Why TiVo is a good thing...

You can fast forward through advertisements.

I have a bit of a problem with TV adverts.  Some of them are very well made and clever, and I genuinely enjoy watching them (the original Activia advert for example, before they moved on to bloated women talking about their digestive issues).  The Meerkats might be everywhere now but it was clever and original and you have to give the advertising company a hats off for that one.

Some are just annoying, like the Go Compare tenor, or the terminally irritating Aviva ones which are only really there to see what terribly bad accent Paul Whitehouse can do next.

And some I have a bigger problem with, as they are reinforcing rather unpleasant stereotypes, sometimes in a completely inappropriate way.

Here are my top examples of recent adverts:

 

 This is Pepsi Max who think that using a group of moronic men behaving like children and encouraging the sexual exploitation of a woman is a good way to sell their product.

 

More idiotic men advertising Fosters.  Don't forget "you have to make the little lady feel good about herself".  It's in the boyfriend manual, apparently...

The usual Lynx advert objectifying women.  I know they sometimes say they are tongue in cheek, but to me it is tacky and undermines women.  

They have a Facebook page as well saying it is about, "Chat up lines, places to pull, some great exclusive parties, behind the scenes with some of the beautiful Lynx girls, and free stuff when we’re feeling generous...Get in there with Lynx!"

All this leads to actual women assuming the only people who wear this are young teenage boys.

This could have been pretty much any washing powder commercial.

Obviously only women do the washing.

And also they are fine with complete strangers showing up in their garden randomly.

By the way, Vanish is shit so don't bother with it.

There are a couple of men wandering around in this advert as a token gesture, but my main issue is with the strapline "That's why mum goes to Iceland"

Because obviously all "girls" who work in an office are shallow inconsequential employees who care more for fluff than for actual work, and use any chance to skive off.  Also promoting a bit of office bullying while they are at it.  I found it hard to choose one Boots advert to be honest, they are all absolutely excruciating, and to be fair also treat men like dirt.  I haven't set foot in a Boots for years.

Possibly the most middle class thing on TV, this advert has obvious gender stereotypes throughout.

Also, if you really care, let the poor dog inside!  I think the RSPCA might have something to say about that.

There's just too much wrong with this to comment.

This one wins the "weird" prize.

These are the messages that are churned out day after day on our TV screens, working their way into our subconsciouses and helping to strengthen the stereotypes that we all hold, and only some of us consciously rebel against. 

When people say that things have changed for women in society, you really only have to look at these adverts to see that there is still a long way to go as these portrayals of men and women are generally accepted by people without question.

Some people have noticed, though.  I will end with a further Youtube clip which demonstrates just why I love Mitchell and Webb and why David Mitchell is referred to in our house as "my other husband"...

Regrets...and changes.

I have to say, I honestly don’t have many regrets in life as events so far have led me to where I am now, which is a good place.  One of my major regrets though, one that still plays on my mind, is not taking a former employer to tribunal.  I could have done so on grounds of disability discrimination, sex discrimination or constructive dismissal, but I didn’t.  I threatened to a few times, but was afraid to see it through because I was scared to lose my job (even when I should have walked out and fought the constructive dismissal angle).  Instead I hung on and hung on, getting more and more miserable and depressed.  I don’t know what it was that finally pushed me to take action – I left for a job which paid a considerable amount less and was only fixed term – but I have never regretted that, even when the job came to an end and I was unemployed.  I only wished I had faced my fears and done it sooner.

I knew at the time that things weren’t right, and that there were deep and ingrained problems within the office.  But over two years since I left, I can look back and appreciate just how horrible the place was and the effect it, and some of the people, had upon me.  The training I have had since, and am learning about now, on equality and discrimination (among other things) has also helped me to highlight things that happened in the past that were, if not downright illegal, a recipe for inequality, unfairness, resentment and destruction of morale.

I can tell some stories.

Stories where female job interview candidates were, following the interview, rated on their looks openly within the office by male managers.  Stories where people they met while travelling around the county for their jobs were described as “totty” and the day would be a bad one if they hadn’t met any totty while out and about.  Stories where managers stated that they didn’t want to employ any more senior staff on part time contracts (even though there was no real reason for this).

