Not Endangered Enough

This weekend, there was a furore over remarks made by John Allan, the chairman of Tesco - apparently the UK's biggest retailer.  At an event aimed at encouraging more women and ethnic minorities into the UK's boardrooms, he apparently said 

“For a thousand years, men have got most of these jobs, the pendulum has swung very significantly the other way now and will do for the foreseeable future. If you are a white male, tough – you are an endangered species and you are going to have to work twice as hard.”

The headlines which were drawn from this were 'Tesco Chairman says white men are an endangered species in the boardroom'.  Accompanying reports construed the remarks as complaints.  From a white man who is one of twelve Tesco board members - nine of whom are white men.  Mr Allan's reposte to the criticism was that in the context of his speech - to an audience he was trying to encourage to aim for board level - he was actually supporting women and ethnic minorities.

What puzzles me, though, is how in 2017, we are only just finding white men in board rooms to be an endangered species.  It is almost a century since women got the vote.  It is over forty years since feminism really began to ramp up the pressure.  And yet at the UK's biggest retailer, there are still only three women board members - despite what must be a huge female clientele.

Why are we not angrier?  Why are white men only now endangered?  Why are they, well, not extinct but still appallingly dominant?  And as for ethnic minority representation...  

It is over twenty years since I started a job at the House of Commons.  I worked for one of just sixty female MPs.  It was a rampantly male environment, despite the departure of Thatcher only four years before I arrived.  It is nearly twenty years since I worked for a very well known investment bank.  Which still has not had a female leader, to my knowledge.  We currently have only our second female Prime Minister.  Not exactly vocal about women's place in the world though, is she?

I have written before of the need to stay united.  The Women's March must not be a moment.  It must be the start of something new.  We should be furious about wages and job prospects as well as about our right to abortion, contraception, personal safety.  Until women have more political and financial power, campaigns for other rights will revolve around trying to convince white men to do what we want, behave how we want.

Our ancestors, near and far, would be horrified at the lack of progress.  

Mr Allan was, it seems to me, trying to make a poor joke about how men should be worried for their positions in the coming years.  Actually, the issue is how this this 'joke' is still even relevant when it comes to numbers and representation.  Thanks to his own high profile, he has (unwittingly) called attention to the disgrace of the last hundred years.  How did it come to 2017 and men are only just endangered in the boardroom...

David for PM

Late posting today.  Partly doing school holiday stuff and partly because everything I thought of writing seemed to pale compared to the increasingly mad UK political news.

As if leaving the EU wasn't enough, our 'politicians' seem to have lost the will to live.  And apparently in two days time, the one who started it all - David Cameron - will retire to his estates having graciously handed over to (gratefully chucked it to) the second ever female prime minister, Theresa May (apologies if by the time you read this, the news has changed again and Kermit the Frog or someone equally well qualified is taking over).

This weekend, the debacle over Andrea 'Loathsome' Leadsom did at least spark some interesting teen 'show and tell' events in our family.  We were staying with friends and the adults were busy exclaiming over the hideous parenting-related claims which had burst forth from the woman.  And our nearly teen was earwigging.  The journey home therefore severely tested my powers as a politics graduate.  Rather large questions such as 'what is a feminist', 'what do Left and Right mean in politics' and 'why there has only ever been one female prime minister before now', fired from the backseat for most of the way.

I noted on Facebook this week that I was horrified to find myself wishing for a Theresa May victory and even more disturbed by the failure of the Left to produce any female leaders.  I spent my own teen years protesting against Thatcher - for the miners, against the Poll Tax, in favour of CND, etc.  I can only hope Theresa May manages to conduct herself and the government in a less adversarial way.  Mind you, at least Thatcher had a well-honed plan - whether you agreed with it or not.  No-one at the moment seems to have a clue.  (Must have Brexit-itis - I have just expressed a positive sentiment about the Milk Snatcher.)

Previously I have posted about where our political beliefs come from.  I had one Left and one Right parent growing up.  It never occurred to me to vote Tory though.  My innate tendencies were firmly Left wing.  I am now very curious to see where my children end up on the political scale.  They too have one Left and one Right parent but their father is more economically Right than in terms of equal rights etc.  But how will their views be affected by what we are living through right now?  By the time they are - hopefully - coming out of university, we will have Brexited.  What will they be concerned about?  Britain's place in the world?  Or basics necessities like finding a job in a shrivelled economy?  Or all the rights which they know their ancestors enjoyed and which no longer exist?

Will May be the saviour of the country or the bogeywoman of their teen years?  Who will grasp Brexit and make the best of it?  Theresa May is the best of a very sorry bunch - and I sadly include Labour in that.

Mind you, Youngest might have an idea.  She asked me this afternoon whether David Beckham would now have to move out of Downing Street...  Maybe we should be moving him in... his management would never have let things come to this.  A worldwide PR and financial disaster.