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Woman's Hour

(139 Posts)
apricot Mon 16-Nov-15 17:37:45

Most days I shout at the radio then turn it off, infuriated by its relentless feminist agenda, its obsession with gender and its clear target of urban working women.
Recently someone indignantly demanded that bank notes and passports show equal numbers of men and women. I don't give a damn if they have Mickey Mouse on, I hadn't noticed they had pictures of people.
We are all people first and women second but Women's Hour is fixated on inequalities in slaughterhouse workers and getting girls to study engineering.
So, rename it Feminist's Hour and give Woman's hour back to the larger number who are more interested in the domestic topics which dominate Mumsnet and Gransnet.

Ana Wed 18-Nov-15 18:26:31

Men haven't learned to behave differently though, have they suzied?

It seems that the more advances women make in the struggle for equality in the workplace etc. the more they are subjected to hate campaigns such as the one you mention and the more certain men seek to denigrate and abuse them.

Iam64 Wed 18-Nov-15 18:37:23

I didn't know that suzied, that men's razors are tax fee because they're necessities, whereas sanitary towels are luxuries. You couldn't make it up could you.

Marmark1 Wed 18-Nov-15 18:41:15

Very soon women of childbearing age will make themselves unemployable.
Anyway I give up.Never in my life have I ever felt victimised by a male,or inferior in anyway.Although I have dealt with some very nasty women.I would soon put them in their place.

Ana Wed 18-Nov-15 18:42:15

Well, I suppose it could be argued that there isn't an effective alternative to a razor for shaving, whereas in theory women could (and indeed have done in the past) use all sorts of alternatives to commercially-produced sanitary products. Tampons have only been available relatively recently, after all.

Iam64 Wed 18-Nov-15 18:47:27

Ana, I think the alternative to a razor is called a beard. Many young men are sporting beards at the moment.

Markark1 - You seem to be rather nastily trying to put a number of other women posting on this thread, in their place.

jinglbellsfrocks Wed 18-Nov-15 18:50:56

suzied I'm pretty certain we did have a thread challenging the behaviour of the men harrassing the young woman. And it certainly isn't only women who get trolled online. There are some nasty people out there of whichever sex.

Ana Wed 18-Nov-15 18:53:29

Iam64, then the logical alternative to sanitary wear is none at all - not very pleasant!

jinglbellsfrocks Wed 18-Nov-15 18:57:52

Men's razors aren't tax free. confused

jinglbellsfrocks Wed 18-Nov-15 18:58:34

They have full rate vat on them.

Ana Wed 18-Nov-15 19:04:09

Yes, duff information from suzied.

suzied Wed 18-Nov-15 19:11:52

m.huffpost.com/uk/entry/5363720
I got my info here . I didn't say razor blades I said razors.

rosequartz Wed 18-Nov-15 20:04:44

I have sited through thousands of CVs of software engineers and I'd estimate about 2% are from women and most of them are Indian.

JessM I am astonished and disappointed to read that and hope that it isn't true that women are being excluded from or avoiding certain professions. It is 50 years ago this year that the first degree course in computing science was set up in this country and the first students comprised ten men and one woman. However, the balance in subsequent years became more even. So I am very surprised to hear that there are not more women working in these fields in 2015.

Likewise with medicine, where the balance is slightly in favour of women (for which science subjects are the obvious A level requirement).
And there seem to be many more women scientists these days compared to years ago.

Perhaps engineering just does not appeal to many women? Although it can be an interesting, well-paid career with many different areas to choose from.

varian Thu 19-Nov-15 13:20:00

It is more than 50 years since undergraduates started to study computing.

I was in the first year of students at my university to study computer science in 1964. We were all third year students who had done two years of maths. We were tacght programming in Algol and a low-level language called KDF9 autocode, along with numerical analysis. Previously at our university there had only been an MSc or PgDip course open to graduates in maths, physics or engineering.

There were quite a few girls on our course, but I can't remember how many.

