I was once in Tennessee during (unofficial) Confederate History Month. That was weird.

Yes yes, whatever Craster. You can think what you like and live with your own delusions. You're outraged that I might actually expect a party representing equality to *actually* represent equality, and for statistics about the earnings of men vs. woman not to be wholly misrepresented to make it appear as though there's a larger problem than actually exists. Good lord, I'm quite the bastard.

And elsewhere. I used to run the graduate destinations survey at a couple of universities - 6 months after graduating, what are you doing and where? Two graduates (same degree, same year; same job title, same city location at Boots), on a trainee scheme at Big Chemist, 2k between their salaries. Guess what the difference was, and who was on the higher salary*? And that's a national graduate trainee scheme, not a job where you negotiate your salary.

*Just in case; sex, the male.

Minority interest group in fighting for minority interests shocker. Historically as a group white middle class men haven't exactly needed people to speak up for them on the basis that we are, in general, actually doing alright thanks.

Craster at the last BeexBBQ.

I do make a right fucking mess when I'm cooking.

Was going to say, apart from the (ahem) rather "unfortunate" connotations, that's quite a practical get up for me when I'm BBQing and getting pissed.

Don't think I'll bother though.

Yeah, well, if women really wanted equality how come it's still unacceptable to punch them in the face? Take THAT feminism.

No no no. This is 'equality for everyone' party, and you're saying 'It's for the minority interest but that's OK because I don't think men have any problems'.

You're wrong on two basic counts. Women aren't a minority interest (but I'm sure they'll thank you for that), and men have many issues that remain ignored by people that use the exact same logic as you to keep pushing it down and insinuating that anyone that raises it must be a sexist/racist type.

More male suicides, more workplace deaths, more jail time for the same crime, and so on.

JBR's example is surely one where the Equal Pay Act would apply - so obviously things like that should be prosecuted accordingly. Unless one city location was London and the other was say, Cardiff. The London effect modifies wages like that but I'm sure he controlled for such factors.

To be serious for a second, whilst I agree with you on many issues Gnomes, I have to differ with you on this one. I mean, I really don't think it can be denied that women are often paid less than men for the same job, as well as under represented generally, e.g. on Company Boards, in government and so on? That shit needs sorting out, and in order to sort it, we must firstly acknowledge it. It sucks.

So, I have to go with the board consensus on this one.

It's not acceptable to punch anyone in the face, and that's the point. If you think it's any more acceptable for a woman to punch a man than it is for a man to punch a woman, then you have some serious problems.

Of course. The Equal Pay Act does need to apply. So, how do we make sure that businesses are following the spirit of the Equal Pay Act and not the letter? How do we stop them creating two different jobs to do basically the exact same role, hiring a woman to one and a man to another and paying them differently? It's not the same job! Who needs to pay them the same? You have a special interest group pushing for the rights of those people. Pushing to make sure that the little slimy things that we all know employers do to skirt employment law.

Special interest groups exist for a reason. Saying 'lets be equal about everything' is proven, time and again, not to work. What you do instead is you have special interest groups, lobbying groups, and parliamentary action committees ensuring that where the ideal of equality isn't being met, something is done about it. And that's exactly what this is.

"Whaa whaa but what about the men?" is so far beneath you, man.

It's illegal to pay less for the same job, and statistics back that up. There are *very* few cases where employers are actually breaking the law outright there, and obviously I agree those should be stamped upon. The 'earnings' gap, if you investigate properly, is generally because men work longer hours or work in better paid fields. For women that work as long or work in those same fields, they are not paid any less - it would be illegal. In jobs where negotiation is a factor, as I said, it's down to the ability of the individual to negotiate. You'll find women being paid more than men if they were better at negotiating, and men being paid more than other men for the same reason.

Representation is a much trickier question. Firstly it presumes that it is desirable or advantageous to have all sexes represented equally across all types of employment. Who says? And why? But again you don't see anybody arguing to get the proportion of Bin men and Bin Women to be equally 50/50, because that's not seen as a worthy ambition for women. It's fine for men, obviously, but we really need to get 50% of women in boardrooms for some reason.

I don't object to having women in high ranking positions. I work with a lot of women, my boss is female. I have no problem with it at all. But everything should be based on merit and not quota-filling imposed from on high, because that's just applying 'positive' discrimination which defeats the whole purpose. My boss was recently promoted and even she confessed to me that she thinks it was because HR are trying to quality for some 'equality' award for getting more women onto higher payscales.

