WARNING. This blog is about gender and alleged sexism. I make no excuses for the fact that my views won’t please all women or men – who are as entitled to their views as I am mine.
In her ‘My View’ article in yesterday’s I-News, Laura Bates takes issue with the suggestion of women-only train carriages after shockingly-high levels of sexual harassment and assault on public transport. Which she has personally experienced as the founder of The Everyday Sexism Project.
Laura says that ‘Segregation sends the message that all men are innate sexual predators with no control’ and to get this politically-correct message across Laura is being paid handsomely to perpetuate this myth with a full page in The Independent.
What tosh. This is how it works Laura…
If I am travelling with men I am happy to sit with them.
If I am travelling alone, on a busy train during the day, I am probably happy to sit anywhere I can get a seat.
But if I am travelling alone on a near empty train carriage or late at night I would definitely choose a women-only carriage, given the choice.
Trivial comment follows – Especially if it had a smart coffee bar onboard, as in the FOX Photos/Getty image in the newspaper article.
My reasons for this are simple. It’s all about female perceptions, attitudes and choice.
Segregation makes me feel safer and is surely a matter of personal choice. I enjoy most female company, unless they are behaving badly, which is why I am a member of the WI, the Athena Business Network and Mumpreneurs Networking Club.
And anyone who tells me that women and men behave the same in these environments simply hasn’t experienced the gender differences. And I like to choose which environment suits me best, per occasion.
Of course segregation is no alternative to the Police doing their job but it’ll likely reduce sexual assaults and make it easier for the Police to do their job. And if the Unions could convince me that they’d use a second person on driver only trains to keep us all safer, I’d support their campaign on this basis alone.
Finally, I don’t want anyone telling me what I should or should not do, Laura Bates. Just tell me the facts and present your readers with choices.
A ‘Report It To Stop It’ campaign does nothing to make me feel safer travelling alone at night. If I am assaulted and a women-only carriage might have prevented this, why aren’t you using your considerable clout to advance this case thus making travelling by train safer and more fun for female rail travellers who feel like me?
Blurred Lines: The New Battle of the Sexes…BBCI missed Kirsty Wark’s TV programme on Thursday but have just caught it on iPlayer. It’s called ‘Blurred Lines – The Battle of The Sexes.’
Kirsty was remarkably balanced about the whole thing which the Guardian described as ‘illuminating and stimulating’ but I found depressing and disturbing.
The programme looked at challenging gender-related areas including pornography, attitudes to rape, bullying online behaviour and varying degrees of misogyny.
Apparently it’s thought possible by some that women might have gone too far in their quest for equality so some, usually beleaguered, men are starting to hate us for it.
Some women (including me) were offended by extreme male behaviour here, some thought this was old hat stuff and some laughed it off, calling it ironic or best ignored. I think we’re wrong to dismiss this so lightly.
Areas of gender abuse the programme didn’t tackle
+ the abusers were almost exclusively male
+ some young females seemed to side with the males rather than their victims
+ alcohol clearly numbs the senses when it comes to public decency (including students on the train) but is this an excuse?
+ females who felt entitled to flaunt their bodies (sometimes for money as in models and prostitutes) seemed oblivious to their lost respect and the impact their bare behaviour has on other women/their gender.
Battle of the sexes concerns
The programme got me thinking about…
+ The temptation for feisty females to want to be more like men to be accepted in their career roles. How unambitious is that? Shouldn’t ambitious women want to do/be better AND be themselves? Not copycat men?
+ Rod Liddle’s attitude that women should ‘man up’ for serious online abuse because ‘it’s the same for men’. No it isn’t Rod; you might be used to it because you actively rattle cages but few women do; gender abuse is usually made by male bullies who are out to frighten women. And succeed.
+ Young women who feel that misogynistic abusive attitudes have to be lived with, like the young girl who was prepared to put up with not being able to play her interactive shoot-em-up PC games at night because of the online abuse she received. For being a woman.
The motoring industry perspective
Now what has all this got to do with FOXY Lady Drivers Club? Yes I run a motoring club for women within a masculine oriented industry so you might think I’d want to jump on any battle of the sexes bandwagon.
But I don’t recognise this level of offensive behaviour and this programme has helped put into perspective the industry’s leaning towards ‘Loaded-like’ models in advertising and promotional situations. I still feel sorry for scantily-clad girls who feel the need to do this at exhibitions and I am frequently offended by unnecessarily sexual motoring-related adverts and websites but I do find that when businesses/advertisers realise these can be offensive, they are less likely to do this again. Many in charge simply don’t realise that this is still going on in their business…
But it must be said – the majority of us, men and women, know that misogynistic behaviour isn’t appropriate today. In defence of women who don’t want to be seen as sex objects, I also defend men who don’t want to go shopping, do the cleaning or change nappies. You don’t have to…
You don’t have to because life is a series of relationships and we need to work hard to get them right if we want to.
If men or women are to be the sole breadwinner and/or the chief business honcho their partner will presumably support them to do their bit.
If a man and women compete for a promotion they have to assume the best one gets it (and try for the next one if it isn’t them).
If men and women in the same relationship are both heading up the career path one can assume they’ll have enough money for nannies, cleaners and gardeners…
So what’s the problem in terms of equality here?
The problem is often created within the media as was well illustrated by Rod Liddle’s attitude, some awful comments made about historian Mary Beard (who shouldn’t have been asked to comment about them I felt) and the troll-like behaviour that seems to zoom in from all parts of the world wherever women can be put down by men.
Women don’t do this about men, nor should we ever start to I hope..
But even so, women must not let misogyny flourish through well-intentioned apathy. Everyday sexism needs to be outed so that others think twice before resorting to this themselves. Simply hurling gender abuse without engaging the brain first needs to be managed more effectively by websites than ever before. If the post uses offensive words delete it. If the post is abusive delete it. And if there isn’t already (I’m not sure), there should surely be a central repository for all online abuse that gets investigated by the internet police. Regardless of gender.
The greatest disservice an otherwise excellent TV programme like this one achieves is that the rest of us forget that it is but a very small minority of individuals, usually male, that resort to this bad behaviour.
Let’s all remember that it’s usually enlightened men that have helped today’s high flying females to get where they are, because the males know it’s the right thing to do… and because otherwise UK business and our society in general is missing out on 50% of the available gender talent.
For me, I cannot speak too highly for the encouragement I have had from so many men in the UK motor industry. They want it to be a more gender diverse industry and together we are making genuine inroads into burying the ‘last male bastion’ image that many women still have of garages and used car showrooms. We just need a few more females in at the top, in UK Boardrooms to be specific, to make it even easier for talented others to follow in their footsteps in future.
Undoubtedly Messrs Gray and Keys were walking football encyclopedias but they will be better known for being uncouth bullying louts who offended women in particular, got it wrong on several occasions and were unpopular with their work colleagues. Yes it sounds as if they might work again at Al Jazeera but it looks as if sexism in such a male dominated arena has been dealt a severe blow for the future. Hurrah.
In future, if anyone is sneering, patronising, leering or being loutish in our presence I think women owe it to their gender to say ‘I find that disrespectful’ even if you get laughed at afterwards.
If you’re a customer and this happens in a business, explain how you feel there and then and leave the premises, never to return.
How otherwise will these men get the message unless their nearest and dearest Mum, wife, sister or partner/fiancee tell them how wrong they are and how demeaned they feel.
FOXY
Businesses that sign the female friendly FOXY Promise agree to ‘never overcharge, patronise or sell women services they don’t need or want to buy.’ And if any do, we’ll help you sort it out and make sure they know better in future.
