Questions About Catherine Hakim

A journalist has just asked me to answer some questions about "Dr" Catherine Hakim and her forthcoming report about women in the workplace. [Spoiler alert: she thinks gender difference are all down to us hopeless women and our biological pre-destination for the kitchen and the scullery]

Anyway here is what I was asked and my answers - you may at some point see some of this quoted in an online paper called The Fresh Outlook.

What is your opinion on women's advancements in the workplace?

I think that women's advancement in the workplace is restricted by something called sexism. Reliable, tried and tested reports consistently show that it is discrimination, nothing else, at every level, that holds women back. The pay gap in this country is wide and shows little sign of narrowing at present.

Do you believe that equality has been achieved for women?

No, of course not. As a comedienne I am regularly told by promoters that they "simply" don't think women are funny. How can that be equality when my ability to do my job is pre-judged based on my gender? I battle daily to get half the work men around me get. I don't know a woman in any profession who hasn't been held back by sexism in some way at one time or another.

Do you think that women would like to marry a man who earns more than
them?

I think women are all different. I wouldn't dream of generalising like that. I think most people, men and women, can see advantages in marrying someone who has a lot of money. I think that's obvious. And given how tough it is for women to progress in the workplace it seems likely that this would encourage them to seek other means of securing their - and their families - future financially. I don't think seeking a rich partner means a person doesn't want to work or wouldn't prefer to earn their money themselves. It's a very practical choice.

Do you think women see their role as the primary carer of children in the
family?

Again some do and some don't. It would be weird, would it not, if women were all the same?And again those that do may do so because of what they sense as a biological urge, other may feel pressured to by society, family, and culture and others may do so because their workplace opportunities are so poor, they decide to focus their efforts elsewhere - or of course a combination of those reasons and others.

Further comment: This report has yet to be actually published so far as I can see. "Dr" Catherine Hakim is a terrible researcher. Last year she published a similarly misogynist report entitled "Erotic Capital" which I read and it's methodology was laughable. She quoted the book Belle De Jour as a key source without questioning it's veracity and made a series of bizarre and contradictory statements. That she is accepted by the academic elite serves only to highlight the entrenched and unquestioning sexism which permeates academia. That her "reports" are quoted as fact in every major newspaper before publication and peer review serves in turn to show the entrenched misogyny in the media. Only last year Cordelia Fine published a whole book (Delusions of Gender) debunking the "gender as innate" myths with painstaking, incontrovertible research and in a fun and easily readable way - it received little to no coverage. Personally I think every woman in the country should be sent a copy of that book and should gather as one and slowly beat Catherine Hakim to death with it.*

*Not the official view of the F-Word (through whom the request came) or the feminist movement. The official view of me however.

Doing Vine

Ah, after the horrors of LBC yesterday there was something little short of warm and cuddly about being on today's Jeremy Vine show on BBC Radio Two. Sure they had brought in not one but two right wing idiots to argue with me (in the form of Spectator columnist Venetia Thompson and UKIP MEP Godfrey Bloom) but we actually had the debate, you know like where everyone gets a chance to give their opinions and respond to the comments of others. Radical stuff.

Up for discussion was the line between office banter and sexual harrassment and discrimination, in the light of a new tribunal case being brought by Jordan Wimmer. You have seven days to listen to the discussion (which starts eight minutes into the show) by clicking "listen again" here.

...and please do go listen - it's only ten minutes and I do a smashing job!

Oh Look...

...me having a good old moan in The Observer!

Try Not To Enjoy This Too Much...

...oh ok, go on then!! At the risk of shocking some readers I think I would have to admit that I enjoyed this story so much I may have to go change into clean underwear!

The Trouble With Cruella

Re-posted from The F-Word, where I am currently guest-blogging.

As some readers will have noticed, I was interviewed for a BBC Two documentary about working women called "The Trouble With Working Women" which was shown this evening. You can see the whole thing here on the BBC iPlayer. And if you just want to see my bit - it starts at 37 minutes in, so you can scroll it along.

I've just finished watching the whole thing and I thought it was quite interesting, they do speak to a range of people on the subject. I had a few notes though.

