Quaequam Blog!

Tag: women

  • Lembit Opik: real men hate women

    I wasn’t going to blog about Lembit’s new column (fnarr! fnarr! snork!) – I figure I’ve fulfilled my quota of Lembit bashing for the year. But then he went and said something stupid: “This is part of my own stated objective to reach beyond the normal political limits to people who may not be particularly…

  • Representation in politics: what has gender got to do with it?

    One anniversay, two very different ways of covering it. The Today programme opted to mark the 90th anniversary of the first woman elected to the Commons by interviewing the son of a hereditary peer and his granddaughter. Both of them poured cold water over the idea of all women shortlists altough, this being Tony Benn,…

  • Is UK politics institutionally racist?

    Trevor Phillips thinks it is: The public in this country would, he believes, embrace a black leader but the system would prevent it happening. “Here, the problem is not the electorate, the problem is the machine.” It was no coincidence that there were only 15 ethnic-minority MPs, he said. “The parties and the unions and…

  • And the award for most patronising bollocks aimed those plucky ladies goes to…

    Well done to Scottish Widows and Dods for coming up with what is possibly the most ridiculously patronising design for a website aimed at women in public life I’ve ever come across (and as one of the organisers of the Campaign for Gender Balance Awards last year I speak from experience). It isn’t just the…

  • Will Dunn win the by-election after all?

    What is one to make of Politics and the City, founded by Gavin Whenman’s secret girlfriend June Sarpong? I’m tempted to dismiss it as vacuous fluff, but it isn’t aimed at me and it has kept going. Is this a quietly succesful tool for engaging women in politics? Will academics be praising it in the…