I could tell you about the times I tried and tried to put my name forward for projects and for work, saying that I needed more to do and I knew I was capable of achieving this, coming up with ideas about how it could be done – only to find out later that the exact project I had suggested had been given to a male member of staff, and nobody had bothered to explain this to me.  I was basically ignored every single time I suggested things or asked to be involved, and eventually I gave up.

I could tell you about the time I fought to be involved in a project, did all the groundwork for it, then when another member of staff came back from sick leave it was all transferred over without consultation or explanation and I felt completely undermined and devalued.

I could tell you about the time I left a load of my own work in my own pigeon hole to remind myself to do it when I got back from a single day off, only to find when I returned that it had been taken out of my pigeon hole and put in someone else’s.  Or the times that mail addressed to me was passed to another member of staff to deal with.

I could tell you about the many, many times that staff walked past me to ask questions of my equivalent male colleague who had just been appointed to do the same job as me, even though he was new to the job and I had been doing it – effectively – for years and (with respect to my colleague) had a wider knowledge base and capability.  I could tell you about the time that I spoke to my manager about this as it was upsetting me greatly.   I could tell you that he told me that I was being “silly” and over sensitive, something I highly doubt he would have said to a man.  I could also confirm that I was not imagining this, as my colleague mentioned it to me himself a couple of weeks later even though I had not said a word to him (as it was not his fault).

I could tell you that the same male colleague, doing the same job as me, was employed on considerably more pay and it took many months of fighting and being brushed off and treated as unimportant to get this put right.  Then the day after I was told I had won my fight and would be paid more, I was brought into the manager’s office on a charge of misconduct and sent home.  They then proceeded to tell lies about me throughout the subsequent investigation, and not allow me right of reply.  This caused me to have a bit of a breakdown.  Pretty understandably.

I could tell you about the hounding I got over a chronic medical condition that I suffer from, which is covered by equality legislation, and when my manager told me not to “make my problems the employer’s problem”.  I could tell you that the company’s HR department was woefully ignorant of equality legislation despite being the largest employer in the area, and was forced to change their policies when I threatened to go to tribunal.

I was ignored, trivialised and talked down to.  I was undermined, harassed and discriminated against.

I am not a troublemaker, I am not negative and I never liked having to complain or threaten action but I found myself doing this over and over again because nothing was ever taken seriously and nothing ever got any better.  This led me to get a reputation as negative and a complainer, while the managers continued to belittle and ignore both my valid complaints and the suggestions I made to turn things around.

I think I struggled at the time to recognise the cumulative effect all this was having upon me, even when I was sitting at home on a Sunday night crying about having to go into the office the next day.  I had no confidence, and I wasn’t in the right place to be able to see how low I was.  It is often hard to observe your own moods.  At the time I was often told it was my problem, my fault, I was regularly accused of moaning and being negative.  I see it now as a total failure of management to have any understanding, empathy, support or awareness of their own staff.

Since I left, I have been a new person.  I have done several fantastic jobs and received absolutely glowing references which cite me as overwhelmingly positive, enthusiastic and hard working.  I have won staff awards.  I have been treated as a human being with worth and value.

And you know what?  I know am intelligent, I strive for what is right, give a lot to my work and to the people I work with, and anyone who employs me is fortunate indeed.  Provided they treat me with basic respect and understanding.  Which isn’t a lot to ask, is it?

All the small things

I seem to talk a lot on this blog, and will talk in the future, about things that many people would dismiss as fairly minor in the grand scheme of things.  Why does it matter for feminism and equality that a beer pump has a naked woman on it, or that drills are advertised as a male gift, or that little girls are dressed in pink and boys in blue?  These things are small and we can ignore them, right?

Let's have a look at associative memory.

We all subconsciously have ideas of what is feminine and what is masculine, what it is to be female and male.  Even if we do not consciously subscribe to these views, we are primed to have the thoughts in our subconscious, arguably even before we are born but certainly from the minute we are exposed to the world.  It is what we take on from the world around us, soaking it up like a sponge.  Even reluctant sponges don't have much choice but to get wet when you pour water on them.

