Friday, September 23, 2011

Recently in England

While I do usually focus on the Us of A...some noteworthy stuff that popped up in my google reader this (and the last) week: There was the case of a student suing the London School of Economics because there gender studies course was misandrist:
The 39-year-old, who attended the university last year to take up a Gender, Media and Culture Masters degree, said there was “systemic anti-male discrimination”.
A statement by the school kind of agree
The university’s legal team has asked for the case to be struck out, claiming the core texts were not compulsory, merely recommended readings, and that the texts were equally available for both men and women to read, so therefore did not directly discriminate against men. The team also argues that “any discriminatory effect [against men] was plainly justifiable”.
Read the excellent analysis by TS here. Then there was this
Liberal Democrat Lynne Featherstone has launched a scathing attack on her male counterparts, insisting the world's continuing financial crisis was a direct result of men's failure to make the correct choices. 'In terms of decision making I have always gone out and advocated to women you must get your hands on levers, you must get hold of power, you must be where decisions are made. Because otherwise if you leave it to - I'm going to say men in this case because that's the way the world has worked - you get terrible decisions. 'Look at the mess the world is in, and look who has been in charge. I leave it there.'
Kind of disturbing that the person saying this is the equality minister there.
Meanwhile, fellow Conservative MP Priti Patel told the Evening Standard: 'These comments are really ill-thought out. As equalities minister she has got to be unbiased about the value that both men and women bring to decision-making. 'She works in a department that is trying to address inequalities in society - to then dump the blame for a range of problems on one sex is completely wrong and misguided.'
From the same party that wants this.
[2d] 'Enabling vulnerable families to stay together by implementing the Corston recommendatons, which would see a gradual closure of all women's prisons and their replacement with some small custodial units for serious and dangerous offenders, and, for most women offenders, a larger network of support and supervision centres in the community.' [found via reddit]
More misandry in that teachers case:
Mr Pullinger had almost 20 years' teaching experience when he was dismissed in 2009. The GTC heard this month that he had allowed a pupil to sit on his lap, shared a chair with another and, on numerous occasions, "failed to disengage immediately when girls ran up to him and put their arms around his legs". He had been warned in writing on two occasions, but had "failed to heed" the advice. In its ruling, the GTC said it had "noted the positive testimonials about Mr Pullinger and the fact of the positive assessment of his technical abilities". But it ruled that his behaviour amounted to "a breach of the standards of propriety expected". The ruling added: "His behaviour demonstrated a failure to establish and maintain appropriate and professional boundaries in his relationships with children in his care."
I guess the following is not that surprising:
Around a quarter of primary schools [...] now have no male teachers, and experts have warned that a lack of male role models may be putting boys off school at an early age.
And we had of course this:
At present, a woman can start receiving her state pension at the age of 60 years and seven months. A man must wait until he is 65. Under the changes, the age will be 65 for both men and women in November 2018, rising to 66 by April 2020. [...] ‘We’ll make sure that the state pension they do get is calculated in a fairer way. At the moment, pensions are often bad news for women and I’m determined as the minister to change that. ‘There’s a range of things that you can do, whether it’s about dates or about other bits of the system, that would ease the financial pressure for those most affected. ‘I won’t pre-empt what we’ll say to Parliament in some weeks’ time but the crucial thing for us is fairness.’
Fair eh?

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