Friday, October 23, 2009

Let's Have All Male Shortlists... In Primary Schools

Jonathan Sheppard has a unique way of solving the disparity between the sexes in primary school teaching. All male shortlists! Just one problem. Under employment legislation, it would be illegal. Funny that.

24 comments:

Roger Thornhill said...

Has he been reading your comments? I posted such a comment here in relation to your post about Cameron's faff about gender on the HoC.

Frugal Dougal said...

And might not be successful because of the present view of males as regards accusations of sexual impropriety and abuse - ie guilty until found innocent, then under suspicion thereafter. No wonder the paedophile ring largely composed of female nursery workers got away with it for so long...

Anonymous said...

The difference is that males are not discriminated against when selecting primary school teachers - they just don't apply in the first place.

Anonymous said...

It's all so depressing. The question is not whether your MP is male, female, black, white, disabled, homosexual or whatever.

It's whether they can do a good job representing the people of the consitituency that's the point. The community consists of a spectrum of ideas, beliefs and backgrounds - the challenge for a candidate is to be able to see the point of view of everyone on that spectrum.

Elby the Beserk said...

Indeed! On a similar matter - why is it that councils (and other public organisations?) are able to advertise posts for existing workers only? Is that not discrimination?

Bob Piper said...

Bitter? Iain? Nooooooo.

Janey said...

As a crusading feminist, I am very much in favour of real effective action to increase the numbers of men teaching in primary schools.(Even though it is hard to show measurable effects on performance through having male teachers.)

However, the statistics do not show systematic discrimination against men -- they are disproportionately more likely to become headteachers, and hugely more likely to be drawing the highest salaries as heads of large primary schools. Try this Times Ed article for some of the facts.


Yes, let's act to remove these damaging inequalities wherever we find them!

Man in a Shed said...

Anon October 23, 2009 4:37 PM - as it happens that's not the difference at all, but it is our point.

Unsworth said...

@ Anon 4:37 PM

Last month I sat on a selection panel for a teaching post at a large Primary school. Of the four candidates, two were men. The winning candidate was a woman who, simply, was far and away the most impressive. Increasingly men are applying for such posts, and there are many Primary Headteachers who are men. They have usually started as junior staff in Primaries.

Unknown said...

Well Janey support the Harriet Harman's Equalities Act...

Jonathan Sheppard said...

Roger - no I didnt read your comments, but glad you share agree.

Anon.. so not as many men apply to be primary school teachers as women. Hasn't the point been made that compared to men, not as many women apply to go on the candidates list. Thanks for making my point for me.

Anonymous said...

Is that a list of all men who are short?

Anonymous said...

Anon@4.37.

Also true with Conservative PPCs.

30% of the approved list are women; 30% of selected candidates are women.

Anonymous said...

Hattie Harperson's Equality Bill includes provisions to allow schools to make the choice to select a man over an equally qualified woman if, for example, there are less men at the school and it wants to change this.

I realise that newspapers portrayed this as 'white men' will be passed over in favour of 'disabled black lesbian women' but the opposite can be the case too where needed

Anonymous said...

Oh for goodness sake - stop getting your knicker in a knot Iain.

For years and years I was faced with all male selections lists because women were positively discouraged from participating in politics - politics is traditional and external power occupation and therefore a male dominant society. While households were traditionally female power centres - right up to Roman times when men decided to exercise both external and domestic power.

This is just a ego driven rejection of the possible loss of male power. It's gonna happen so just grow up.

Anonymous said...

"The difference is that males are not discriminated against when selecting primary school teachers - they just don't apply in the first place."

And women don't apply to become MPs either. There isn't any discrimination - just a lack of candidates.

This is why such shortlists almost always result in poor quality candidates being selected. If you're not having a competitve process where the best person for the job wins, then you regularly end up with substandard incompetent crap, eg Jacqui Smith, Margaret Moran, Helen Brinton/Clark, Barbara Follett etc etc.

Ultimately this harms women as the existence of so many incompetent female politicians sends out a message that women are somehow naturally less talented, when in reality it's only due to the lower entrance standards and recruitng from too small a talent pool.

The same applies to male teachers, and it's silly for Iain to suggest we should have all male shortlists there. We don't want idiotic under qualified token male primary school teachers either. We want them to be there on merit not just there to fill a quota.

The only way to achieve this is to end the demonisation of men in our society which has mostly been perpetrated by gender feminists. Their "all men are rapists" mantra and their insinuation that men are bad and women are good is what causes these problems. The most guilty parties being the likes of Harriet Harman and Patriccia Jewitt before her.

There are companies guilty in this area too. For exmaple BA and Qantas won't allow men to sit next to and children who are their own. I.e. they believe all men are paedophiles and women are not.

Other companies and organsiations have similarly sexist polices, eg Butlins and the Science Museum.

Anonymous said...

The main reason is the lack of male teachers, especially in primary schools.

Even getting men to assist is now fraught with difficulties due to all the vetting required to allow a man into a classroom.

Quietzapple said...

To suit the weekend contingent of posters perhaps a restriction to ex ncos & fully trained grads from Ms Whiplash's Academy might suit?

neil craig said...

So what happens if the Equality & Human Rights Commission take the Lab/Con/Libs to task for having gender shortlists. Will we see Peter Hain saying that they are all illegal parties who shouldn't appear on TV?

Anonymous said...

"Just one problem"

Only one of the problems. The main problem is that there are very few males that go into primary school teaching. When my school has a vacancy we rarely get any male applicants.

Where males are appointed then, if they are any good at all, they usually get rapid promotion.

Anonymous said...

Jonathan Sheppard said...

"Thanks for making my point for me."

Rot. In my school when we do, rarely, a get male applicant they are very usually clearly outshone by female rivals. Sad but true. We do not need shortlists of inadequates.

What we do need is a purging of all these loopy schemes and an end to state financing of the men-hating feministas who have so successfully destabilised society.

Anonymous said...

Jonathan Sheppard said...

"Thanks for making my point for me."

Rot. In my school when we do, rarely, a get male applicant they are very usually clearly outshone by female rivals. Sad but true. We do not need shortlists of inadequates.

What we do need is a purging of all these loopy schemes and an end to state financing of the men-hating feministas who have so successfully destabilised society.

Philipa said...

I changed my childrens school for reasons including that my son would have a male teacher. All he did was shout all the time. I heard him shouting at a cowering little boy of around 8 yrs old 'I CAN SHOUT ALL DAY!!'. I regretted my decision; there were other male teachers.

The female teachers were far better.

Go figure.

Anonymous said...

Ever seen a male attendant at women's changing rooms in shops?