UK gender pay gap widens

From The Guardian

The pay gap between men and women has widened over the past year to stand at 17.1%, official figures out today showed.

The Office for National Statistics said that the difference in earnings of women and men in full-time employment rose by 0.1% over the year. For part-timers, the gap increased to more than 36%.

I'd like to say I'm surprised but I'm not. I'm more surprised about the fact that this article was buried right at the bottom of the UK page and the stressing, within the article, that it would be bad for men now that men were being laid off by the financial crisis. No "it's bad because it's unfair to penalise a whole group of people for just being biologically different" but rather "it's bad because it might cause problems for the menfolk and we all know they're the important ones here." FTBS

In related news:

The UK has fallen lower down the world league table on gender equality for the third year running, and is now ranked 13th out of 130 countries in terms of women's pay and work opportunities, political power, health and education.

Last year Britain came 11th in the World Economic Forum's Global Gender Gap Index, while in 2006 it held 9th place.

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Because, God Knows, We Can't Even Let Old Women Forget That Their Life Boils Down To Their Sexual History!

A woman in Cornwall turns 105- and the Guardian decides the most important part of her story is that she's a virgin. Assholes.

On the main page today(10/10/08) the story is advertised as:

"Woman celebrates 105 years of virginity"



The actual article itself isn't quite so clear cut. Miss Meadmore (the 105 year old in question) says that she thinks her longevity is to do with "plenty of walking, the odd glass of wine - and remaining a virgin." This a paraphrase by the writer of the article so we can't be sure that this is how she phrased it (then again media is suspect at the best of times anyway and even quotes can be misquotes). However the main focus of the article is on her sexual history.

What this makes me wonder is: how did this become the only important part of this woman's story? She was born in Glasgow in 1903. She's lived through the 2 world wars. She's lived through all women getting the vote. She's worked as a secretary. She's lived through women's lib. She will have seen so much and she'll have done so much, but here she is after 105 years and all the reporter covering the story is interested in is that she's a virgin and whether that's because she's gay. How does that even come up in a conversation without some prompting? Did the reporter (Sam Jones) sit and wonder what would make the article interesting and decided "Well sex sells" and therefore set out to focus only on this. Terrible.

It's nice to know that, should I live into my hundreds, all this society will be interested in will be when I last got laid. Way to turn women into sex objects only (because only our sex matters) rather than letting us be people.

Despite my irritation at this article, however, I hope Miss Meadmore had a very Happy Birthday. Hopefully if we talk about her on her next birthday we'll be able to know more about her than merely her sexual status. Click Here to Read More..