Pale, stale and female… bring it on
Women. They’re everywhere. Haven’t you noticed?
This week alone, they’ve stormed the Cabinet, conquered the Golden Globes, laid siege to the BBC and carried out a purge of Radio 2.
Crikey, anyone would think 2018 was the Year of the Woman. Or that they constituted more than 50per cent of the population. Or even that they ought to be paid the same, promoted the same and treated the same as men.
Judging from the reaction from the press and (anti)social media, you really would think that a monstrous regiment was laying waste to civilisation’s most venerable institutions, rather than simply getting on with the job and standing up for their legal rights.
Let’s start with Mrs May’s promotion of 11 female MPS, which she described as “fresh talent” for her government, and which the Tory old guard promptly rubbished as “tokenism”. This was because these women took the places of a tranche of minor male ministers who had made such a tremendous impact none of us had heard of them before they were sharp-elbowed out.
“So it seems OK to talk about government ministers who were male, pale and stale,” tweeted backbencher Michael Fabricant. “What would be the outcry if we talked about female, pale and stale?” Good grief. Where do I even start? There wouldn’t be an outcry, Michael, because it wouldn’t make sense to anybody apart from you. And you have lost all political credibility since you first appeared on Celebrity
First Dates and became embroiled in testy exchanges about your hair.
Such is the peculiar landscape we live in that the PM also came in for flak for sacking Justine Greening because she was, variously, a woman, gay and a gay woman. A few lone voices opined that she was quite a good minister, actually, yet the focus of the reshuffle remained mostly on the gender agenda. Because being a woman in a prominent public role is still a big deal.
When such a woman puts her head above the parapet and makes a fuss – refuses to be demoted, in the case of Greening, or refuses to be fobbed off by a pay rise, in the case of the BBC’S now ex-china editor Carrie Gracie – her sex is as much part of the story as her job title. It seems rather incredible that we are on our second woman PM and our head of state is a woman, yet women in high office are treated as arrivistes, and female employees of our national broadcaster are paid substantially less than their male counterparts.
What should I tell my daughters, aged 15 and nine, about how the world they will inherit works? The younger one is transfixed by the same book every nine-year-old girl in the country is reading: Good Night Stories for Rebel Girls. It’s packed with tales of 100 extraordinary women past and present – including Rosa Parks, Anne Frank, Serena and Venus Williams – and illustrated by female artists.
The overriding message is one of optimism, drive and determination; the oft-repeated mantra is to follow your dream, regardless of the obstacles – or, more mundanely, the grossly unfair pay anomalies you are bound to face. Back at the BBC, Gracie – who has spent the week as co-presenter of BBC Radio Four’s Today programme – says she wants equality, not more money. She also points out that male BBC journalists’ salaries are excessive.
A transparent pay structure would solve the problem overnight, but the women in charge of the BBC won’t hear a word. Oops, did I say women? As if…
By now, I’m probably sounding, at best, like a harpie, at worst, like a feminazi, but this call-to-arms isn’t just for our daughters, but our sons, too, who will have wives and partners and, in time, perhaps girls of their own.
So why is fairness deemed such a threat to the unnatural order of things? Headlines about three well-known female DJS being given coveted slots on Radio 2 make it sound like a Night of the Long Knives, rather than an overdue decision to take three longrunning shows off the air, retire their veteran presenters and freshen up the station’s output. As a listener, I’m cock-a-hoop at no longer having to switch off the organ music show and body-swerve the brass bands, so I will be giving a fair hearing to Cerys Matthews, Sara Cox and Jo Whiley. Not because they’re women – because they’re new shows and presumably won’t be inflicting jaunty versions of When the Saints Go Marching In on me.
As a whole, BBC radio is still predominantly male because, once upon a time about a century ago, it was decided that housewives (yes, that’s what they called them, children…) didn’t like to listen to other women. The BBC’S longest-serving radio broadcaster, Annie Nightingale, 77, recalls applying for a job on Radio 1 in the Sixties, and being told that not only were female voices deemed too high to be authoritative, but also that daytime DJS were intended as husband substitutes. Nightingale eventually landed a Sunday night slot and has stayed the distance because (a) her passion for esoteric music shines through, and (b) it turns out she knows what she’s talking about, actually.
Ideally, her gender shouldn’t matter – but the truth is that it does when it comes to the headcount. Every woman employed at Nightingale’s level helps redress the institutionalised imbalance between the sexes that affects us all.
But change is in the air. I’m not sure who declared 2018 was the Year of the Woman – Oprah Winfrey? And who would be foolish enough to shout her down? – but the prospect of a powerful, articulate, compassionate woman squaring up to wrest the US presidency from Trump’s grip would be a marvel to behold. Hillary Clinton was not that woman. Nepotistic jobs for the girls are no less palatable than jobs for the boys.
Here, we face the challenge of Brexit. To sideline half the population would be madness. Women should expect a level playing field, where they can succeed or fail on their own merit.
Frankly, the day when the insult “pale, stale and female” enters common parlance, we will know that gender parity has finally been achieved.