Check your privilege

Some facts. There are 650 members of the UK parliament. 442 of them (68%) are men. According to the 2011 Census, approximately 51% of the population of the UK is female. There was a 21% increase in police recorded sexual offences between 2015 and 2016.

These facts are important because to listen to some of the (mainly white male) responses to the allegations of discrimination against and bullying of women at the heart of the UK legislature, one could be forgiven for thinking that men are somehow under siege.

A particularly extreme version of the siege mentality was described by Charles Moore in yesterday’s Daily Telepgraph. Under a ridiculous headline and a picture of the Russian anarchist group Pussy Riot, Moore launches into a bizarre tirade which includes the following, astonishing, assertion : “It would now be highly unwise in many work situations for a man – especially an employer – ever to share a room with a woman without the presence of a witness. It makes men more reluctant to give women jobs.” This astonishing statement is presented with no supporting evidence whatsoever.

It appeared in the press at the same time as another one about a school in New Zealand where girls have been instructed to lower the hemline on skirts to “keep our girls safe, stop boys from getting ideas and create a good work environment for male staff”. This prompted the only response possible from one Twitter commentator, who wondered : “At what point, when protecting your male staff from the seduction of children’s knees, do you think you might have hired the wrong staff?”

The simple truth is that, for far too long, women in the workplace, and women and girls of all ages and at all stages of life, have been subjected to unfairness, discrimination, and oppression at the hands of men and as part of a society that is stacked inexorably in men’s favour. The lack of women in the boardrooms of major companies, the absence of women at the top of Universities and public bodies, the under-representation of women in legislatures and law-making bodies across the globe – all points to a system that is structurally unfair. Worse than that though – it points to a system that is necessarily under-performing. If 50% of the candidates are at a structural disadvantage in reaching their full potential in the workplace, politics, and wider public life, then we all lose out as a result.

That’s why the current furore at Westminster and in Hollywood is so welcome. Shining a light on an area of discrimination and abuse that we have all known about for far too long, must now lead to positive, decisive action to end the casual oppression of women in all walks of life, and at all stages of their lives.