Research shows that people implicitly attribute maleness to certain careers and certain personality traits, and femaleness to other traits, even if they do not consciously pigeonhole people based on gender.  This subconscious thought process can lead to unintentional stereotyping and discrimination. 1

People are quicker to recognise traits that match their stereotype (a caring woman, an aggressive man) than those which challenge them (a nurturing man, a strong woman) 2

Associative memory basically means that from birth we are exposed even involuntarily to many cultural associations.  This could be something simple, like "red means danger", we are learning about our own culture and what things mean within it.

It also incorporates many ideas of gender, all of which contribute to us subconsciously gaining a fixed set of associations of what is female and male, which we are not able to change.

Even the smallest things can contribute to our development of this associative memory, from the language and voice your mother uses to speak to you while you are in the womb, to being given a doll or a toy car, to seeing women doing housework in advertisements.  Your memory will take all this on board, even if your conscious mind rebels against the associations.  As Cordelia Fine puts it, your memory "picks up and responds to cultural patterns in society. media and advertising, which may well be reinforcing implicit associations you don't consciously endorse".  These patterns are then passed on to future generations.

I bet you know what gender the children that I have blanked out in the photographs below are.  That you do know shows how ingrained gender stereotypes are within our society.

This helps to explain why people who may not challenge their own thinking and preconceptions act the way they do, why people accept stereotypes, and why stereotyping is so rigid and unchanging in today's society.  To change this, we need to make huge changes at the cultural level and also challenge the way we are already thinking.  A very big task, but we can start by highlighting all the pieces that make up the gender association jigsaw.

So some of the things I talk about may seem like trivial matters, unimportant matters, things that don't have any real effect on how women are seen and treated on matters of real importance.  But as you can see, I argue it is a combination of all the many small things that lead to the ingrained stereotypes, which in turn lead to more serious discriminations.




1 - Cordelia Fine, Delusions of Gender, published by Icon Books
2 - Assessing Stereotype Incongruities

Some Good News

Good news in the Guardian today.  Arcadia Ltd, owned by Philip Green, comprising Topshop among other retailers, has seen a drop of 40% in their profits.

No, it's not good news for the economy, you might say.  And I would tend to agree with you.  But I can't help personally feeling a bit smug about the news.   Just on this occasion, since it's Topshop that is struggling, I would be more than happy to see the whole caboodle go down the pan and Mr Green disappear from business.

Why?

First of all, Mr Green's well publicised avoidance of paying his income tax.

He is a UK resident and always has been, the companies are operated within the UK.  But he cleverly registered his businesses in the name of his wife, a resident of Monaco where the tax rate is a whopping, um, 0%,  Yes, no tax.  Figures for 2005 show that he banked £1.2billion personally, avoiding a tax bill of £285million.

Second, you could see Topshop's hopeful demise as karma for the appalling T-shirts they put on sale earlier this year, glamorising domestic violence and comparing women with dogs.

While they withdrew these from sale after a public uproar (one thing the media can be good for), this was reluctant and they were not sorry that the items had gone on sale, only that they had offended people.  See their statement:

"We have received some negative feedback regarding two of our printed T-shirts. Whilst we would like to stress that these T-shirts were meant to be light-hearted and carried no serious meaning, we have made the decision to remove these from store and online as soon as possible."We would like to apologise to those who may have been offended by these designs."

Light hearted, carrying no serious meaning?  Do they really believe this, as if they do, it is at best naive and at worst wilfully ignorant of the effect that casual misogyny can have on society.

So, with apologies to the people that Topshop employs (except the snitty ones who look down their noses at you for daring to set foot in the shop if you don't look skinny and glamorous), I encourage people to shop elsewhere and let's see if the final nail can be hammered into their nasty little coffin.

Ignorance is bliss?

 Did you know that Matt Smith aka "Dr Who" has split up with his girlfriend?  No??  Well he has!! Really! It was on the front page of the Sun this week.

Oh, but it isn't all disaster and tragedy in the world, so do not fear.  It seems that Lewis Hamilton has got back together with Nicole Scherzinger.  So we can sleep soundly in our beds after all.

