As was feared, in the streamlined package of Bills announced in Wednesday's Queen's Speech, Harriet Harman's Equalities Bill made the cut. This will be a disaster for men and will embed anti-male legislation into the establishment even if the Government loses the next Election.
The Bill (link) which has been covered here before (link) will lump all discrimination legislation together into one Act.
However, it introduces new areas.
(1) Positive Action - If a man and a woman have equal skill, an employer who believes one gender is under-represented will be able to give a woman, for example, the job if the employer thinks they have too many men. Because of the criticism made when the Bill was announced that this would lead to widespread discrimination against men, the Government have laughably tried to say that it will allow head-teachers to pick male teaching applicants above female ones.
As stated in the previous post about this Bill (see above), this is a laughable sop.
We know, because of the previous tone of Harman et al and the rest of the anti-male establishment when the Bill wasfirst announced. It will be used to systematically discriminate against men when used in practice. This will especially be the case when it comes to the public sector and will be used to allow women to bypass men in the management chain because that is where they are supposedly under-represented.
With so many boys leaving school uneducated, the last thing they need is another brick wall placed in front of them solely because of their gender. Trevor Phillips (Equalities Commission Chairman) previously raised this as an issue (link) as did academic Dr Catherine Hakim (link).
(2) Gender Pay Gap/Equal Pay Audits - As covered extensively (link), this is a ruse to attack men, nothing more, nothing less. There is no proof that a woman doing the same job, with the same talent, same experience, making the same profit at the same company gets paid less than a man. Research shows that single women get paid more than single men!
(3) Extension of All Women Short lists/Gender Lists For The Next Five Elections - Parliament is holding a Speakers Conference on how to get more women into Parliament and the political parties will continue to be allowed to 'positively discriminate' against men in selecting candidates for elections (link). This is a clear denial of the political franchise to men and stops men from representing their community and country solely on the basis of the gender.
This Bill is another nail in the coffin of the British male.
It will go through because too many Parliamentarians are supine in the face of the anti-male feminist onslaught to dare resist it.
Point one is the most important. As it effectively makes legal discrimination and potentially on a wide scale. It certainly will make an impact in public services and those who have contracts with the public sector.
People should write to their MP. Papers etc.
Because of the realities all the evidence is that pay audits do little to change things just because there isn't in fact much discrimination to find.
Posted by: Nigel | Saturday, 06 December 2008 at 10:15