Sexism and Racism.

First World War Soldiers

(Guardian photo)

There is a lot of talk about the first world war as it is the centenary of the start of it this year – August I think – and what a lot of people don't realise is that most of the men who fought and died in that war didn't even have a vote – here are a few facts/dates:

1884 Representation of the People Act. Any male occupying land or property with an annual rateable value of £10 could vote. 24 adults out of every 100 could vote.

1918 (End of the war) Representation of the People Act. All males over the age of 21 were given the vote. Women over 30 got the vote. Women could sit in the House of Commons as MPs. 75 adults out of every 100 could vote.

This discrepancy was intended to ensure that men did not become minority voters as a consequence of the huge number of deaths suffered during the war.

1928 Representation of the People Act. Uniform voting rights were extended to all men and women over the age of 21. 99 adults out of every 100 could vote.

99 adults out of every 100? I wonder who the 1% were – convicts?

There is also a lot of talk about female suffrage, when we can clearly see that men got a bad lot too so it was more a class things than a sexual preference.

This arrest is of a suffragette arrested in the street by two police officers in London in 1914 doesn't say anything about the male vote or lack of it.

 Neither does this poster and it was from 1911:

But I love the photos.

However, women have fought for their rights and in my lifetime I have seen a huge difference both in attitudes and law. 

When I worked for the post office, after I left the motor bikes and before going to college, I worked in a postmans office in Birmingham with about 60 or 70 other postmen who delivered the 60 or 70 'walks;' there were supervisors (PHGs) and a couple of Inspectors and drivers etc.

Out of all those people there was one middle aged male Sikh, one male West Indian and about two women. 

 

When it came to allocating overtime there was an attitude that the women didn't need the over time as they were only working for 'pin money' and they didn't like the Sikh working overtime either as the general feeling was 'those blokes work till they drop where they come from.'

Men would also complain that women never loaded or unloaded the vans – well neither did I if I could get away with it!! They would also wonder who was cooking the dinner!

I wrote a post about 18 months ago here about the publicity my mother attracted when she was made a company director – the same questions about house work were asked; have a look: http://storytelleronamazon.blogspot.co.uk/2012/10/my-mother.html

Now those are terrible attitudes both sexist and racist; I find it hard to believe that they even existed and I know that some people still think that way – that the woman's place is in the kitchen and other antediluvian attitudes. 

 

I expect everything – pay, opportunity, workload, - to be equal. I don't know whether women should be in the front line but there again, I'm not sure if men should be there either! (100 years ago my granddad was newly married, my 18 year old grandmother was expecting my mother and as they were hard up in Dublin my granddad joined the British Army and was gassed in The Somme for his troubles and although he survived, it did prevent some of his sons coming over and joining up for the second world war.)

So it's really crazy isn't it that in some countries it appears to be the 'norm' to gang rape young girls, stone women to death because they have married someone of another faith, lost their faith or even been gang raped by enemy soldiers; yes stoned to death and mostly by their own families.

The other thing that kind of gets to me is that at a time when over 200 girls have been kidnapped in Nigeria, The Guardian newspaper, my favourite newspaper, a paper that prints everything from the 'F' word to the 'C' word, the 'N' word (but won't print the word actress) published an article about the use of the word 'girl' in a BBC programme which attracted 1298 comments before the comments were suspended. Yes that's right GIRL; isn't this word fascism?

The last one comment, by the way was this:

'An old work colleague - female and I'm male and we're both long retired - has stayed in touch with a number of other female colleagues. When I asked her a few years after retiring "How are the girls?" and then said "Oh I suppose women's lib means I shouldn't call you 'girls'", she nearly became apoplectic.
"We are 'the girls'; we were always 'the girls'; everyone knew who 'the girls' were. I'm not having other women saying they've liberated me and then telling me what I can call myself!" '

It's all barmy though, isn't it – racism, sexism, prejudice. It isn't against the law anywhere for you to not like a group of people – women, Jews, Irish, Latinos – but it is against the law for you to make professional decisions based on that prejudice, either positive or negative. You can hate them if you wish, although that would be paranoiac and delusional and – come on such a waste of time.

Because of the recent UKIP earthquake in Britain a survey was carried out to see how many people here consider themselves racist (although they'd probably call it racialist!); it turns out at an alarming 30%. 

 

By the way it turns out that the broken hearted man whose wife was stoned to death in Pakistan by her relatives strangled his first wife to death to marry the 2nd one.