UK slips further down on gender equality

[questionmark]

UK slips further down global gender equality league

• Equal-pay ranking is 81st out of 130 countries

• Overall position two places lower than last year

* David Batty

* guardian.co.uk, Thursday November 13 2008 00.01 GMT

* The Guardian, Thursday November 13 2008

Britain is failing to bridge the gender gap, with increasing numbers of women earning less than men, an international thinktank has warned.

The UK has fallen lower down the world league table on gender equality for the third year running, and is now ranked 13th out of 130 countries in terms of women's pay and work opportunities, political power, health and education.

Last year Britain came 11th in the World Economic Forum's Global Gender Gap Index, while in 2006 it held 9th place.

The biggest decline in performance was in the ranking for equal pay, where Britain dropped 20 places to number 81.

One of the report's co-authors, Saadia Zahidi, said this translated into thousands of women being significantly worse off. "There was a 4% drop in wage equality in the UK in the last year, but this equates to a drop of 20 places on the rankings from 61st place to 81st," she said.

In terms of overall economic participation, which covers wages, earnings and the proportion of senior managers and professionals, Britain fell 10 places from its 2007-08 score, to number 42.

Zahidi, head of the women leaders and gender parity programme at the World Economic Forum, said Britain had worsening rankings due to its own declining performance and improvements made by other countries such as the Netherlands and Latvia. The report used data from the UN and other sources.

Overall, Britain scored 73.3 out of 100 in terms of gender equality in 2008 - a small decline on the previous year, when it achieved 74.4%.

But it fell from 12th place in 2007 to 21st place this year when ranked in terms of women's political empowerment, due to a 6% drop in female ministers.

Zahidi said: "The UK was one of the best countries in the world in terms of political empowerment last year, when 29% of ministerial roles were held by women."

Britain scored only 28 out of 100 for women's political empowerment, compared with the 53% scored by the best country in this category, Finland.

"The world as a whole is still lagging behind on women's political empowerment but 21st place is still a pretty good ranking," said Zahidi.

Full story, source: The Guardian

[GreyWeather]

I like how equality is determined by money.

Yay capitalism!

[Bill Hill]

gender Issues....? The Guardian...?

shudders............ think I'll give it a miss...thanks

[Bill Hill]

I like how equality is determined by money.

Yay capitalism!

lol yeah it's like, my heart bleeds Mz Ball Breaker only gets two company cars instead of three.

[Talon]

But it fell from 12th place in 2007 to 21st place this year when ranked in terms of women's political empowerment, due to a 6% drop in female ministers.

Zahidi said: "The UK was one of the best countries in the world in terms of political empowerment last year, when 29% of ministerial roles were held by women."

And? So she's saying we should vote for people if they're female and not based on policies. This woman can go jump of a cliff, she's a fascist troglodyte and she can go to hell... not that I believe in hell, but that’s besides the point.

If the SNP field a male candidate and the Conservatives field a female, I'm voting for the SNP.

If the SNP field a female candidate and the Conservatives field a male, I'm voting for the SNP.

Why? BECAUSE GENDER DOESN'T MATTER, its policies people vote for!

Just because someone votes for a non-female candidate does not make them automatically sexist; its only sexism if you vote against them because they are female. Equally it’s sexist to vote for someone just because they are female - which I wouldn't be surprised to hear this idiot spokesman (oh sorry... spokeswoman) for female-chauvinism does.

Men and woman run for election based on party politics, if they are not elected it means they're policies weren't popular, not that people switched party so as not to vote for a woman. Also, in the UK at least, more men are involved in politics than women, this IS NOT a conspiracy by men to hold women down; men do not secretly have the powers of mind control to make less women involve themselves in politics and hence increase the number of men running for election than women.

As for the wage issue, time and again this comes up, because women like this who just want to moan about how tough life is to them ignore one thing; the figure is skewered by the high number of women who work part-time. It’s a fact more part-timers are female than male, thus paid less than the man doing the full-time job. This is not evidence the woman is being paid less because she's a female, rather she's being paid less because she works less hours. If she wants more money, she should work more hours.

What this lunatic feminist suggesting? That we should pay a woman who works 21 hours a week the same as a man who works 35 hours the same yearly wage? Oh yes, cause that’s equally .

The one thing she could legitimately complain about is that many of these part-time women work such hours because they need to be home for the kids getting back from school; but considering how sexist this society is against fathers and fatherhood its hardly surprising society sees mothers as the natural child rears. Feminists fought against equal rights for fathers, and campaigned for society to view women as naturally superior parents; they can't then b*tch when it backfires on them. If they want to have equality in the number of men and women putting careers on hold while looking after the kids then they need to end the constant attacks by feminists on fathers-groups attempting to gain equality for men.

If women want to increase the numbers of MPs then WOMEN need to involve themselves in politics to the extent that there as many of them running for election (and thus have a chance of being elected) as men; if women want to get the same yearly pay as men, then less women should work part-time (something that can be helped if feminists stop attacking attempts by men to gain equal footing in parent-hood). Either way, believe it or not men are not part of a secret conspiracy to oppress women, and most of the problems women face can only be solved by women, not by blaming men for every single problem you face in life.

Only when the evils of chauvinism and feminism are abandoned will we have true equality between the sexes.