Disgrace of Positive Discrimination.

It seems to me that positive discrimination the like that popped up regarding Laura Pidcock on Question Time is a very destructive force. How come you ask?

Well, I believe in getting a job on merit. I don't believe that people should get a job based on who they know, or what golf club they belong to. By the same token I don't believe a person should get a job based solely on Gender or Race.

It always should be the best person for the job, irrespective of race, creed, colour, disability or gender.

I've seen time and time again even as a white, able, male it's not what you know, but who you know that gets people into jobs. There is discrimination in all areas of life unfortunately.

When I worked in I.T. I had to work twice as hard to get into the higher profile jobs I did get into. Many were by referrals and word-of mouth from previous colleagues, because without that the selection process was biased. Mainly because if people looked at my CV, yes they could see I'd worked on projects at some of the bluest of blue-chip corporations and banks (and I mean Goldmann-Sachs, HSBC, Commerzbank, that sort of thing), but I failed their selection criteria by not being University educated or in interview by speaking with a Northern Accent.

So I do know discrimination.

All the same, I wouldn't want a job just because a company had a shortage or Northern-Accented, non-university educated, lower-class white males. I would find the fact I'd been chosen not for my ability to do the job, but for what I was offensive and demeaning. I want people to employ me because I'm good at my job, not because they had to.

Obviously I'm not in their shoes, but I do wonder why people do take such jobs and crow about positive discrimination being a big step forward. I mean, Laura Pidcock wasn't a shining example of the best of the bunch on Thursday night, that's for sure.

The suffragettes and feminists worked hard for female equality, not for them to be discriminated against in any form, negative and positive. How would they look at women being put into positions just because they are female? Isn't that just the same as a patronising pat on the head? I would like someone to explain the difference.

The same goes for thye black minority, are they discrediting the legacy of equal rights activists by insisting on positive discrimination? I hear a lot about Black or B.A.M.E-only groups. How would the likes of Dr Martin Luther King like that, after fighting for EQUAL rights for everyone?

On both counts activists should look really closely and understand what positive discrimination as actually doing. The end does not justify the means and dicrimination of any type is counterproductive and divisive.

Of course now there are so many self-assesed minorities, the chickens are coming home to roost. I'm talking about the row bubbling away in the Labour party about all-female shortlists being open to transgender candidates (especially males that identify as female but have not fully transitioned). Sorry, but in my mind equality is equality: without fear or favour. But that's why I hate positive discrimination of any kind.

Of course the biggest can of worms that remains to be opened is Sport. Just how will the authorities square the issue of trans women or men joining in sport?

Maybe the Labour row is a good thing and it shows up how stupid the idea of shortlists and positive discrimination is. I doubt it, but I live in hope...

Question time 08/03/2018 Worst Ever Episode.

Well, it happened: Question Time dredged the political landscape this week and came up with a panel that (except for Liam Fox) was incomprehensible, incoherent and unable to make any sort of valid point.

Let's start with Liam Fox: Conservative MP and one-time secretary of state for defence. Probably the most coherent on the whole panel. Certainly the only person able to make a coherent steament of fact and make a point.

After Dr Fox, it all spirals drastically downhill...

Laura Pidcock: Labour MP and token northern class warrior. Just the sort of died-in-the-wool Labour idiot that I left the North to avoid. Appointed by rota rather than ability.  Lots of leftist babble that makes no sense. Housing is a human right and insecurety of tenure supresses the ability to join in industrial action. Fuck me, she's stuck in the Seventies, even though  she probably wasn't born then. Most likely indoctrinated by parents.. Seems to want the North stuck in a stereyotypical time warp. Probably wants to bring Lowry back from the dead to paint it all.

Prue Leith: TV cook and cake-baker, old and seemingly a little bit senile. Tended to wander off the point, or try her hardest to get there without wandering off topic or her voice trailing off as she lost the plot.

