All,
Esther here.
One of the matters which none of us commented upon last week was the Prime Minister's Cabinet reshuffle; out went Hauge (worst foreign sec since the last one) and others, including Gove 'demoted',much to teaching union's delight ( hasn't Cameron ever watched or read 'the house of cards'? and regardless didn't someone tell him about the 'black magic' of the Chief Whip?). But the real big news was the promotion of women. Of course this being Cameron, the decision has nothing to do with the merit or not of the women being promoted, but all to do with Cameron wanting to look modern and trendy by having women in high office. Which is great .Except, with all due respect, I don't want to think that women have got to where they are because of being women. That is a constant smear that hangs over many a successful woman and Cameron is helping that along.
Of course I shouldn't moan, because at least women are now in top jobs. Although whether this will do Cameron any good remains to be seen. This is no disrespect to the women being promoted, but I've noticed recently (from my forays into debating this with people) that there is a new breed of Tory women who are thirty something, very confident, confrontational and super self confident, married into money or from money, which contrasts with those of us who have had to build everything from nothing, who are more down to earth, no less intelligent, who are folksy and know how to speak to people; modern Tory woman by contrast cannot understand that just because you have a triple first from Oxbridge doesn't mean to say you can treat lesser mortals with utter contempt.
New Tory woman doesn't get this and doesn't get that & has no experience of life outside of the rich upper middle class metropolitan way of doing things along with the attitude that comes with, i.e. rich or married in wealth, pushy, willing to trample on everyone to get what they want, plum in the mouth, ignorant of life outside of London, but doubtless representing an area like ours in rural England, who are disparagingly called 'the turnip taliban' for holding traditional views (hyperbolic I know and perhaps hypocritical given that I went to public schools and Oxbridge, but hey I was a Sephardi working class Jew of a third world immigrant family, who'd had to rebuild their businesses from scratch) . No wonder the Tory right is leaning toward UKIP. If you don't even care about your own constituency, why should the rest thing that you care about them?
New Tory woman doesn't get this and doesn't get that & has no experience of life outside of the rich upper middle class metropolitan way of doing things along with the attitude that comes with, i.e. rich or married in wealth, pushy, willing to trample on everyone to get what they want, plum in the mouth, ignorant of life outside of London, but doubtless representing an area like ours in rural England, who are disparagingly called 'the turnip taliban' for holding traditional views (hyperbolic I know and perhaps hypocritical given that I went to public schools and Oxbridge, but hey I was a Sephardi working class Jew of a third world immigrant family, who'd had to rebuild their businesses from scratch) . No wonder the Tory right is leaning toward UKIP. If you don't even care about your own constituency, why should the rest thing that you care about them?
Half the population of this country are men and men require special handling; treating them with contempt or derision because they hold doors open for you is the stupidest idea that you can do; it is childish, rude and gets their backs up unnecessarily. Nor does a willingness to tear your ideas apart if they are crap make them sexist and we do need to make allowances for them in other areas . My own husband, for example, is utterly incapable of running a household, which is why it is part of my lot in life to do so, but he is at least good at handywork around the house and with my (behind the scenes help) good at running businesses. So we all have our skill set.
I just hope that the women promoted last week not only have the ability, but also the understanding of how to communicate to people (they are politicians afterall). I also hope that they are not like the New Tory women I've mentioned above.
Well, we'll see. Time will tell. It always does.
Hi Esther,
ReplyDeleteOh I've met quite a few snobby women of that age . Thing is they might have money, but they lack class which no amount of money can buy. As for 'Cameron's cuties', who knows how they will do in office. As you say I hope they are good because they are good and not because of their gender. Which should be irrelevant.
Sorry sis, are you saying you want more women in politics? or less? or that they've go to be W/C? Are you saying a woman's place is in the home?
ReplyDelete'Money cannot by class' : exactly ! !
