Women in politics

One of the matters which rarely gets commented on is women in politics, unless they are used as token trophies.

I remembered last week  the  latest Prime Minister's Cabinet reshuffle; out went Hauge (worst foreign sec since the last one) and others, including Gove 'demoted',much to teaching union's delight  ( hasn't Cameron ever watched or read 'the house of cards'? and regardless didn't someone tell him about the 'black magic' of the Chief Whip?). But the real big news was the promotion of women. Of course this being Cameron, the decision has nothing to do with the merit or not of the women being promoted, but all to do with Cameron wanting to look modern and trendy by having women in high office. Which is great .Except, with all due respect, I don't want to think that women have got to where  they are because of being women. That is a constant smear that hangs over many a successful woman and Cameron is helping that along. 

Of course I shouldn't moan, because at least women are now in top jobs. Although whether this will do Cameron any good remains to be seen. This is no disrespect to the women being promoted, but I've noticed recently (from my forays into debating this with people) that there is a  new breed of Tory women who are thirty something, very confident, confrontational and super self confident, married into money or from money, which contrasts with those of us who have had to build everything from nothing, who are more down to earth, no less intelligent, who are folksy and know how to speak to people; modern Tory woman by contrast cannot understand that just because you have a triple first from Oxbridge doesn't mean to say you can treat lesser mortals with utter contempt.

New Tory woman doesn't get this and doesn't get that & has no experience of life outside of the rich upper middle class metropolitan way of doing things along with the attitude that comes with, i.e. rich or married in wealth, pushy, willing to trample on everyone to get what they want,  plum in the mouth, ignorant of life outside of London, but doubtless representing an area like ours in rural England, who are disparagingly called 'the turnip taliban' for holding traditional views (hyperbolic I know and perhaps hypocritical given that I went to public schools and Oxbridge, but hey I was a Sephardi working class Jew of  a third world immigrant family, who'd had to rebuild their businesses from scratch) . No wonder the Tory right is leaning toward UKIP. If you don't even care about your own constituency, why should the rest thing that you care about them? 

Half the population of this country are men and men require special handling; treating them with contempt or derision because they hold doors open for you is the stupidest idea that you can do; it is childish, rude and gets their backs up unnecessarily. Nor does a willingness to  tear your ideas apart if they are crap  make them sexist and we do need to make allowances for them in other areas . My own husband, for example, is utterly incapable of running a household, which is why it is part of my lot in life to do so, but he is at least good at handywork  around the house and with my (behind the scenes help) good at running businesses. So we all have our skill set. 

I just hope that the women promoted in  politics not only have the ability, but also the understanding of how to communicate to people (they are politicians afterall).  I also hope that they are not like the New Tory women I've mentioned above. 

Well, we'll see. Time will tell. It always does. 

Student politics-scoff contemptuously or cry?

Student politics was always something outlandish and bizzare to me, but when I read, courtesy of the Jewish news, that the NUS refused to pass a resolution condemning IS because this could be seen as islamophobic, I didn't know whether to laugh or cry. 

Let's put aside the fact the argument that said boycotting Israel could be seen as antisemitism, didn't stop the same body from deciding to pass a boycott resolution or the fact that if one won't condemned IS because it is ialamophobic to do so, you are de facto admitting that IS is a legitimate expression of Islam (something which politicians have gone out of their way to deny).

Instead, let's note instead that the greatest victims, aside from Christians and  Yazidis are in fact fellow Muslims. IS are quite racist with an utter contempt for Kurds ( Jews share an affinity with the Kurdish people, in many ways, who are by and large very moderate and modern: as in Israel, men and women are defending their homes  together, during the recent is onslaught). 

I do wonder therefore why anyone wouldn't want to condemn IS and support Kurds, Christians, Yazidis and others in defeating this wicked menace.

New Tory women?

I've posted the following at my brother's blog :

New Tory women?

Basically discussing attitudes of  women in politics, following the reshuffle last week.