Roma Agrawhal: Engineer, hopefully not structural. Out of her depth in poitical debate, but made up the numbers of females for IWD with the cachet of being an engineer and young and a minority. Boxes galore ticked for the BBC inclusivity department.

George the Poet: Described as a spoken word artist. It would be fine if he could actually get the words out. Seemed to errr and aaahhhh for longer than actual coherent words came out of his mouth. Can't say what his political views were. They appeared left of centre, but not sure.

Even David Dimbleby got in a dig when talking about the lack of time available for the programme, saying maybe they should just have the audience and remove the panel. The audience were certainly lucid and intelligent in the main.

Question Time was a waste of air time. I'm not sure what's going on at the BBC but bloody hell they need to up their game and it really won't take much. Anything was better than last night.

Maybe they wanted to steer away from Brexit, so had a non-Brexit loaded panel.

Next week is Keir Stamer, the Labour leadership stalking horse and the worst head of the CPS they've ever had.  I'm sure television suppliers are rubbing their hands with glee at the replacement sets they'll be selling next week. Why is it I always want to punch or thrown something at the smug git?

International Women's Day.

To me it's interesting that such a thing as international women's day has to exist. All my life I've treated women as equals. In the past there have been very awkward moments when I've been on buisiness lunches with female colleagues and the " what will your wife say?" question came up.

In my head there never was a need because there was nothing overtly sexual about grabbing lunch together. The question wouldn't arise if it was two male colleagues out for lunch, so why should it for two colleagues of the opposite sex? And in the interests of fairness, I can disclose I've gone out for lunches with Gay colleagues and the question still didn't arise.

Even though feminism has made great strides forwards, it will take a long time, maybe a couple of generations of women to feel fully equal to men.

And when i mean equal, I mean fully equal on their own terms, not on arbitrary terms specified by someoune ho says they are a feminist.

A great excample is sexual fantasies: there are a great number of women that dream of being dominated by men. That they have the freedom to explore that side of their sexuality is good. It is not exploitative, or demeaning, it is what the woman chooses to do for excitement.

A feminist would have a fit trying to explain how submitting to a man is demeaning, disgraceful, etc. without understanding the wioman choosing to explore the fantasy has the power. She is making a choice and is exploring sexual desires she wants to explore.

In the BDSM commiunity there is a phrase "consensual non-consent" where the woman wants to be overpowered and wants it to feel real. That's not to say it is real, it's just a scanario she and the male she chooses to do the exploring with are working through.

One of the vocal feminists would not understand how empowering that is to a woman. I get fed up of feminists telling other women what they should and shouldn't do, how they should and shouldn't behave. What they are saying is that other women have to conform to their boundaries, conform to their standards of behaviour, which is just as bad as if a man was telling a woman the same thing.

Equality is freedom. It's having the freedom to choose any career you like, explore any lifestyle you like, with whom you like and where you like. It doesn't require the premission of anyone, including feminists to live your life the way you see fit.

But by the same token, you cannot expect (for instance) to have a level playing field with males if you don't play the game the same. If you take 5 or 10 years out of your career then don't expect to have the same wages as a male or female that hasn't taken time out of their career.

Equality and empowermant comes with responsibility and respect. Promoting one side of the coin whilst ignoring the other is just promoting a new inequality.

Where I wish feminists would turn their attention is to those countries that institutionally degrade women. Saudi Arabia and other Muslim countries where the rights of women just do not exist, where women are required by law to dress a certain way. They should condemn Sharia courts in the UK where communities treat women as second-class citizens against the law of the land. They should condemn traffickers that trade women like objects for real (not sexual fantasies) and bought and sold for cash and enslaved. They should condemn countries where the life of a girl is worth less than that of a boy and a girl can be killed with impunity.

Anyway, to all women everywhere, happy International Women's day.

Now when is International Men's Day? In the spirit of equality and promotion of man's rights you understand.....