ReplyDeleteEsther,
ReplyDeleteBring on the meritocracy ! (:
To be honest, I find this celebrating that more women are in the cabinet a bit perplexing. Surely it is what they believe in, their principles, that count, and not the fact that they are female. I thought that Margret Thatcher and her rule were absolutely catastrophic, while Barbara Castle had far better principles, vision, and humanity. Thatcher got her chance and took it, but why should we celebrate the fact that she was a female etc, if we thought her governments were appalling?
ReplyDeleteMcVey does not convince me! In my opinion she has no balance, she screeches and complies with IDS, she appears ignorant of human suffering. She must have spent hours choosing her clothing for the photo shoot, very shallow . Her experiences and lifestyle seems more like 'ladder climbing' rather than intellect
ReplyDeleteI don't want some Tory bullingdon bully fleecing my pocket.
ReplyDeleteI want a woman to fleece me! There gender equality!
Agreed. They are women but they are also of the same 'class' as the men they replace. No real understanding of being short of money, worrying about getting a job or keeping it. In other words no change!
ReplyDeleteI do have to ask about another point. These women seem to have come from the cohort that became MP's in 2010. Does the author think that they should have become Ministers sooner than they have? How long should they be an MP (in otherwords understand how Parliament actually works) before being a Minister?
Can we just drop this crap about gender and simply PICK THE BEST PEOPLE FOR THE JOB! This late attempt at pre election window dressing is doing the country a huge disservice as it's more about appealing to voters than it is about finding the most suitable candidates to run the damn country. Then again, that's politics all over I suppose : (
ReplyDeleteI do wonder if it was a deliberate ploy to bring women into the cabinet now, when they have insufficient time to put any change, whether positive or negative into place.He could have had women in cabinet from the start, they where all there, but chose not to.So this can only be a cynical ploy to try for more votes.But his actions in putting these women into cabinet now is demeaning for them and for every other women. they were not good enough before, but if they drag votes in then they will do for now.
ReplyDeleteAs for bringing there "womanly" experience, that is just ludicrous, any man worth his salt who is a parent, understands children's needs as well as any woman who is a parent.To use truss as an example is ridiculous. This is the woman who wanted increase the number of children under 5 that one person could care for, to a point that was ensured that children's needs would not be met. That just demonstrated her adherence to tory austerity is more important than the well being of children.
Women only short lists are an abomination. What should happen is that the best and most qualified person should get the job, gender is simply not important, Its just blatant discrimination on par with the bullington boys looking out for each other.
Could not agree more.
ReplyDeleteTories are Tories, regardless of gender. Maggie Thatcher, Theresa Gorman, Angela Rumbold, Virginia Bottomley, Priti Patel, etc etc.
I don't want Tories running the country regardless of whether they have bumps on their fronts or not.
I'm all in favour of women's equality as a feminist. But Cameron promoted these women, not because he saw any merit in them, but because of the desire to make the tories less right wing zealots than they are. Are they any good? Let's see.
ReplyDeleteYeah, I like that phrase too!
ReplyDeleteHold on! Of course I can run a household. I just choose to allow you to run it instead (:
ReplyDeleteGood one. Especially the bit that money cannot buy class. How true!
ReplyDeleteI'm saying I want more women in politics, but not due to some kind of crude positive discrimination effect or because it 'look good' for politics. I don't care about the class background, but on their ability, women or men. No I'm not saying that a woman's place is in the home, I'm saying that women are the only ones capable of running a married home effectively. It just isn't a man thing. I'm not saying that women can't have careers either. We can multi task .That's a woman thing .
ReplyDeleteQuite.
ReplyDeleteNothing I've written above would necessarily mean I disagree with what you have written there.
ReplyDeleteWell you could say that traditionally you had to wait a long time to be promoted, but it seems politics has moved on somewhat. Is this good or bad? I dunno. Better than an old boy network.
ReplyDeleteRachel, I agree with you.
ReplyDeleteWell perhaps politics does and should come down to ideas, philosophy, competence & policies, not whether or not one has a penis or a vagina?
ReplyDeleteIn your dreams hubby, in your dreams ! (:
ReplyDelete