Workplace sexism: TUC appoints a woman as General Secretary

[scottycelt]

I've been following this thread with interest. This story is perhaps apposite....

My watch stopped earlier this week, and this afternoon I went into town to get it seen to. It's almost certainly the battery. I went into the well-known national chain of jewellers where I bought the watch, and sought the help of one of the three assistants. "Take a seat over there, and I'll change the battery for you", said the lady.

Ten minutes later...... "Three of us have tried, and we can't get the back off." I pointed out that they had put the back on when the battery last required attention. It was a lady then, as I recall.

"Could you come back with the watch tomorrow, when there will be a man here?" This I undertook to do, and we will see what tomorrow brings.

Men may yet have their uses!

Mangerton, how Neandertherally 'sexist'!

""

[amateur51]

I've been following this thread with interest. This story is perhaps apposite....

My watch stopped earlier this week, and this afternoon I went into town to get it seen to. It's almost certainly the battery. I went into the well-known national chain of jewellers where I bought the watch, and sought the help of one of the three assistants. "Take a seat over there, and I'll change the battery for you", said the lady.

Ten minutes later...... "Three of us have tried, and we can't get the back off." I pointed out that they had put the back on when the battery last required attention. It was a lady then, as I recall.

"Could you come back with the watch tomorrow, when there will be a man here?" This I undertook to do, and we will see what tomorrow brings.

Men may yet have their uses!

Has anyone ever doubted it, mangerton?

[amateur51]

Mangerton, how Neandertherally 'sexist'!

""

Why so, scotty?

And please show your workings

[mangerton]

Mangerton, how Neandertherally 'sexist'!

""

Indeed, but I have found that women can be incredibly sexist against their own sex.

I remember when Mr and Mrs mangerton (senior) were members of the local bowling club, my father and I were horrified that women members were expected to provide tea for the men on match days. Mother thought this was perfectly acceptable.

(Of course, to be fair, she was well aware of my father's complete lack of culinary prowess.)

[ahinton]

Indeed, but I have found that women can be incredibly sexist against their own sex.

I remember when Mr and Mrs mangerton (senior) were members of the local bowling club, my father and I were horrified that women members were expected to provide tea for the men on match days. Mother thought this was perfectly acceptable.

(Of course, to be fair, she was well aware of my father's complete lack of culinary prowess.)

Not wishing to undermine the significance of the experience, but what "culinary prowess" is required "to provide tea"?...

[ahinton]

Why so, scotty?

And please show your workings

Oh, mon Dieu! What an invitation!...

[Serial_Apologist]

Not wishing to undermine the significance of the experience, but what "culinary prowess" is required "to provide tea"?...

Straining is involved...

[mangerton]

Not wishing to undermine the significance of the experience, but what "culinary prowess" is required "to provide tea"?...

Sorry, ahinton, I lapsed without thinking into the Scottish vernacular. This is not tea taken with cucumber sandwiches. This is tea, better known as high tea, where a knife and fork are required to consume, eg, fish and chips, or ham and eggs. Just the thing, after a strenuous afternoon's bowling.

[ahinton]

Straining is involved...

Indeed - but are you claiming that men are insufficiently capable of straining (either tea or anything else), that their ingenuity and inventiveness can somehow be undermined and/or compromised by the absence of available tea strainers or that they have insufficient awareness of the existence of teabags?

Anyway, this thread appears for some time now to have strayed well away from sexism in the workplace and the rôle of TUC (if any) therein; whilst TUC policy might well embrace the need for tea breaks for the workers, no one's yet mentioned sex breaks for them, so the entire thrust (sorry!) of this thread is now weakening like badly strained tea under an even more badly strained logic, it seems to me (although I have no desire to "show my workings" that brought me to arrive at such a conclusion) and, in any case, a thread that invites a contributor to turn "Neanderthal" into an adverb as this one has must surely be on its beam (me up, Scotty) end...

Nah - give me the avoidance of tax on globally warmed symphonies by commonwealth composers like Elgar any day!...

[ahinton]

Sorry, ahinton, I lapsed without thinking into the Scottish vernacular. This is not tea taken with cucumber sandwiches. This is tea, better known as high tea, where a knife and fork are required to consume, eg, fish and chips, or ham and eggs. Just the thing, after a strenuous afternoon's bowling.

OK - understood - but it nevertheless strikes me that this notion of "high tea" (if it's not meant to signify that the tea is awff by virtue of being "high") is one with inherent snob value along the lines of country suppers in the vicinity of (non fish and) Chipping Norton - and to partake of it after a "strenuous" (implying "straining") post meridian's bowling also seems to me rather like putting the cart before the horse, in the sense that one might reasonably assume that the washing up bowl would be pressed into service after such a "tea" rather than before it.

All of that rather reminds me of John Major waxing as near as he could get to lyrical about the sound of leather upon willow accompanied by warm beer which, when I heard that, made me wonder momentarily which of those three things is the most unpleasant until it dawned upon me that the warm beer has it hands down every time...