Definitely tackle unconscious bias (we actually have training courses locally on how to ensure interviewers aren't doing that), and get to a position where you're satisfied people have equality of opportunity. If everyone has the same opportunity to do what they want without being impeded, then the numbers come down to what people would rather do for which there is no wrong proportion. Because some political movement says women need to get into boardrooms, that doesn't actually mean anyone should feel compelled to do that. People should do exactly what they want and if that makes any industry not 50/50 then I don't see that as a problem.

The point of education which might need work is to ensure that children know that. They should know that men don't have to become mechanics or astronauts or that women don't have to be homemakers or beauty therapists. Those remain perfectly viable options, but choosing them should be in the knowledge that that's their personal preference and that all career paths are open to everyone in the 21st century.

I'm sure such an attitude makes me a pariah here, because it makes too much logical sense.

Just another way to push down those legitimate issues that men face whenever someone raises the issue. Good job.

But you're arguing on the wrong point here. You're saying this party is a minority interest group fighting on behalf of that minority. Hey, fine. Except they're not representing themselves as that, and are instead trying to issue forth on the 'equality for everyone' banner when that's not the case. That's what I object to, because it's clearly dishonest.

Not at all, I'm fully supportive of a group that wants to raise awareness and action focussing on violence against men. What I object to is it being raised as an objection to people forming a group to raise awareness of violence against women.

Again, you're objecting to something I'm not objecting to. Once again 'Equality for everyone' is not 'End violence against women', it's 'End violence against men and women', or perhaps just 'end violence'. The terminology is skewed and it falsifies the 'for everyone' premise.

We fundamentally disagree, Gnomes.

As per usual, I don't have "research" to back up the assertion that women are generally paid less on average than men, but this is so widely claimed and never challenged, I just accept it at face value. Certainly, it's backed up by my own anecdotal observations within Construction and Engineering Sectors where I work, traditionally 'male dominated' areas for sure, albeit changing at a fairly glacial pace.

I don't see the relevance of talking about equality in menial roles like bin men or whatever. Obviously, such a job DOES require physical strength, in the same way as a site labourer or whatever - so what though? There are many other examples of menial jobs which are dominated by women, so I'm not sure I get your point (and most certainly not as any counter to having gender equality in more desirable job roles, the vast bulk of which don't require physical strength).

I'm aware, of course, of all the usual arguments against all-women shortlists and such, "let them win on personal merit" etc. But I'm sorry, 20% representation in Parliament is an emergency in my view, totally unacceptable, and we must take drastic measures to correct even if there are downsides, until we at least achieve, and maintain, 40/60 split at the very least, for the sake of democratic legitimacy and credibility. What would people be saying if Parliament and company boards were 80% women?

(I wouldn't worry about 'pariah status' though, I've hardly room to talk on that score).

If there are 100 cases of violence against men in a year and 1000 cases of violence against women, then if you reduce that to 100 cases of each, you've reached equality for all. By addressing violence against women.

I would like to know how they plan to solve the issue of violence against women.

Delighted to debate you Cavey I promise I won't call you an evil cunt once!

But ok, I think you'd be doing a disservice to women by saying the physical requirements of hefting a bin (or in most cases, wheeling a bin over to a truck that hefts it for them) is beyond them. I don't see very many binmen that are hulking adonis types, so clearly a woman could do the same job if they wanted to, except they don't want to, which is fine, and nobody has an issue with it. Why isn't that true for everything? A weak man couldn't be any more of a labourer than a weak woman could, but that doesn't mean they couldn't be if they wanted to and worked to build strength.

So let's address this political imbalance by examining what causes it. The presumption is that it's a vague but persistent sexism. Is it? Happy to discuss that on merit if there's anything more to go on than 'general feeling' and 'anecdotal experience'. We've been discussing in this thread what a bollocks ballache (or titache? ) politics in general seems to be, and I wouldn't want to get into it. I wouldn't fault anyone for thinking 'fuck that for a bag of biscuits'.

There's obviously something that impedes women and I wouldn't presume it's basic sexism. Sexism of whom? Presumably the selection committees? Because they think men have a better chance to win? Because the electorate won't vote for a woman? But I haven't seen anything to prove that's the case. I can't imagine what kind of reasoning someone would have for voting for a man in a party they don't like because the candidate for the party they do like is a woman.

Do we really need to push women into a job if it isn't something they'd naturally want to do? Who has the moral authority to determine who should do what and in what proportion? These are relevant questions.

What do you all think about Maddox's theory in that video? e.g. "Why don't all businesses hire women if they can get them on the cheap? They hire out people in India for the same reason." ?

Yes I was going to say something about how that counters Craster's earlier point of having two faux job titles in order to pay the man more. If you actually know the woman is just as good at the job and will work for less, why not just exclusively hire women? That way you can't even argue because they're all visibly being paid the same, etc.

