For once, Harriett is right.

Author Message   papa_chango Member Username: Papa_chango Post Number: 529 Registered: 12-2005 Posted on Friday, August 21, 2009 - 09:58 am:    Revolter--- I agree , all Unions feel they need to be " at the table" to be a part of the change process. Why , I say, they never listen. No it's time to smash the table not to sit at it.   Dodo Member Username: Dodo Post Number: 35 Registered: 01-2006 Posted on Thursday, August 20, 2009 - 09:12 pm:    I recall there being some discussion of Ms. Harman's statement on Radio 5 at the time. The interviewee, whose name I didn't catch but was male, derided her point of view by citing the large proportion of women managers in the public services(eg.Probation) and look what a mess they had made of that.   Dave Member Username: Davedrummer Post Number: 43 Registered: 08-2006 Posted on Tuesday, August 18, 2009 - 10:35 am:    Unless I'm missing some form of irony here, I'm surprised that as a 'moderator', your post contained that amount of offensive language in it Mickey P   Revolter Member Username: Revolt Post Number: 179 Registered: 10-2006 Posted on Monday, August 17, 2009 - 06:57 pm:    I was actually trying to point out, justa, that "classism" is exactly what Harman is guilty of. To assert that Harman is continuing to represent the bourgeoisie is "classist" is nonsensical relativism. The point is that whereas Harman may well be subject to sexist abuse, she nonetheless continues to do the bidding of the very system that propagates the very gender oppression she endures . Of course my observation is classist, and rightly so - Harman does not have a fundamental redistribution of wealth in favour of working-class women as a priority (more women bosses won't address that!), and reliance upon wishy-washy liberal Guardian articles isn't going to prove otherwise. Harman belongs to a party that consistently does the bidding of the bosses and the private sector. That is fundamentally not worth losing sight of. In her defence, it is clear that she is the victim of sexist attacks both within the media and from the ranks of her own very bourgeois party - a party that for some strange reason many union activists and leaders continue to be members of.   Myob Member Username: Psiman Post Number: 446 Registered: 07-2006 Posted on Wednesday, August 12, 2009 - 10:27 am:    Am I alone in finding the first post here both mysogynistic and funny? (sorry Mickey). I was more offended by the punctuation to be honest, but there you go. It seems to me that Harman has made a fairly fundemental error in her assertion that there should always be a woman in one of the top two jobs in the labour party. Although it might be preferable in many ways, claiming that otherwise concerns of women voters would not be properly taken into account is simply stereotyping men is it not? Also one comedian remarked, isn't claiming that men can't be trusted to run companies etc because of their egos akin to claiming that women can't be trusted because they will spend all the money on shoes? (OK - so I know there is some evidence of the former, but you get the point) Worryingly, it seems that I am in some agreement with Ann Widdecombe *shudders*. People need to get jobs on merit, and the way to ensure more women in top jobs is to look at equality of opportunity, not all women short lists or quotas. I know Harman is a strong advocate of equality of opportunity, but is her suggestion the right way to go about it? Perhaps it is simply a case of "Those who seek power are not worthy of that power".   Duende Member Username: Duende Post Number: 76 Registered: 11-2008 Posted on Tuesday, August 11, 2009 - 03:05 pm:    'your opinion is that the posting is mysogynistic. Fine. Mine is that it was humour. Obviously we have different opinions.' This is classic can'ttakeajokeism. Humour is not an opposite of mysogyny or an alternative universe where words don't count. Thank you Mickey P for what you wrote. It doesn't conform to that humourless oppressive stereotype so often insinuated by the anti-pc. Very far from it! Thanks for laying out solid reasons why sexual equality is a serious, live issue. Some may ignore you because 'classist' must be just the same as 'sexist' because it ends in 'ist'. The implication is that you are the 'ist' police and have failed in your job of picking up on every 'ist'. You bad PC police person. Feminism has been well and truly character asassinated as extreme, unfeminine, ugly and unfashionable. Women have done this almost as much as men, in my opinion. So the injustice just goes on and on in big and in small ways. Just this morning I heard on the radio Hillary Clinton being asked during a press conference what her HUSBAND thought about something! She replied 'My husband is not the Secretary of State, I am.'   justa TPO Member Username: Justa_tpo Post Number: 381 Registered: 06-2006 Posted on Monday, August 10, 2009 - 11:15 pm:    Sister. I cannot understand why women would want to be equal to men. That clearly shows a lack of ambition. (So that's men and women I've discriminated against. In the same posting. Clam would be proud)   Gonzo Member Username: Gonzo Post Number: 345 Registered: 12-2005 Posted on Monday, August 10, 2009 - 07:20 pm:    Can I call her Harriet Harperson?   