will do it!”
Good work? I would disagree.
Popularity: 1% [?]
Exactly the point I was making that it is a disgrace that leaders’ wives have been so prominent in the campaign and actual women politicians haven’t. Note from FAWCETT Society : 2.6% Con, 19.9% LibDem, 23.1% Labour candidates support action on women’s inequality
Hi Karen, thanks for commenting! Apologies if I misread what you said, I took it to be supportive of the leader’s wives’ prominence :s I’m glad we agree, but what’s the answer? Should the leader’s wives try and stay out of the limelight or does blame lie entirely with the media?
I stand by my point about positive discrimination – it really seems wrong – wouldn’t you rather be hired based on merit rather then on being female? Surely there are better ways to increase equality in the workplace.
Sorry Karen, but perhaps it is just the fact that it is down to the individuals themselves, Margaret Thatcher led the Conservatives – I don’t think we can be claiming that there is still some kind of sexism in UK Politics – I find that there is very little sexism at all in the UK, in fact I would go as far as to say that it is the complete opposite!
oh well … this time is very funny … good article btw