Things someone, somewhere in the world, was talking about but you probably weren’t listening…
In a month when, if alive, that icon of many a feminist across the western world, Simone de Beauvoir, would’ve completed a hundred years of age, it seemed to me particularly interesting to follow this series with parliamentary speeches on gender equality and the rights of women.
The two speeches I’ve selected for today feature Clare Short, former MP and member of the Blair Cabinet – from which she notoriously resigned over her opposition to the war in Iraq. She also made some waves recently when criticising Baroness Amos's indication as the UK representative to the Lisbon EU-Africa Summit, having described her as “a pseudo-minister who was sent to Lisbon because she’s black” (which perhaps feeds into that other debate about “feminism across races”…).
Interestingly enough, Short’s statement was depicted in some sectors of the "lusosphere" as “proof of British racism” (not as “proof of Short’s racism”, if at all…) – a reasoning I’m still struggling to work out, particularly when bearing in mind that it came from citizens of a European country which is far from promoting any meaningful representation of their Black population in any instances of power, let alone having a Black woman, as Amos, in government or as the leader of the House of Lords, or anything equivalent. But that’s beside the point of today’s speeches…
In the first, the issue of equal pay for women is almost overshadowed by something the British Parliament is notorious for, namely sobriety or the lack thereof… In the second, an issue at the heart of the ‘media and social representation of women’ debate, namely the infamous ‘page three girls’, i.e. pictures of semi-naked women on the third page of British tabloids (though arguably more palatable than the naked pictures of women displayed in some ‘respectable’ blogs nowadays…). To be sure, this is an issue far from reuniting women’s consensus – as the open defense of her ‘page three girls’ by current editor of the Sun Newspaper, Rebekah Wade, during a parliamentary hearing earlier this week left patently clear…
Alan Clark and Women
ALAN CLARK’s first speech as a Minister was a disaster. As junior Employment Minister he had to present some rather complicated regulations on equal pay for women; but, as he confesses in his diary, he had been to a wine tasting, where he sampled ’61 Palmer, ’75 Palmer, and ’61 Pichon Longueville. By 9:40 p.m. he was “muzzy”. Rising at 10:30, he implied disdain for the brief he was reading (“as I started, the sheer odiousness of the text sank in”). So he speeded up. MPs challenged him to explain what he meant – and then CLARE SHORT, one of several MPs present, said he was drunk. The Deputy Speaker, ERNEST ARMSTRONG, extricated Mr Clark from his predicament, but the business was nearly lost. (20/7/83)
Page Three Girls
The Labour MP CLARE SHORT ran a campaign to make “Page Three Girls” illegal. Many women wrote to support her. But when she moved her ten-minute rule bill – the Indecent Displays (Newspapers) Bill – her gutsy speech was frequently barracked by mocking Tory MPs. The bill was opposed by Robert Adley (“this bill deserves the booby prize”), received a majority in favour, but went no further. (12/3/86)
In a month when, if alive, that icon of many a feminist across the western world, Simone de Beauvoir, would’ve completed a hundred years of age, it seemed to me particularly interesting to follow this series with parliamentary speeches on gender equality and the rights of women.
The two speeches I’ve selected for today feature Clare Short, former MP and member of the Blair Cabinet – from which she notoriously resigned over her opposition to the war in Iraq. She also made some waves recently when criticising Baroness Amos's indication as the UK representative to the Lisbon EU-Africa Summit, having described her as “a pseudo-minister who was sent to Lisbon because she’s black” (which perhaps feeds into that other debate about “feminism across races”…).
Interestingly enough, Short’s statement was depicted in some sectors of the "lusosphere" as “proof of British racism” (not as “proof of Short’s racism”, if at all…) – a reasoning I’m still struggling to work out, particularly when bearing in mind that it came from citizens of a European country which is far from promoting any meaningful representation of their Black population in any instances of power, let alone having a Black woman, as Amos, in government or as the leader of the House of Lords, or anything equivalent. But that’s beside the point of today’s speeches…
In the first, the issue of equal pay for women is almost overshadowed by something the British Parliament is notorious for, namely sobriety or the lack thereof… In the second, an issue at the heart of the ‘media and social representation of women’ debate, namely the infamous ‘page three girls’, i.e. pictures of semi-naked women on the third page of British tabloids (though arguably more palatable than the naked pictures of women displayed in some ‘respectable’ blogs nowadays…). To be sure, this is an issue far from reuniting women’s consensus – as the open defense of her ‘page three girls’ by current editor of the Sun Newspaper, Rebekah Wade, during a parliamentary hearing earlier this week left patently clear…
Alan Clark and Women
ALAN CLARK’s first speech as a Minister was a disaster. As junior Employment Minister he had to present some rather complicated regulations on equal pay for women; but, as he confesses in his diary, he had been to a wine tasting, where he sampled ’61 Palmer, ’75 Palmer, and ’61 Pichon Longueville. By 9:40 p.m. he was “muzzy”. Rising at 10:30, he implied disdain for the brief he was reading (“as I started, the sheer odiousness of the text sank in”). So he speeded up. MPs challenged him to explain what he meant – and then CLARE SHORT, one of several MPs present, said he was drunk. The Deputy Speaker, ERNEST ARMSTRONG, extricated Mr Clark from his predicament, but the business was nearly lost. (20/7/83)
Page Three Girls
The Labour MP CLARE SHORT ran a campaign to make “Page Three Girls” illegal. Many women wrote to support her. But when she moved her ten-minute rule bill – the Indecent Displays (Newspapers) Bill – her gutsy speech was frequently barracked by mocking Tory MPs. The bill was opposed by Robert Adley (“this bill deserves the booby prize”), received a majority in favour, but went no further. (12/3/86)
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