You can count the seconds from any mention of International Women’s Day until the first (usually white) male asks the question: “Why don’t we have an international men’s day?” It’s a question that’s gaining credence. A 2017 global survey suggested that amongst all the other gaping differences in respective experience, there is a material perception gap between men and women about how equal they are. So, for example, in the States nearly 72% of men thought that women enjoyed equal rights to men; only 53% of women agreed.
It may be that we are suffering from feminism fatigue – the movement is rightly criticised for being too white and too privileged, failing to consider the additional layers of structural discrimination faced by BAME, trans and working class women. A sense of common cause has been undermined as academics engage in a turf war; but the resulting conversation about layers of privilege is enlightening and necessary on the path to better, 21st century feminism. There is also an increasing perception that women are beginning to occupy more fully and powerfully their place in society. For example, in 2018 for the first time in legal history a panel of judges with a majority of women presided over a case before the UK’s Supreme Court (a milestone reached a mere 100 years after women became eligible to practise as barristers). Both the British Prime Minister and First Minister of Scotland are women and the majority of the new Independent Group of politicians in the English Parliament are female.
A whiff of backlash is in the air: all those women receiving opportunities and top jobs just because they are – well - women and getting in the way of the “best person for the job” – by implication a man. A new group of underprivileged has emerged: the white working-class man, although the mutterings against International Women’s Day are by no means limited to men from this group. Studies have shown that over the last 30 years, working-class men have felt increasingly undervalued by society, their marginalisation exploited in the populist Brexit narrative. Being undervalued is not just about money, it is also about status and recognition.
In their book “The Class Ceiling,” Sam Friedman and Daniel Laurison highlight coverage of the recent BBC gender pay gap scandal. The disparity between men and women’s earnings was front-page news for weeks. Perhaps in a world where women seem increasingly visible in the work force, it is particularly shocking that they are still so overtly discriminated against at the most fundamental level – that of remuneration. Much less coverage was given to the class data, also reported for the first time by the BBC. Private education is a traditional marker of privilege – just 7% of the UK’s children go through the private system. And yet the BBC reported that 45% of its top earners were privately educated. These figures reflect the 2016 report by the Social Mobility Commission, which showed that over half of the UK’s journalists, doctors and barristers were privately educated. This is a massive over-representation in positions of power of a small number of privileged people. The UK has one of the widest attainment gaps in the developed world: in other words, if you are born into disadvantage in the UK you are much less likely to fulfill your potential. In the 21st century that is a truly depressing statistic and one that goes a long way to explaining how the Brexit vote came about.
But even in disadvantage there is a hierarchy of privilege, and white men apparently still sit at the top of it (relative though that privilege might be). Professor Gillian Richards interviewed 89 white working class girls living in a former mining community twice over 8 years. Aged 11 those girls had the same dreams of interesting jobs and happy families as the rest of us. Their lived reality was very different. Most left education early, particularly those who had aspired to university rather than job-specific further education or training. Many seemed lost with no idea of what they might do in life. They felt not good enough, not clever enough. They had never dared to articulate their dreams to their teachers and worried about letting their parents down. They tended to marry young, stay in their village and work part time. Their lives were more limited than their male counterparts.
In the same way, “The Class Ceiling” studies show how the drawbacks of lack of privilege are accentuated by other factors – such as gender and ethnicity – even amongst achievers in high-status jobs . Working class BAME men and women felt much more conspicuous in their elite working environments than their white male counterparts. Socially mobile working-class women earn on average £7,500 per year less than their more privileged female counterparts, who themselves earn £11,500 less than their privileged male counterparts. Racial-ethnic minorities in elite occupations face a similar double penalty. We are only beginning to talk about this problem, let alone progressing in the task of finding solutions to it.
I was inspired to write this blog by an old photograph from the mid 1990s of a senior management weekend retreat at the international internet company where I worked. The small group is all white, all male and they are posing at the top of a mountain in their ski-wear. Apparently the one woman on the senior management team at the time didn’t ski. The photo screams white, male privilege. I remember that photo vividly, for I looked at it often at the time on my boss’ desk. It made me uncomfortable and probably a bit resentful, constantly reminding me of my difference: I was a woman from a very modest background who had never been near a ski slope. I hope that we have progressed enough for that kind of situation not to reproduce itself, but I am far from sure. If we are honest with ourselves, we know that a divisive educational system, engrained notions of class and institutional racism are still much too present at every level in our society.
International Women’s Day helps raise awareness of the challenges women continue to face in a society that holds them back more than their male counterparts at every level. Men’s increasingly vocal denial of this, serves only to reinforce the need for such a day. Most women can empathise to some extent with the different experiences of their working class and BAME sisters. They know what it is to be discriminated against, even if they have not suffered the additional layers of disadvantage that “inter-sectionality” of class and race add. It seems that many men need to work harder at understanding their privilege. Achieving meaningful and lasting change involves acknowledging and then dismantling the internal and structural factors that favour a particular gender, skin colour and class – tackling them together rather than in isolation. That requires all of us, but most particularly those in positions of power, to examine engrained attitudes and prejudices and to work actively to improve them. It is likely to be a life’s work, but society will be better for it.
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