They talk a lot about the extent to which having children holds women back but they never stop to ask whether that in itself is a result of sexism. I mean if having children made you a bad employee we would assume that the small number of women who do get to the top would all be women without children. Surprise - not true! Margaret Thatcher has two children, Segolene Royal four children, Hillary Clinton one child. And the most successful women in business: Dame Marjorie Scardino has three children, Dorothy Thompson two children, Linda Cook three children. There is no evidence to suggest mothers make less valuable employees. What we do know is that female bosses, regardless of the number of children they have, work an average three hours more per week than their male counterparts.

Later they gravely warn that one in four women with a degree is "childless at forty" - something they should probably mention to the noxious woman complaining she wouldn't hire a woman of child-bearing age. Note to any female readers currently navigating the credit crunch job market - why not consider a career-enhancing hysterectomy... oh that's right because it's totally screwed up and sickening.

Even so the one in four figure is useless information without telling us what percentage of men with degrees are childless at the same age - among my college friends most of the women have children but almost none of the guys. And anyway one in five women overall do not have children in their lifetimes so it seems like the degree might not be the main factor. Plus what percentage of these women wanted children in the first place? Maybe getting a degree opened them up to other things that they enjoy more. Maybe they're thrilled to be without children and able to focus their free time on travel and artistic pursuits (as a friend said to me the other day "Oh God Kate I wouldn't have had children if I'd know I was creative!"). Maybe they would prefer to be described with the term "child free".

They then say that 30% of mothers stay at home full time but that two-thirds of working mothers said they did so out of necessity. For me there's a gap there where they should be asking what can be done to support mothers who want to spend more time with kids and why the benefit system forces women back to work so quickly after they have children. There is a lot of talk about women making tough choices but the reality for many women is clearly that it's not a choice at all.

But also I'd like to know what percentage of stay at home mothers do so at least partly because their job prospects are so hampered by sexism - certainly true of all the stay-at-home mums I know.

As so often with these things they seem to get totally sidelined into the motherhood thing and away from the real issue - sexism. Amazing when you consider they actually interview guys who say "women shouldn't be allowed to work", "women aren't put on this earth to work". And then you're telling me it's my choices that are holding my career back? No - it's these assholes!

So where is the documentary asking how so many men manage to "juggle" a career with playing golf and downloading internet porn? Whoops, forgot to make that one!

The notion that women having children explains everything from the pay gap to sexual harassment is totally sexist because only women can be "women having children"! I honestly believe if women rather than men grew the vast majority of beards the government would announce they were unhygienic and we wouldn't be allowed to work in the food industry which would overnight become the best paid industry in the country. And if men had the children they'd be automatically promoted every time they squeezed one out because they were demonstrating an ability to shoulder more responsibility...

We're not victims of biology - we're victims of misogyny.

Stripping the Illusion

Hmm, my satirical blog has been really fun the last few days. Never quite sure how long my enthusiasm for these ventures will last but today's effort has a feminist feel to it, poking fun at Peter Stringfellow and his attempts to avoid a much-needed crack-down on lap-dancing licensing law. If you want more information about the problems I seriously recommend you go to the Fawcett website here and read the personal accounts by Lucy Brown and Sarah Evans of working in and commuting past a strip club. And find out more about the campaign at the Object website here.

Frustratingly the BBC has put up on their news site a link to Stringfellow talking bollocks but not bothered putting up a link to Sandrine Leveque from Object doing a brilliant job of explaining why the law change is needed. Luckily the footage is up on Parliament Live TV where what I find amazing (aside from the great job Sandrine is doing) are the weird, pathetic and totally out of date objections put up by the MPs hearing the case. At one point one of them says (essentially) "But don't women get jobs stripping on cruise ships as a way to get their Equity card?". Now firstly I'm not aware that this is true but whatever. Secondly if it is true, surely it's a rather horrible state of affairs and we should sort it out. Or does the government thing stripping should be a short-cut into acting. What other career paths does the government think should offer fast-track access to those prepared to strip for money? Forgotten to study for your GCSEs? Just flash your boobs at the invigilator... Is that what these idiots actually want?

(Piccie from Freefoto.com)

Stating the Obvious. Slowly.

Hope you all saw me on BBC One this morning explaining why expecting kids to wear school ties is (a) pointless - they will always push the rules and wear them as untidily as possible, (b) out-dated - no-one from investment bankers to boy scouts wears ties any more and (c) classist - if we teach kids that you must wear a tie to be respected we teach them to respect accountants and lawyers but not builders and shop-keepers. All went pretty smoothly. The guy I was debating with (Nick someone - I have no idea who he was) was a significant idiot...