We live in worrying economic times.  There are protests on the steps of St Paul's Cathedral about the distribution of wealth, protests about university fees, concerns about the benefits system leaving people on the breadline, reports that elderly people are being neglected and abused, enquiries taking place about newspapers spying on people for their stories, protests and deadly clashes worldwide, but also positive news about the effectiveness of our NHS despite low funding and the increased survival rate of cancer suffers.

There is so much going on in this world of ours, some reported in the media, some doesn't seem to even make it into the papers.  I was shocked after a visit to a local Crown Court recently how many serious sex crime cases were being heard.  The two trials I sat in on both resulted in a guilty verdict, both were serious sexual crimes against children, neither have been reported even in local media.

But we have front pages like this:

There is so much wrong with this that I barely know where to begin.  The headline itself is the usual xenophobic hate-mongering designed to stir up readers against people who might look "of a foreign nature".  This is just one of the groups of people they advocate hatred of.  No wonder there is so much distrust, fear and hate within communities in the UK.

Martine McCutcheon's weight gain also appears to be hot news, but if that's not enough to make you feel self conscious ladies, how about implying that your husband might secretly think you are grotesque?


There are also headlines like this:

I know this sort of "non news" sells papers, people seem to be genuinely more interested in who from X Factor is having illicit sex or taking drugs than the trifling matters of why people in this country are living in poverty when we are one of the richest countries in the world.  Why is this, though?  Are people so narrow minded because of the media, or were they already happier living in ignorance and the media is simply pandering to that?  Can we change things?  Should we?  And how?

Lots of questions, no answers, but worthy of discussion.

What it brings to mind, for me, is a vision of George Orwell's classic novel 1984.  We are living in a world where the proles are kept in blissful ignorance of the realities of life by news headlines like that shown above, and equal tat on the television.  And people often appear happy in their ignorance, not feeling the need or that they have the ability to ask questions about why life is like it is, or challenge anything.  That doesn't mean real contentment, and it doesn't mean it is right.

An Email To B&Q

Dear B&Q

Thank you for the leaflet you thoughtfully put through my door today providing me with valuable Christmas gift ideas.  I have, however,  just a few questions about the featured products.

First of all, my mother would rather like the drill featured in the flyer.  Unfortunately for her, however, the flyer clearly states that the drill is a gift for Dads.  I am not sure in that case what to do.  Do you offer any similar products designed for Mums?  I would appreciate any help you could give me on this matter as otherwise I may be forced to shop somewhere you can buy unisex tools suitable for use by both Dads and Mums, and presumably also by people who are not parents.

I am also having a crisis of confidence that I will then be spending far too much money on Mum as the gifts in your flyer all recommend spending between £1 and £7, whereas Dad’s gifts are considerably more expensive than this.  If I were to spend £50 on a drill for Mum, would this therefore mean that I would need to purchase a gift for Dad costing at least £400?  Please clarify.

I am disappointed that there are no gifts for my husband in this flyer as he is neither Dad nor Mum, nor is he a baby goat (although I am sure that there are many baby goats out there who will simply love the Hello Kitty and Buzz Lightyear sets).  However I am sure I will be able to find him something suitable from elsewhere, so I am not too concerned about this matter.

Finally may I ask whether it is your intention that your slogan “B&Q: Let’s Do It Together” be translated in practice as “Let Dad Do The Work While Mum Makes The House Pretty”, or whether this was an unintended consequence of your ill-considered Christmas leaflet.

Many thanks and I look forward to your response.

Yours sincerely

Elaine

Questioning the Questioners

At university we were recently fortunate to be presented with a speaker introduced as an eminent professor and one of the foremost commentators on social inequality in the UK.

It was an interesting lecture and gave rise to lots of further reading and thinking, and he made many good points.

It is, however, worth noting that even he as a professor specialising in social inequality made several comments which could be related to female inequality, and he either did not pick up on this or misunderstood the current social position.

He first sympathised with the men in the room, saying that when he was younger he didn't have to compete with bright women, that men back then simply "married them and made them part time", whereas now men have to compete equally in the jobs market with women.