It seems obvious (at least to me) that there'd be no need to have me incarcerated in Gitmo, since I seem perfectly capable of waterboarding myself under a stream of consciousness of my own accidental making...

Er - what was that someone said about a woman in charge of the TUC?...

[Lateralthinking1]

Er - what was that someone said about a woman in charge of the TUC?...

Whether people like the distinction to be made or not, the presence of a woman at the head of the TUC will make bullying male Ministers seem more bullying. A style that to some has been fair game until now will increasingly seem unacceptable, although that will no doubt be countered by the ghoulish with aspersions about her womanly character. Since Thatcher and Scargill, it is also probably easier to paint left-wing men as more inclined to 'living the life of riley' double standards. We have seen that in comments about Crow and Serwotka. A woman could be seen more readily as a stereotype of walking the walk as well as talking the talk. That's a problem for male employers. I wouldn't be surprised if we soon see a woman moved inside the Cabinet to wield the axe.

The biggest current problem with the unions in my view, and I think this partially echoes handsomefortune's sentiments, is that they are more adept at protecting the comparatively vulnerable than the vulnerable. For example, ever since public sector employers, especially the Government, have chosen to 'strive' towards having no compulsory redundancies, voluntary redundancy has been compulsion under another name. That hits the weakest. What they do now is switch around the compensation payments, so that those who leave compulsorily get far less money rather than more money in compensation than so-called volunteers. This is the opposite to previous practice and in fairness terms immoral. What happens is that those who would just about be able to live on the reduced money from any compulsory redundancy take the risk and stay on. Those who couldn't jump out of fear. Once the weakest financially are gone, the unions attempt to prevent compulsory redundancy for the rest and are often successful.

So they are wholly complicit in that system. They accept the divide and rule. Meanwhile, the Government sits pretty saying that it hasn't made people compulsorily redundant and the people who left have to confess to everyone that strictly speaking it was their 'own decision'. That is precisely what happened to me. I will never get over the complete misrepresentation of me by almost everyone on my 'voluntary leaving'. No one had the guts to face up to the fact that the process was forcing out the least well off. Frankly in all of the faux congratulation it was just like living in a system run by the thought police. If the new head of the TUC can get to grips with that one, so much the better but it will be too late for many. So in denial are the majority that even friends contact me expecting to hear me as someone who left voluntarily. What they hear instead is very much the opposite. My impression is that they find it deeply disturbing. Numbers in papers can be distanced more easily in maintaining a fake worldview. And that they work for what is now an enemy, and knows it is seen as such, even makes one question their real motives for getting in touch. I doubt that I trust them any more than I will do the unions for as long as all participants lack basic principle.

[mangerton]

OK - understood - but it nevertheless strikes me that this notion of "high tea" (if it's not meant to signify that the tea is awff by virtue of being "high") is one with inherent snob value along the lines of country suppers in the vicinity of (non fish and) Chipping Norton

I can assure you - and I'm sure scottycelt will back me up on this - that there is absolutely nothing even remotely snobbish about a Scottish high tea. It was the main meal of the day in most Scottish households for many years, when they had "dinner" in the middle of the day.

[Lateralthinking1]

Beyond high tea, one sort of asks questions when e-mails arrive from mates now working in national security. Sure it is all how are you and genuine on one level. Of course they know the essential mildness in one's character from over 20 or 30 years. There is regrettably also that feeling they may have been required to ascertain from perpetrators what else they might have created. Others might hover elsewhere with similar questions. Whatever the case, it is an insult. I am sure that there are many potentially interesting difficult sorts around. Personally I've never understood why anyone would choose to bear down on the innocent.

[scottycelt]

Oh, mon Dieu! What an invitation!...

I feel certain 'mon Dieu' will not be in the slightest interested, but amsey's rather queer and unwelcome 'invitation' was very swiftly declined on the grounds of vile and outrageous 'workingsisms', ahinton ...

[scottycelt]

I can assure you - and I'm sure scottycelt will back me up on this - that there is absolutely nothing even remotely snobbish about a Scottish high tea. It was the main meal of the day in most Scottish households for many years, when they had "dinner" in the middle of the day.

Indeed, I'm more than prepared to 'back you up on this', mangerton ...

'Dinner' was what is now more commonly known as 'lunch', and 'supper' was a mug of cocoa and a couple of tea or digestive biscuits before bed ... or alternatively a 'roon' pie or slice of haddock and chips from the local Italian 'take-away', after the local constabulary had forcibly emptied the bars of the solely-male clientèle at exactly 10.10pm each evening ... the Sabbath excepted, of course.

Come to think of it, that was what we often had for High Tea as well, alongside that vital, already-buttered bread, brought by proper ladies who eagerly served we gentlemen with lovely little hats and pinnies on ... and in case of any misunderstanding in these more 'enlightened' times, I do refer, of course, to the ladies.