Dressed like a Victorian dandy, cravat, silk hanky, cuff-links, leather briefcase and probably sock-suspenders but I tried not to look. In the waiting room the floor manager came through and said they were ready for us in the studio. I leaped up and headed for the door, he started making a cup of tea as though a national television show would be happy to wait for him. Oh yes we'll just fill in chatting about the weather until you prepare yourself with Pimms and a quick twenty minutes of birch twig self-flagellation!

Then - and this was really the amazing bit - while we were waiting for the cameras to come to us he asked me what I did for work and I said I was a stand-up comic to which he said "good grief, what is the world coming to?". Not sure what he thought WOULD be appropriate work for me: scullery maid? seamstress? lady in waiting?

Once the sound was rolling he said "Jesus Christ" loudly, resulting in the presenter having to apologise to viewers for the blasphemy. I'm no fan of the religious anti-blasphemy lobby but really before you go on air the only thing they tell you is "don't use bad language", how hard is it?

Anyway here's how prepared he was for the interview - half way through he admitted that "if we're going to use logic" I was right. And then kept talking as though listeners had tuned in to a news show to hear his illogical faeries-and-pixies-based theories!

Another quickie for this morning - an article from the BBC about the joys of sexism. Apparently men with "sexist" views about the role of women in the workplace earn more than men with more liberal views. Now I don't quite get their point here, they seem to be saying: Career path moving too slowly? Try misogyny for an instant boost!

Maybe the point(s) to be concluded are a little more subtle, maybe (1) people who are a**holes in one area are a**holes in other areas too. Maybe being an a**hole in general gets you ahead in business. (2) Maybe guys with old-fashioned beliefs also believe that it is their responsibility as men to be the bread-winner, to earn all the money to support the whole family. So maybe they are more incentivised to do that, even when it means sacrificing family time or indeed principles. (3) Maybe guys with sexist views about a woman's role are likely to marry women who want to stay home and look after kids, etc and maybe when your partner does that you need to get ahead in work in order to support the family on a single income rather than sharing that burden. Or (4) maybe it's because these cultural dinosaurs are more likely to be wearing a Hawke and Pilkington kerchief and cummerbund combo tied in a reverse triple Windsor knot with Queen Anne tassles unachievable without three years at finishing school and a very open-minded man-servant!!

Can someone remind me which century this is? I seem to have missed a meeting!

The End of the Line

On Wednesday night I compered a charity gig in Ipswich. Mr Cru was on the bill too and lots of friends of ours so we were really looking forward to it. Having originally planned to get a lift to the gig, we then heard that this was actually going to be awkward and necessitate another car being brought along just for our benefit. Thinking of the environment as well as the inconvenience we quickly volunteered to get the train to Ipswich and catch the others up there. Got to Liverpool Street Station and headed for the ticket office. Two returns to Ipswich? £116.

Yes fifty-eight pounds EACH! This is a less-than-an-hour journey. Lots of people commute this route. Now of course if you book years in advance and make the journey regularly you can pay much less than that but I don't have the kind of job where I am going to make the same journey very often and nor do I always know miles in advance wherer I am going. And anyway what is the point of having a £58 fare unless you actually intend to charge people £58 for a return train journey London to Ipswich? In the past when I've made that journey it's never been more than £25 return. And the single fare was £55.

It would, of course be cheaper for the two of us to rent a car and drive to Ipswich. In the end we took a £14 return to Cambridge and got a lift across with another act from Cambridge. And Cambridge is actually a longer train journey from Liv St Station.

Every time I open the papers I see people complaining that Gordon Brown should do something about the cost of driving and then do something about climate change. Am I the only one who can see one simple way of dealing with both problems? Caps on train fares! What is the point of privatising the railways and then allowing them to rip the general public off all the time?

If You Haven't Done So Already...

...then please read this report about the UK sex industry by Julie Bindel. Disturbing but important stuff.