I would dispute this, since most research carried out finds that the significant majority of part time work is still done by women, and that there is still a significant pay gap of 9.1%  according to figures recently released by the Office of National Statistics.  While this is the lowest it has ever been and does not sound too dramatic, the figures also show that the median wage for a man is £10,000 more per annum than for a woman, and the mean (average) salary is £14,000 more for the average man.  There are over three times as many women working part time, and they earn on average £3000 per annum less than a man working part time.  Women who do work full time earn on average around £8000 a year less than the average man.  Nearly twice as many men as women work full time.  Only just over half of women in employment work full time, this does not take into account women who are not working and choosing to stay at home to raise a family.*

This really does give the lie to the Professor's claims that it is no longer a case of "marry them and make them part time".

He then went on to say how much he hated Downton Abbey on television as it was a platform for social inequality, showing great distinctions between social classes.  He referred instead to Strictly Come Dancing, which he said he enjoyed and it was "good to see Bruce Forsyth, a man of my age, still on television doing his job".

Isn't it a shame the same can't be said for Arlene Phillips?

The fact that the BBC, in this case through Strictly Come Dancing although it is not alone in this, promotes sexism through choice of presenters and judges seems to be lost on the Professor.  I can almost be certain that Tess Daly won't be presenting similar shows when she is Bruce's age.  The BBC tradition of young female presenters flirting with older male counterparts turns my stomach because of its inherent sexism - look at the recent Children In Need programme for another example.

Yes, older women appear on Strictly Come Dancing, but they seem to be portrayed as more of a joke act than serious contenders.

Finally he referred to biological differences between babies and young children, saying that his daughter had noticed the difference between her son and daughter almost at birth, suggesting this must mean that genders are hard-wired to be different genetically, thus implying that gender differences portrayed in this society are somehow justified.  I think this does not take into account the often held belief that we are all ourselves subconsciously primed to behave a certain way and have certain beliefs about our gender, imposed upon us by the society and culture that we grow up in.  We can unconsciously pass this on to the children we have, even while they are in the womb, even if we try not to.  It is too simplistic to say that differences in small children are all genetic and biological and to do so somehow suggests that women will never be equal because of these differences which will never be overcome.+

All this went through my head during the lecture.  As well as the rather depressing notion that I was finding a professor specialising in tackling social inequality to be, well, a little bit sexist.

My final question would be why didn't I challenge him instead of writing it on this blog?  I wish I knew the answer to that one!


* - Office for National Statistics
+ - For further reading, see "Delusion of Gender" by Cordelia Fine


Yes.  I am "sort of" referencing in my blog.  Shoot me now.

"Stop going on about feminism!"

You might see a link between some of the posts I will be writing here.

I am unashamedly a feminist.  All women should be feminists.  In fact, hell with it, everyone should be a feminist.  People who roll their eyes either misunderstand what feminism means, or they have had the wool pulled over their eyes and genuinely think we live in an equal society now.  Feminism has, unfortunately, been portrayed as negative, whiny women who hate men making a big fuss over nothing.  Well, of course it would be portrayed as such, since we live in a patriarchal society and it suits some people for it to stay that way.

What does feminism mean to me?

It means all genders being treated with equal respect and being allowed the same opportunities.  It means not objectifying or trivialising someone based upon the gender they happened to be born into (and/or transitioned into).

We have had the Suffragette era, we have the vote, we have the right to work, we even have legislation to guard against discrimination.  So I should be happy, right?  Everything is all OK and much better than it used to be.

I disagree.  You will see why, over the course of some of my later posts, if you bear with me that long.  In fact, I would go so far as to say that things are getting worse again for the average woman.  Media portrayals and expectations, coupled with easy casual sexism in many places in society, insidious inequalities hidden in the working world and a lack of support from our own government, all combines to make it uneasy times indeed.

And for heaven's sake, especially to the women out there, don't tell me to shut up about feminism or sigh and roll your eyes.  It may not seem like a big deal to you, but that in itself is depressing.

Beer

I like beer.

I like pints of beer, to be precise, the proper beer, not the fizzy wee-coloured stuff known as "lager".  (Everyone's wee is that colour, right?  Or do I need to drink more water and less beer?).