Rob Palmer Moderator Username: Rob_palmer Post Number: 479 Registered: 05-2006 Posted on Monday, August 10, 2009 - 10:13 am:    I think it is a tragedy of our age that the progress we began to see in the late 80s and 90s is being lost to the usual misanthropy, misogyny, racism and ignorance that our parent's generation were party too. Clearly discimination is the path of least resistance and a ready source for cheap, low brow comedy (you listening, justa?). The obsessions of the young are no longer about righting the wrongs of their elders but perpetuating them. I guess we just have to keep on keeping on. I don't think, therefore I'm not.   sister lefty Member Username: Sister_lefty Post Number: 47 Registered: 03-2007 Posted on Sunday, August 09, 2009 - 12:25 pm:    I think it was right to moderate it- its harder now to stand up for women than I have ever known it, and feminist is thought of as an extreme position.All women have ever wanted is to be equal- not to be judged twice- or three times of you are a mother-we are still miles off that, and shame on anyone who tries to belittle equality.   justa TPO Member Username: Justa_tpo Post Number: 380 Registered: 06-2006 Posted on Saturday, August 08, 2009 - 04:24 pm:    "Justa, I was going to moderate your post as I feel totally disappointed by the throwaway misogyny masquerading as 'justa' joke." 'Classism' is fine though is it? (Nice one, Harriet. Glad to see that you're still representing your class (the bourgeoisie). Look, your opinion is that the posting is mysogynistic. Fine. Mine is that it was humour. Obviously we have different opinions. If you don'twant anyone to have an opinion, go ahead and moderate the damm thing!   sleepy Not a TPO Member Username: Sleepy_notatpo Post Number: 279 Registered: 03-2006 Posted on Saturday, August 08, 2009 - 01:27 pm:    You know, at times, i'm made to feel like a social deviant for actually LIKING Harriett - making her Labour Leader is, possibly, the only thinkg that would make me vote for them!   Mickey Poland Moderator Username: Mickeyp Post Number: 111 Registered: 12-2005 Posted on Saturday, August 08, 2009 - 01:03 pm:    Justa, I was going to moderate your post as I feel totally disappointed by the throwaway misogyny masquerading as 'justa' joke. However, I think it needs to be addressed and challenged rather than moderated as that would be the equivalent of sweeping it under the carpet. Then I came across this article in the Guardian, which puts the case better than I feel able to do. http://www.guardian.co.uk/commentisfree/2009/aug/08/harriet-harman-rod-liddle-sp ectator Why do so many men think it is OK to direct explicit sexist abuse at Harriet Harman? It is the equivalent of calling Peter Mandelson a screaming faggot or denouncing Trevor Phillips with the "n" word. But it happens, day to day. "So," wondered Rod Liddle in the Spectator this week, with all the gravitas of Plato picking his nose, "Harriet Harman, then. Would you? I mean after a few beers obviously, not while you were sober." Liddle then rams into the Labour deputy leader, like a drunk shouting at a bus stop. It goes like this. Harriet hates men, and she is using the tool of gender inequality to ruin men's lives, like Dr No, styled by Next. Did she poison Alexander Litvinenko? Is she Dennis Nilsen in a wig? Does she have a silo under her house in Peckham, aimed at Chelsea Football Club? Harriet will probably succeed Brown – cue Jaws music – due mainly to the influence of her husband, Jack Dromey, the deputy general secretary of the Transport and General Workers' Union. See – Harriet does nepotism! Isn't she supposed to hate nepotism? Harriet is posh and Labour at the same time – that's very suspect. Isn't greed her class inheritance? Harriet promotes women at the expense of black men – Harriet hates blacks! – and, Liddle concludes magisterially at the end of his tissue-thin polemic, he wouldn't fuck the Labour deputy leader, even if he were insane with alcopop. That's the argument against gender equality sewn up then, Rod Liddle. Not fuckable. In 2009, almost 100 years after Emily Davison chucked herself under a horse for women's rights, this is the cover story of the Spectator magazine. We're back in the schoolyard – or is it the brothel? Again. I wouldn't usually bother spitting the words "Rod