David Willets, the UK Universities and Science Minister, has been paraphrased by Rachel Sylvester and Alice Thompson in their Saturday Times profile column as saying that feminism is partly to blame for class still being an issue in Britain, because women are taking more jobs in the workplace. David, who is photogaphed wearing a lemon shirt and polka dot tie, is quoted as saying, 'You have this pattern where it tends to be well-educated women marrying well-educated men. That means the concentrations of income and opportunity are huge...It shows you how difficult it is to change social mobility...' (Sat, 25th Feb 2012).
Hmm. If I've got this right, he's arguing that women, having fought and won (in theory, anyway) the right for fair treatment under the law in matters of citizenship, safety and employment, are responsible for a lack of advancement in social mobility in Britain. Right. Got it. There aren't enough working class women luring middle class blokes into marriage for us to be able to check off the 'making progress in social mobility' checkbox. Individual rights and not, apparently, able to co-exist with social advancement.
Worried he may have overlooked some other things feminism is to blame for I've just ducked back to write a quick list before I stagger off to bed under a weight of feminist guilt:
- Broken Britain
- Poor performance of boys at school
- Domestic violence
- London riots (see Broken Britain)
- Single mothers
- Single fathers
- Unemployment
- Quotas...the death of meritocracy
- Teen pregnancies
- Teen abortions
- Sexual violence
- Divorce
- Eating disorders
I reckon I've missed a few in there so drop me a line if there's any others you can think of.
Katherine.
You forgot ALL crime. Don't you know whenever a man commits a crime it's his mum's fault in some way, especially if she worked to support her family and wasn't at home to look after him 24/7!
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