By Elizabeth Harrin (London)
Based on the BBC2 documentary “The Trouble with Working Women,” which ran last week in the UK, it appears that the trouble with working women is, well, men.
“Think manager, think male,” says Professor Ryan from Exeter University, as she stands in front of a board covers in statistics showing that women get a raw deal in the workplace. Only 19.3% of MPs are women. Women earn an average of 17% less than men. Thirty thousand women each year lose their jobs because they are pregnant.
Newsreader Sophie Raworth, who herself has three children under the age of five, visits a boxing club where the trainers tell her that a woman’s place is in the home. She smiles politely while looking like she wants to clock the guy. Later, a roving video both gives members of the public the chance to spill their private thoughts about women at work and I’m surprised at how easy it was for the BBC to find people willing to confess that men should be the breadwinners and women should stick to the kitchen.
Thirty years ago the feminist movement had it cracked – by now we were all supposed to be equal. Another statistic comes through the voiceover: at the rate we’re going it will take another 50 to 60 years to get near equal. The BBC is nothing if not fair, so the presenters visit a woman who runs her own small business and won’t recruit women of child-bearing age. “It’s not illegal,” she says. She doesn’t want to risk everything she’s put into the business by having to bail a woman out during maternity leave.