Wrongly Addressed

So I'm buying some props for my Edinburgh show. (Gratuitous plug: If you've coming to the festival and still don't have tickets for Apes Like Me please buy some here) and the website says it charges more if you order by phone so I use the online form and I get a choice of "Mr", "Mrs", "Master" or "Miss". What century is this? How can the internet age have come upon us and yet "Master" is a more likely form of address than "Ms"? They may in fact have stabbed themselves in the foot because my credit card is in the name "Ms" and I'm quietly hoping it'll be declined. It's rude to expect to define women based on their marital status. Whose business is it but mine what my family set-up is? And I don't care if "Ms" doesn't stand for anything or if it isn't clear to you how you should pronounce it, just use it, it's about respect. Grrrr. (I'm cross and so is my elephant!!).

Stick A Sock In It Tim!

Having just read this and spat half my tea over my computer screen, let me count to ten, breathe deeply and say the following:

1) I don't know how the women in work commission get their theory that only 5% of the pay gap is a result of direct discrimination (the link he provides leads only to a front page but most of the links there are broken) but speaking as a women who worked 8 years in the financial services sector - a woman with no particular propensity to get sick and who during that time never had a baby or so much as a dependent goldfish -the pay gap is alive and well and all about direct and indirect discrimination. Neither kind of discrimination is acceptable.

Now I will accept that deliberate, conscious under-paying, under-promoting and under-recruiting of women is rare. But there are lots of other ways women miss out. To list but a few:

- Not having our ideas taken seriously at meetings.
- Women being recruited for looks rather than abilities and then being unable to keep up with male colleagues.
- Missing out on networking opportunities that take place in strip clubs, etc.
- Being criticised over our appearance, while male colleagues are not.
- Being unable to take part in business trips to places like Saudi Arabia where women have restricted movement.
- Being mistaken for administrative staff and given paperwork instead of proper work to do.
- Having unpleasant sexual remarks made about you within earshot.
- Being criticised for being too pushy while male colleagues are congratulated for sticking to their guns.
- Being told how lucky we are to have got the job in the first place.
- Being excluded from team banter.
(I could go on all week)

Even if this mystical 5% number had any truth in it - what is so wrong with wanting to close a gap that by your own admission is directly caused by outright prejudice?

2) Discrimination against women because they take maternity leave and have more domestic responsibilities is still not acceptable. If we are to insist that it's ok to underpay women because they have wombs and (shock horror) might use them then would infertile women be afforded a pay rise on bringing in a certificate of hysterectomy? Or indeed, for dramatic effect, their removed womb in a freezer bag?

And do we actually want to live in a society where people with children are deliberately underpaid in case it affects their work? How will that affect the next generation?

3) As to the notion that part-time workers deserve mistreatment because they are less useful and require more training: most part-time workers I know are women who have gone back part time after having a child. They therefore needed no additional training, they all work more hours than they are paid for and they all afford their employers flexibility because they can adjust their schedule to accommodate busy periods (e.g. working an extra day at month-end).

In short, Tim, when you say in your title "Not All Discrimination Is Bad" - remember the definition of discrimination:

Discrimination: (n) treatment or consideration of, or making a distinction in favor of or against, a person or thing based on the group, class, or category to which that person or thing belongs rather than on individual merit.

Yes all discrimination is bad. People deserve to be judged on their individual skills and merits - not on prejudice about how they might behave because they happen to have a cunt.

Is America Ready For a Misogynist President?

This man could genuinely be the President of the US some time soon... How scary is that? If you have the opportunity to do anything to stop that happening, please do.

Observe This!

Article in today's Observer about sexism in the the UK workplace - features a quote from me. If you have the paper version (main section, page 24) you will see there is also a rather nice piccie of me in a suit - a close up actually of this serious and business-like shot of me that Steve Ullathorne took a couple of years ago, although it fits so well with the content of the article it looks as if it could have been shot specially. Steve called me today and said the Daily Mail had asked for permission to use the photo too so maybe I'll be in that at some point in the week. I'll also be on BBC News 24 talking about it around 7.20am tomorrow morning.

What is moderately interesting is how much too big for me the suit I have on is. It was a tailor-made bespoke suit I bought about six months before I left the world of finance. As soon as I left I had enough time to eat proper food (instead of fast food) and work out and take walks and so on, I didn't actually lose much weight but I lost fat and gained muscle and about a year later when the photos were taken it was way too big for me. Moral of the story: don't work stupid hours - it's bad for you.