I am a CAMRA (Campaign for Real Ale) member and get involved with the local branch.  Every so often, there are murmurings from CAMRA about women being more interested in ale. There was also an article in the last CAMRA newspaper about novelty pump clips and the arguments for and against.

The argument failed to take into account my main irritation with certain novelty pump clips and other marketing materials.  It is also possibly why some women might be put off trying beer.  I will use this one example to illustrate it and see if you can guess what I mean:

Otter Brewery have a beer called Head.  They use marketing materials stating, "Ask your barmaid for Head".

Do I really need to say more?


I guess some people might think it's fine to have a beer called The Village Bike, or to have a pump clip with naked women on it.  It's just that I don't, and I would actively avoid any breweries who use this type of casual sexism in their marketing.  And to be honest, I don't understand why anyone would feel any differently.

It is attitudes like this which means that many women are still experiencing discrimination and exploitation, and although this seems like a minor point it all contributes.  We need to change these negative attitudes.

So, beer drinkers, I would urge you to think twice before you accept beer names and pumpclip marketing as just another joke.  Don't choose Otter, or any other beer marketed in this way.  And for heaven's sake, avoid Northumberland Brewery.

By the way, any beers you come across in your local pubs which have dodgy marketing, please send photos to me or to another good blog dedicated to the subject, Pumpclip Parade.

Facebook Schmacebook

So, social networking.  It’s not really something you can escape in 21^st century society.  I have a facebook account, it’s useful for keeping in touch with people, sharing photographs, news and support, and for organising your social life.  But it can be quite toxic.

Working with young people as I do, I often see the drama and stress that is created by Facebook use and misuse, and the obsessions that spring up around it.

That aside, though, I wanted to talk about a more insidious use of the site.

People who post and repost inflammatory comments/petitions/photographs (delete as applicable).

I would hazard a guess that half the people who repost this sort of stuff either haven’t read it properly, haven’t thought about it properly or simply don’t understand what they are posting and the consequences.

There is a real problem in this country.  People talk about benefit scroungers, they talk about “foreigners” coming over here and taking our jobs and money, they talk about people sitting on their arses enjoying a cushy life while we pay our taxes.  There is a huge focus in the media and in society in general on these so-called “scroungers”, which feeds stereotypes, misunderstanding and hatred.  And I see it on Facebook too. And I tend to press Delete.

I know it is easy to take what you read in the papers and on the Internet at face value, but this is a dangerous falsehood.  I struggle to understand the hidden agenda of a paper like the Daily Mail – why would they actively want to make things worse for people?  I guess it sells papers but it frightens me – but I am able to look beyond this and look for facts.  Some people take the easy route and simply believe the hyperbole.  Then they splash it all over Facebook and make themselves look ignorant.

Yes, there was £1billion in benefit fraud last year in the UK.  This is not a lot of money in the grand scheme of things.  But there was also £4billion of unclaimed benefits, that people were entitled to and did not have.  And there were over £30billion losses due to tax evasion.  Not to mention the huge, vast majority of people claiming benefits are not fraudsters, but they seem to find themselves tarred with the brush for having the temerity to claim, nonetheless.

Why do people focus on the poorest and most vulnerable members of our society when they want to direct blame or rabble rouse?  Why is it that the rich can rip us off but get away scot free?  Why are MPs and peers convicted of crimes then go back to their jobs?  Why didn’t Vodafone pay their £6billion tax bill?

And why do people feel the need to post misinformation on Facebook about benefit scroungers and drum up such personal bile when there are surely better targets.

Most of us in this country are being screwed over by the rich, not by the poor, yet it’s the poor that we seem to want to take up metaphorical arms against.

Maybe if we all focused our anger at the people who might deserve it more, and we acted on it, we wouldn’t be rumbling along in the mess we are in now.

What say you?

Random poem about bullying

So I thought I would stick this in anyway, it appeared on my old blog as part of a series of my old poems on National Poetry Day.  It's not National Poetry Day now but I am reproducing this particular one as I think it's my most interesting if not technically amazing.  To be fair I was about 15 when I wrote it!

