This morning I was in one of the BBC Three Counties Radio studios for an hour-long discussion with Jonathan Vernon-Smith (‘JVS’) on the topic of women in the workplace. The discussion was prompted by a recent report by the Women’s Business Council. When the file has been edited by http://manwomanmyth.com he’ll post it on our YouTube channel along with more commentary, but I thought the followers of this blog might like to hear the discussion first. Here’s the iPlayer file, which should be accessible for seven days:
http://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/p018z8jw
Four ladies contributed to the programme at various points – gender balance is a fine thing, isn’t it? – as you can see from the following timeline:
1:02:04 – 1:03:20 Introduction by JVS
1:05:58 – 1:13:26 Discussion between JVS and Ruby McGregor-Smith, chief executive of Mitie plc (a FTSE250 company) and chairwoman of the Women’s Business Council
1:13:27 – 1:20:21 JVS discussion with myself
1:21:19 – 1:28:33 We were joined by Caroline Criado-Perez, a journalist, feminist campaigner, and co-founder of http://thewomensroom.org. Two further sections of the discussion at:
1:30:14 – 1:31:03
1:33:50 – 1:43:11
1:43:12 – 1:53:50 We were joined by Amanda Murrell http://www.amassocs.com/ who is the President of ‘Bedfordshire Businesswomen’. Part-way through this discussion, at 1:49:10, we were joined by a lady phoning the programme, ‘Ann from St Albans’. Ann spoke a great deal of common sense, and said that – given the chance – she’d vote for Justice for men & boys (and the women who love them). A fine woman.
I should like to thank JVS and BBC Three Counties Radio for giving me this opportunity to articulate some of our key arguments about the genders in the workplace. I also thank the ladies for their contributions.
Congratulations on all the air time, and well done! 🙂
It seems as if the discussion constantly gets confused between on the one hand, whether women should not be allowed to have a career, and on the other, whether women should get special treatment to compensate for perceived discrimination against them.
But that are in fact discriminated against seems hard to prove. All women, I’m sure, have anecdotes of how they’ve been discriminated against, but so do I. It’s just not considered particularly “manly” to recount them. Besides, my personal anecdotes are not proof that, on the whole, I’ve been hindered more than I’ve been helped along the way. And we can prove that women do receive special treatment in some cases.
A study from the US, Are there Glass Ceilings for Female Executives? (2009) notes that:
This is in line with what Warren Farrell wrote in Why Men Earn More (2005):
Sorry for the long quote. The book (I’m sure you’ve read it) is a very good read.
(BTW, I recognize the lawsuit problem from a close female friend who worked in an executive position in a US Federal organization. She said that anytime she had to fire someone who was either a woman or part of a minority group, she was almost sure that she would have a lawsuit on her hands and would work twice as hard to ensure that she had all her bases covered – she never lost in court, but I personally witnessed her getting sued twice in two years. Both cases were ridiculous and she demonstrated that in court, but it’s still a big waste of time.)