It's the misinformation that pisses me off. I'm happy to tackle the real, fundamental causes of pay inequality where they exist. What I don't agree with is politically motivated feminist types over-hyping the problems to try to engender a greater sense of injustice than actually exists. Sarah Silverman, who made a semi-viral gender pay gap video, full of the standard myth gibberish, recently admitted to lying about the one anecdote she could provide to show she'd suffered pay discrimination. She then went on to rant about how, despite the fact she did completely misrepresent the example, it shouldn't be used as evidence against the fundamental (flawed) argument. Sheesh.

I may be missing something here, I've only skim-read, but the new party is called the "Women's Equality Party."

Where's this "equality for everyone" stuff you keep saying?

Well, they don't 'know' the woman is just as good at the job. That's the entire point. The semi-subconscious inherent sexism that says "software developer?! Of course I want a man, women can't write code!" is exactly what leads to people offering lower salaries to women.

My thinking might be skewed purely because I don't know how sexists think, but that seems ludicrous. You'd have to be exceptionally idiotic to not employ someone that was demonstrably more qualified just because they're female.

You might have a picture in your head of the grey-haired 60s throwback from the good old days at the old boy's club thinking that women are only good for typing and looking pretty, but generally I find modern companies these days just want the best people. Certainly for the kinds of jobs I'm applying for lately the requirements are extremely demanding with lots of tests and practical questions, and somehow I don't think the mere fact of having a white dick is going to give me any edge.

How many companies are modern companies? Absolutely I don't doubt that the majority of hiring staff don't have skewed preconceptions, but if 30% do, then boom there's your pay gap.

I'm a KKK porn star, so it's pretty useful at times.

No come on, that's far too simplistic. You might as well write it as a Fermi problem with numbers plucked from your arse, and try to use that as evidence.

It's no less evidence based than "but generally I find modern companies these days just want the best people"

I could ask 5000 companies for their opinion if it helps

Ask 5000 women. And 5000 men!

Can an intersex person be sexist? There's a question.

Yes, they can discriminate against men or women.

I suppose that answer is a bit obvious.

Just as can anyone else. A woman is capable of discriminating against women, or men. Men can discriminate against other men or women.

Someone fighting discrimination against women isn't fighting men, or sexist men, they are fighting against sexist norms in society, and those can be perpetrated by men, women, intersex people who may or may not identify with one gender or another, and a whole raft of people that fit into the sliding scale of gender association and sexualities.

Back to politics of the day.

I think DC's performance was pretty solid. Sweating under the lights and looking a bit puffy, but spoke consistently.

I'll give Miliband some credit and say that he's improved in terms of public speaking in the last year, but the audience seems a bit pitched against him at the moment.

Edit: Wow, actually hang on, he just said he didn't think Labour overspent during their last term. Haha. No Ed, that's not a clever thing to say.

Leeds is like that. The audience sits back and pretty much silently says "Go on then, impress us". No easy ridings here.

FELL OFF THE STAGE

Half time entertainment is not up to much

I'm now 2 minutes behind the live feed after watching the slo-mo replay.

I know. It's just.... haha, Ed all over. Bless him.

Poor Clegg. I actually like him I think. He's just going to get railed here and given no credit at all. That's a bit unfair.

Leeds not convinced. Was the first question.

People who are lying tend to sweat.

Cameron spoke consistently, but wasn't answering the question he was asked. If you want to debate that, it'll be on iplayer later.

All 3 leaders will have very tough questions posed to them, none are blameless, all have broken promises and have made wrong decisions.

I just know that theres £12 billion welfare cuts imposed on the poorest in society if Cameron stays in his job and Cameron point blank refused to explain who is getting that landed on them.

And a lot of welfare payments goes to landlords jacking up the rents. Never seen that mentioned ever.


Live feed looks like its about to fail, same thing happened with the Lib Dems manifesto launch.

Ed was the best. Controlled the questions, hit his marks and looked head and shoulders above the rest.

Oh piss off your tedious twit. No politician answers a question directly. It's a game of never being pinned down in case you have to change your mind later.

Ed was best? I don't know what Question Time you're watching. Amazing.

The 'potential' next prime minister can't even dismount a fucking stage. https://vine.co/v/e7J0xnQMVvt

I think I just won any potential debate with you.

For your information. I didn't say Ed was best, that was MaliA.

If you'd like to believe your childish gibberish constitutes an argument won, you'd best keep thinking it for your own sake.

Yes, I know you didn't say that. Do I need to individually quote each comment I'm replying to for you to comprehend the flow?

Well, we could debate who is acting childish? Think you'd win?

Short debate, kiddo.