**********

Schooldays

In this cold, crushing cubicle, stark white walls close in on me,
I don't attract attention here, clinging to my privacy.
This place is protecting me, I've nowhere else to go,
That I'm behind this bolted door is something no-one knows.
I've been here just an hour, though it feels like a whole day,
And I do it every lunch time while the others are at play.

Emerging like a butterfly, only to discover
That I am still a caterpillar to be crushed by others.
Cruel, cutting tongues despite the fact that they are just thirteen,
Cowed, repressed, a faint shadow of what I should have been.
I've tried so hard to talk, but no-one wants to listen,
It's teaching, not caring, that is their profession.
So leave me alone, let me suffer inside,
Just give me the torture and a lonely place to hide.

The desk is built to seat two but I'm sitting here alone,
Watch the clock upon the wall just praying to go home.
Every lesson, every day is more than I can bear,
Searching hard for understanding, but there's no-one there.
Every waking moment feeling full of dread,
Desolate and worthless, sometimes wishing I were dead.
It's never taken seriously, just "Children can be cruel",
They say the best days of your life are when you are at school.

But this building is a business only caring for results,
They don't care how their attitude affects future adults.
Confront the Headmaster, he'll deny the accusation,
All that seems to matter is his own reputation.
My nausea accompanies his smug, self-praising face,
I can't disguise my hatred for this repugnant place.

Congratulations, everyone, for making my life hell,
A heartfelt thanks for driving me deep down into my shell.
I'll remember what you did to me as long as I live,
I'll never forget you - and I'll never forgive.


Once again, thanks to Budmouth School Class of 92 for the inspiration.

Cuts, bloody cuts

It's no real surprise that my latest blog is about the recent cuts in the public sector budget announced by George Osborne yesterday.  I work in the public sector (on a temporary contract at the moment), as does my husband (already on a frozen wage after having to take a lower grade job after already going through one lot of efficiency savings about a year ago), so it is bound to be of concern to us.

First of all, having worked in the public sector for most of my working life, I have seen cuts after cuts after cuts already imposed upon the local council's budgets, forever having to remove services or dump more work upon already stressed colleagues when someone leaves, as they aren't being replaced.  It's been pretty much non-stop over the past several years, even in an apparently healthier economic time.  I am really struggling to see what else can be cut without having a severe effect upon the people who most need the services.  We have a large elderly population, many of whom already struggle to get the support they need.  We have many families living in financial and emotional poverty, and yet children slip through the net or don't get the level of support they need because trained social workers are so thin on the ground and overworked.  This is a small snapshot of those who will suffer even more from budget cuts.

Secondly, how on earth are the Government expecting to lower the benefits bill when they are putting so many people out of work?  It's impossible to expect that in these lean times the private sector is going to be able to step up and take on all the people who are made redundant from the public sector.  Let's look at the facts based on where I live.

In my county town, half of the workforce are employed in the public sector.  In my own town, eight miles down the road, the figure is around 40% of working people.  The local authority is having their budget reduced by around £50 million, or a quarter of their budget.  There are bound to be very significant job losses associated with a 25% cut in real terms.

Let me think, off the top of my head, how many private sector employers there are around here.  Banks, estate agents, hotels, garages, retail, solicitors, a little bit of industry.  Not that many really, and none of them are falling over themselves to take on staff.

People are going to fall on very hard times.  They won't be spending money.  They won't have it to spend.  So this will cause hard times for the retailers, for the hotels, for the estate agents, for the manufacturers, the food producers, the list goes on.  They won't be taking on extra staff if people aren't putting money into their pockets.  They are more likely to lay them off.

One engineering company locally has already laid off 10% of its workforce, a quarry firm has closed with the loss of 100 jobs, two small manufacturing firms have gone into administration very recently, and there are many others going down the same lines.  Those who rely on the public sector for business will find that they have harder times to come.

So, Mr Osborne, just where are these public sector workers going to go?  Straight into the dole queue.  Who is going to be spending money?  Nobody.  What happens when nobody spends money?  Businesses fail.  More people become unemployed.  Less people spend.

