AND HERE’S WHAT THE MEN
FEW blokes are much fussed about the gender pay gap, but they are not foolhardy enough to say so in public. Just look at what happened when TV actor Tom Chambers suggested men need to earn more than women so they can support their families. Goat enters minefield. Ka-boom!
The reason we are sanguine about this alleged unfairness to women is that we have long seen it work the other way.
A quarter of a century ago, I was a newspaper executive involved in hiring reporters. Time and again I was instructed by senior figures to hire women — even when there were men who would have done the job better — because there was a politically correct desire at the top of the business to have a more even gender balance. Political pressure has forced similar practices on FTSE 100 firms recently. Tokenism is rampant.
Look at the all-women shortlists in politics, too. Some call it positive discrimination. I’m more inclined to see it as patronising egalitarianism. How can women who benefit from such favouritism ever feel they were really the best candidate for the role? Meritocracy is undermined.
Emily Maitlis is a sparky figure with a ready wit, but she surely understands that, in part, she has prospered as a TV presenter because she is a photogenic woman. Something similar could be said of my friend Tim Willcox.
He is a top reporter but also a good-looking lad, much drooled over by female viewers. Is it sexist or lookist to say so? No. It’s a fact of broadcasting life. Get over it.
Did you notice Maitlis attacked her BBC bosses while fronting a corporate awards evening? Was she paid for that? If so, why did the organisers choose her rather than, say, the less glamorous BBC reporter Norman Smith?
If BBC women feel cheesed off, they should go and work elsewhere. Only then could they claim they were truly underpaid.
Meanwhile, BBC suits should scythe the pay of some of those absurdly overpaid men. Call their bluff. I bet they would do the job for half the money. Let the pay gap be equalised that way.
This row has been used by the Left to obscure the real scandal: that a sanctimonious public Corporation has been paying some of its most egalitarian figures heinously capitalist sums. ‘Left-winger’ Gary Lineker has been outed as a greedy swine.
HOLBY CITY actor Tom Chambers is being chased by an angry online mob for his comments on the gender pay gap at the BBC.
‘Men’s salaries aren’t just for them,’ he said. ‘They’re for their wives and children, too.’
Although he’s right to say men’s pay is shared with their families, his mistake was not stating that women’s is, too.
For most couples, the balance can go either way, depending on their stage in life. Now our children are at university, my wife and I both work. I’m a freelance writer, but she has a after our son was born, but her heart really wasn’t in it.
When he was a year old, the childminder phoned to say our son had taken his first steps.
My wife burst into tears and vowed never to miss such a moment again. And that’s the thing seldom acknowledged. When some women return from maternity leave, their priorities have changed. Corporate life cannot compare to what they now see as the most important job in the world.
In advertising, huge efforts are made for women to combine careers with motherhood. Great strides have also been made to overcome genderbased discrimination. Agencies are often encouraged to hire women over men. Whether this is right or wrong is a moot point — as by discriminating in favour of one sort of person you discriminate against another.
Within a relationship, surely it’s whatever works best for the couple themselves. How Tom Chambers and his wife divide their responsibilities is their business, not ours. And this is why he should have kept silent.