Quote:
Originally Posted by Toy Soldier
I was joking Livia! I mainly work evenings / weekends these days because Mrs TS is back at University, and involved in a leadership programme / a tonne of other extracurriculars with the Scottish government, NGO's and academia. I'm all for women being high earners... she's on track to be one, and then I'm going to spend the rest of my life being so lazy that I'll probably have a stroke by 55. Utter Bliss.
There are some obvious inequality issues that do need to be addressed and if there is any actual bias towards men in any institution then that is obviously a massive problem. That said, as always, I'm mostly in favour of a gender-blind merit system where people are hired and paid based on experience and ability and that's it... no quotas, no positive discrimination. That is not equality.
The only part I sort of question is the whole "BBC's highest earners are all men and that's wrong" thing... this is an issue across all entertainment media and there's very little the actual companies can do about it. People are paid based on what is attracting viewers, and for whatever reason, men seem to sell better than women. To men AND women. Is that indicative of a larger problem with society as a whole? Maybe... but it's not an issue that can be addressed by forcing it. Take Hollywood as the major example; the vast majority of the highest earners, and the AAA stars who are cast as the lead in hit movies, are men. It's not because Hollywood is sexist - although it IS sexist - but that's not the reason for the casting and pay decisions. The simple fact is... other than some notable exceptions (e.g. Wonder Woman last year), female lead films flop at the box office. Not enough people go to see them... They don't make money. That's why no one is making them, and that's why the male stars earn more.
Like I said you can see that as an issue with society as a whole but it's not going to be fixed by ensuring that an equal number of male / female films are churned out each year... and likewise, the BBC issue isn't going to be fixed by firing Graham Norton and Gary Lineker and plonking female hosts in the seats. All that would happen is a plummet in ratings and then cancellation.
I guess basically my stance is... at some point, people on all sides have to really start opening up to a proper, level-headed academic examination of gender inequalities on all sides with a view to addressing them properly, instead of simply trying to balance the numbers, and pretending that doing so actually changes anything. All of the rhetoric has become so reactionary and dogmatic that at this point it's a toxic - and therefore unsolveable - problem.
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Yeah, I was doing something else when it occurred to me that I already know about your wife at uni etc. Bit of a sense of humour failure there for which I apologise abjectly.
I do agree with what you've said mostly... although I think the reason there are limited roles for women in Hollywood is that it's only recently that women have been recognised. It was only a couple of years ago that the first woman won Best Director. The first black actress to win Best Actress was in 2002. And it was Halle Berry. Pretty Halle Berry with her European features. So women, and indeed, lots of other groups of people, have been overlooked by Hollywood. There needs to be more women scriptwriters, producers, directors... Women make up 50% of the audience, no reason we shouldn't make up 50% of the cast and crew.
Things are changing though, I do believe that.