Helen Fisher, Anti-Feminist of the Year (So Far)

Helen Fisher is not only a feature of the BBC website, but also apparently the economic summit in Davos. Shocking to discover her anti-feminist drivel is being circulated so widely.

She starts well, claiming she is "definitely not a feminist", in which case she should presumably reject all the advantages feminism has garnered for her - like the vote, the right to work and the chance to express her (wrong) opinions all over the place.

Then the BBC informs us that her word is FACT. "[this] is not psycobabble. She bases her findings on archaeological evidence, MRI brain scans, genetics and large-scale surveys of how men and women behave"

She's telling people how to hire people to work for them. "On average, women gather more data, consider the context, are intuitive, have a sympathising mind and think more long-term. Ms Fisher calls it "web thinking". Men, on the other hand, are more focused, think linear, focus on rules and the short-term - "step thinking"."

Sure on average that may (or may not) be true. But that isn't the way you should hire people, based on averages. On average men are taller than women. But that doesn't mean we should hire only male firefighters, we should hire any man or woman tall enough and capable enough to do the job effectively.

And if you don't believe the rubbish about "testosterone makes you think differently" she's got proof: "Research shows that film scripts written by women are more complex and have more ambiguous endings than those written by men."

Which would also constitute (in my world) conclusive proof that the barriers to entry in the world of movie script-writing are higher for women than men.

Here's how wrong her analysis is, she at one point says "[some rubbish theory] may be the reason why women are better talkers", ignoring the fact that recent research shows women do not talk more than men, we just get ignored more.

And when she describes the male-female differences, a lot of them sound to me like subtle "digs" at women:

"Men can have tunnel vision, women may fail to get to the point."

So men are focussed and women stupid?

"Women find it difficult to counter aggression. When men push back, it earns them the respect of other men."

So women can't handle aggression and men thrive on it. Fuck off!

"When women apologise, they are not really sorry. For men it's a serious affair, a perceived weakening of their status."

Women are fickle and don't mean what they say. Men aren't. Excuse me while I barf here.

Her overall point is you need to have some men and some women on your team to benefit from the two utterly distinct ways of thinking and operating. But there are more than two distinct ways of thinking and operating, we all know creative people, problem-solvers, diligent workers, inspiring people and people with great social skills. The balance of which of those you need for your team depends on what you're trying to achieve.

Expecting women to think one way and men another does two things:

1) It prevents women (and men) being considered for roles they may be more than capable of because assumptions have been made about their ability based on their gender.

2) It throws open the door for prejudice and justifies it.

Please Sir, Can I have Some More?

According to the Washington Post, women ask for more money or wage increases less frequently than men do. We hear this a lot as though it were the conclusion of the debate on women's wages. Clearly there are a number of other issues going on:

1) Women are taught from an early age that it's rude to ask for more. When I think about the issues - I know personally my gut reaction is to feel I should be grateful for what I'm offered, but then I remember having that drummed into me as a kid.

2) I've never asked for a raise without first testing the waters - dropping a few hints to see if it's worth asking. Lots of women are undoubtedly being discouraged from asking, being "let know" not to bother. I know I've transferred departments before and on joining the new team been told "You're doing very well for yourself for a young girl like you...". Didn't take me long to figure out it wasn't worth asking for more.*

3) When I have asked for a raise and been refused, to save face my employers and I have generally "re-framed" the conversation. "I'm glad you're interested in joining the new project, I'm just sorry we don't have quite the right spot for you"... So maybe refused wage rise applications don't get counted as applications for wage increase but as other types of meeting.

4) Applications for wage increases do not help companies so women should be congratulated for using up less management time and demanding less money. To ensure they do not fall behind on wages we should immediately introduce compulsory annual wage reviews which address at the gender pay gap specifically. We also need to make it compulsory for companies to offer transparency on wages - so women can see if they are falling behind.

And then if you read to the end of the report we discover the horrible truth - in the study, men were less prepared to hire and work with women who negotiated for more money. But indifferent about whether the guys they worked with negotiated or not. So we discover that women who seem the negotiating type never get hired in the first place. No wonder we have all learnt not to stick our necks out!

*Although I did ask not to be referred to as a "young girl" when I was nearly 30 and doing all the actual complicated work on the team. Filling a "Hermione Grainger" role...