Since then I've had to re-learn programming many times - and I still don't like computers!

rosequartz Thu 19-Nov-15 14:39:22

varian and anyone else who may be interested

Here's a link to the history of one of the first courses in computing science to be set up in this country in 1965 (further down in the link):

www.fcet.staffs.ac.uk/jdw1/sucfm/stafford.htm

Degrees were awarded by the Council for National Academic Awards (CNAA)

It is interesting that they are showing a woman at the DEUCE control desk ten years before that momentous event!

trisher Thu 19-Nov-15 14:40:01

Actually I'm not really interested in "domestic topics". I am very interested in history and the way that what women have done in the past continues to be undervalued and under recorded. The idea that it is somehow a radical feminist proposal to have women equally represented on banknotes I find ludicrous. It's simply equality. Why if you don't care apricot would you condemn people who do? If you doubt that women's history is not told and not recorded consider the film 'Suffragette' and how many people came out of that film saying "I never knew about those things"

rosequartz Thu 19-Nov-15 15:43:13

But some people are interested in domestic topics - as well as having an eclectic range of more cerebral interests - or an in-depth particular interest. I - and I am sure others - am interested in topics which are not exclusive to women but may have relevance to them.

So perhaps a better mix and wider range of topics would make WH more interesting to more people.

TriciaF Thu 19-Nov-15 16:19:07

As for Medicine and Law:
Medicine - I saw recently a photo of the new group of interns at our local hospital, and about 75% were women. Many of the specialists are women, and that's in a country which was one of the last in the western world to give women the vote (1944, French Muslim women in Algeria 1958.)
And Law - I was speaking to a woman solicitor from Aberdeen a couple of years ago and she said the majority of newly qualified trainees coming into her profession were women.

trisher Thu 19-Nov-15 20:09:22

There are certainly women coming into medicine TriciaF the problem is they seldom progress to higher levels of the profession. For example one large city hospital has lists of surgeons using their theatres, how many are women?-2. If 75% of the profession are women at the start one would expect there to be more.
rosequartz I realise that some women are interested in domestic topics, but the poster seems to think they are in the majority, I just wanted to say that some of us disagree.

rosequartz Thu 19-Nov-15 20:12:34

DGodD who is a consultant said that not so many women go into surgery because it requires strength - and, feminists or not, they are not as strong as men all strong enough to be surgeons.

Yes, a balance would be better trisher smile

mbody Fri 20-Nov-15 10:58:41

I do so agree about Woman's Hour. I gave up on it some years ago when at home with a small child and all it seemed to do was get at women like me, a "non-working" stay at home mother. It must never have reached its target audience of working women, so patronising too.

liverpool170 Fri 20-Nov-15 11:53:57

Whilst things did improve considerably over my years in the workplace there are still issues to be dealt with.

My daughter's organisation is "restructuring", which seems to involve losing part time management jobs which are so ideal for working Mums.

TriciaF Fri 20-Nov-15 13:17:09

I read an article yesterday (Sunday Times again) about the increasing number of young men who have decided to have nothing to do with women - too risky. The movement started in the USA, and now there's a growing online group in the UK.
Many are students - evidently at some universities they get a lecture in their first year warning them to be sure of the girl's consent before they have sex.
There are other groups of men who are divorced and fighting for the right to see their children.

JessM Fri 20-Nov-15 13:37:15

mbody thought they had power tools. But come to think of it, my cousin who is a surgical registrar keeps herself strong and fit by .... pole dancing.

trisher Fri 20-Nov-15 14:33:59

There are some problems with women as surgeons-particularly orthopaedic, but they have advantages as well. Smaller hands are useful for oral surgery, keyhole surgery and can do more fiddly things!
If men are really deciding to have nothing to do with women it is a pity, on the other hand I can see a lot of them saying they are going to do this but not quite managing to keep to it. (Nearly put 'keep it up' but I thought that might be misconstrued.)

JessM Fri 20-Nov-15 16:28:10

Yes I did computer science in the first year of my degree, when computer storage was on little iron rings (see - I even remember one of the lectures!)
Don't know why it's a "girls subject" in India but not here. Schools don't really seem to get that it is a real subject. Plus good teachers in the area are extremely hard to come by. The standard school offering seems to have been how to use Microsoft Office. Programming has now been introduced in England into the national curriculum. I do wonder how they are managing to teach it though.
I get pissed off with Woman's Hour when they do cooking. Cookery on the radio is pathetic. The presenters are drooling and the rest of us - well - we can watch Masterchef can't we.