BBC gender inequality runs deeper than pay

SIR – Good on Carrie Gracie, the former BBC China editor, for reigniting the debate about equal pay for women at the BBC (report, January 9). However, gender inequality at the BBC goes further than discrimination over pay. Consider the likes of David Attenborough, John Humphrys or David Dimbleby: all BBC “lifers” and every one past their sell-by date, yet all still clinging on to their positions.

Where are the female television presenters over the age of 70? This inequality is entrenched and must be rooted out. William Millar

Edinburgh

SIR – Twice during my career my colleagues and I had to reapply for our jobs. Surely this would be a sensible arrangement for the BBC.

It would be an opportunity to rewrite job descriptions, set fair rates of pay and bid farewell to well-known older staff who should have retired years ago. Helen Houghton

Norwich SIR – Teachers in the public sector have a well-publicised pay scale, dependent on ability and experience: their sex is immaterial.

Why should the BBC, a quasi-public sector organisation, not adopt similar policies, and, more importantly, publish them? Lord Kenyon

Whitchurch, Shropshire

SIR – Carrie Gracie complains that the BBC pays her less than male colleagues for doing similar work.

While she has a good point, it is worth taking on board that her annual salary of £135,000 is almost five times the median national income in Britain; a fact that wouldn’t be problematic were it not the case that she is paid from what amounts to a highly regressive tax. The BBC licence fee has to be stumped up by all viewers irrespective of how meagre their income happens to be, with only limited exemptions for old age, disability or care requirements. William Gretton

Nottingham