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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UK Feminism

I often find myself wandering the feminist blogosphere feeling quite distanced from the topics on offer What, I wonder, does it matter to me to hear endlessly about Proposition 8, Sarah Palin, the hideous backlog in the processing of rape kits in LA, other than to make me (righteously) angry? Why do I need to know the details of a "he said" "he said" election that I can do nothing about and will just make me feel frustrated? Is there nothing happening in my own country? Is there nothing in my own country to get righteously angry about (for example the 2.9% conviction rate for rape charges in Scotland, that seems like something that's due some attention and ranting about)/ Where are all the British or Scottish feminist blogs? Is The F-Word Blog really it?

And then the other day, while reading about a 21yo woman being raped in Glasgow last weekend([1], [2], [3]) I suddenly realised: I have a blog! It's in Britain! It can have a British, or at least a Scottish, perspective!

Of course this could be a really big job, and I am only learning , growing, working out my stance on topics. Perhaps it is a a case of me trying to take on too much, perhaps I just don't have the time or the motivation or the intellectual capacity for it. But then, you know what, if I don't fucking try I'll never know.

So I'm going to try. I won't promise not to comment on things outside of this remit. I'm not stuck on an island... well I am but the Internet and globalisation and the sheer high frequency of American influences on Britain (not the mention the lesser but not unimportant influences from Australia, Canada, Mainland Europe, or rather Europe, Japan/China, India, the Middle East, basically everywhere ) makes the ability to be xenophobic rather moot. Anyway I'm not going ti stop reading all those other blogs: how would I procrastinate? But what you can be assured of is that I will have a British./Scottish outlook on the whole thing. Because that is what I am.

So there it as another sentence starting with 'so' a declaration of intent. I may be now to this Serious Blogging lark but I so want to give it a darn good try. Now I just have to work out where to start.

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