This is a vicious circle and it has the hallmarks of a disaster.

I am not an economist.  I have had very little education in economy and statistics.  But even I can see the future is looking pretty grim from where I am sitting.



******



Footnote:  This is an excellent article which sums up why the Government has swung their axe in the wrong area.  Notice that Vodafone got away without paying a £6b tax bill.  Tax evasion, by large companies and rich business people, costs this country vast amounts of money - the sort of amounts that would help dig us out of the hole we are in without having to penalise the most vulnerable members of society.


A Colder, Crueller Country

When is rape funny?

I was reading an article on the Guardian website earlier which has prompted me to talk about a night out I had at a comedy club several years ago.  Here is a link to the article: The Rise of the Rape Joke

On the night in question, I was with my sister and we had managed to bag seats right at the front for the gig.  The beer was flowing and we were having a brilliant time, Matt Kirshen and Rhod Gilbert had been the first two comedians up and we had laughed pretty much non stop at these two almost effortlessly funny guys.  It was time for the headline act - after the previous two acts, this one must be a corker, right?  Wrong.

Step forward "Ian Cognito", a comedian so dire that he is ashamed to perform under his real name.  That's the only excuse I can think of.

He started off shakily, with a few weak jokes, and soon got on to the subject of a footballer who had recently been cleared of a rape allegation.  He then spent the next several minutes posturing in what he probably thought was a manly fashion, and declaring loudly that he wished that he was a famous celebrity so that he could get away with rape and implying how great that would be.  Ha, ha, ha.

The sad thing is, many of the audience were actually laughing at this.  I was not.  Neither was I prepared for what came next.

"Mr Cognito" noticed that I wasn't laughing.  And he wasn't going to let it go.  He picked me out of the audience, and started accusing me of being sour faced and having no sense of humour, and asking what was wrong with me.  I attempted to argue back, and this led to him turning to the audience and taking the piss out of me to them, and then stating that they should all wait behind with him at the end to beat me up.

Yes, I was shocked as I hope you are.

Anyway, as it happens it wasn't him waiting to beat me up.  It was me waiting for him.

I cornered him in the bar area and asked him if he thought that his earlier act was acceptable.  His excuse?  That he was "just being ironic".  Now, I know Americans get a fair bit of stick for apparently misunderstanding the meaning of irony, but I am not sure that even Alanis Morrisette has got it this wrong.  He blustered for a while about what he meant and that clearly he didn't condone rape and never intended to, but my counter to this "irony" claim was this:  "How many of your audience thought that it was ironic?  How many just laughed?  And don't you find that fucking scary?  Because I do."

Something that he had also failed to consider, which I also found frightening and ignorant, was that I may have been a rape victim.  So he could have been in the position of encouraging an audience to beat up a rape victim for not laughing at a rape joke.  He did seem to appreciate that this was a nightmare scenario and that he had been completely out of order, and I did get an apology, but I had to drag him over hot coals to get it out of him.

If I could advise him, I would suggest that in future, if he wants to potentially damage a member of his paying audience, then he should perhaps pick on someone who is not assertive enough to stand up to him and more intelligent than him in an argument.  Obviously what he SHOULD do is develop some human empathy and common sense and realise that such acts are unfunny, dangerous and unacceptable and be man enough to never go near the subject again.  Sadly I suspect that even now he is out there mindlessly peddling his sick "comedy", and people are still paying to see it.  That's what makes me really shake my head in sorrow.

New Blog

I played about with the idea of starting a blog some time ago but it never really got off the ground, I posted a few bits and pieces and then gave up.  I've been thinking recently about starting it up again, but as I am not really getting on with the Wordpress interface I have moved over to this here Blogger place.

I've decided to move a few of the bits I have already written over to here, so do bear in mind they were written a couple of years ago but I thought they were worth keeping.

What has brought this on?  I would probably have to blame my university lecturer who has created a monster as he has encouraged a formerly ranty soap box addict to become even more "critically questioning" and I thought if I wrote it down I might not get too annoying in real life.  Though there is something to be said for being really annoying if it is for the right reasons.

And he also encourages us to bark in lifts.