Liddle". It is like being angry at cows – tempting, but pointless. I stopped taking Liddle seriously when he was cautioned for assaulting his then pregnant girlfriend in 2005. But when misogyny erupts in the mainstream media as violently as it has in the past week, as we watched "Harriet Har-person" being monstered during her sole week in charge while Gordon is on holiday and biting his nails – "What did you do on holiday, Gordon?" "I bit my nails" – you have to rehearse the arguments about gender equality again. You have to pull back the curtain of propaganda, and state the case, again and again and again. And you have to ask: what has Harriet Harman done to deserve all this abuse? Since she entered parliament in 1982 Harman has worked relentlessly for women's rights to both work and have children, to the benefit of the economy as a whole, because when women are promoted, the economy benefits. In countries where misogyny is not a political weapon, this is taken to be obvious. When Norway demanded that women take 40% of seats on corporate boards, business growth increased. The Norwegians probably examine our standards of political debate, and giggle, while pointing. When the consultancy giant McKinsey looked at the effect of putting women into senior positions, they discovered that the stock price grew by 53%. But this is not acknowledged. British women in full-time work earn, on average, 17% less than men, even if Liddle did once meet a woman at a party who earns more than he does. Women in part-time work earn 40% less than men. The average woman will earn £330,000 less during her career than her male colleagues and, if, like Harman, she gets to the top, she will have the added irritant of having to be told that she isn't fit – by Rod Liddle, which is a bit like a Great White Shark accusing you of being carnivorous. Nor does the gender pay gap kick in when women evaporate to have children, as Liddle insists between musings on his taste in women. (The MP Caroline Flint, he notes, "is as fit as a butcher's dog"). It begins as soon as women enter the workplace. According to the Women and Work Commission, by the time a female graduate with a first-class degree is 26, she will be earning 15% less than her equally qualified male colleagues, whether she has children or not. And Harman wants to change this. That is all. She wanted all companies to publish their pay gaps, but she was blocked in cabinet. She also wants employers to take gender – and race – into account if they have a skewed workforce, but only if the competing candidates are equally qualified. Harman's equality bill – the main focus of the bitch-hunt – is a noble and important piece of legislation. And when she suggests, as she did this week, to much bilious squeaking, that "men cannot be left to run things on their own … in a country where women regard themselves as equal, they are not prepared to see men just running the show themselves," it is hard to disagree. Because she's right, and perhaps Liddle knows she is. Because "I don't fancy yours much" is a pretty trashy argument, even down at the Spectator. But for all this, but above all for being a woman, Harman is transformed into Cruella de Equality, a flapping vampiric harpy haunting the halls of power, and, sometimes, Peckham. Swoop, apply lipstick, swoop again. Punish her for her ambition and her idealism, and perhaps other flapping vampiric harpies will be put off from not knowing their place, which is, ideally, under Rod Liddle. The more you hear about the equality bill in the mainstream press, the more you realise we need it. And so I ask – Rod Liddle, then. Would you? I mean after a few beers obviously, not while you were sober. And I don't mean would you fuck him. I mean – would you believe him?   Spike Member Username: Spike Post Number: 1036 Registered: 12-2005 Posted on Friday, August 07, 2009 - 10:06 pm:    Maybe a woman to correct your spelling and grammar would be useful justa. "coffee's"???? I ask you   Islander Member Username: Islander Post Number: 157 Registered: 01-2006 Posted on Thursday, August 06, 2009 - 12:42 pm:    oh ha bloody ha....   Revolter Member Username: Revolt Post Number: 178 Registered: 10-2006 Posted on Thursday, August 06, 2009 - 08:47 am:    Yeah. More women in boardrooms - so that they can then exploit the millions of low-paid women workers. Nice one, Harriet. Glad to see that you're still representing your class (the bourgeoisie).   justa TPO Member Username: Justa_tpo Post Number: 379 Registered: 06-2006 Posted on Wednesday, August 05, 2009 - 11:20 pm:    Ms Harmen advocates that we should have more women in Governement and Boardrooms and for once I completely agree with her. Who else is going to make the coffee's? AND wash up afterwards.

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