Equality junk...

Now, if you've been here for a while, you may have noticed something.

I believe in quality - not the biased, me first equality of most modern feminists - but Equality, between everyone. After all, isn't fairness....fair?

But "Being fair" doesn't often come into the matter - take for example, this report by the UK government quango that complains about the lack of equality.

I'm not going to deal with the whole report - my lunch just isn't that long. But lets look at a couple of points, while I'm here..

First, I'm going to ignore the "Are these really the most powerful jobs?" argument - because that's very open to debate. Certainly they have power...maybe not The Most Power, but...

But anyway, back to the point. From the press release..

"There are fewer women MPs in Westminster, where they make up just 19.3 percent of all MPs. "

That's from the third paragraph. But looking into the report, the change, this "fewer women" was a drop of....wait for it...0.2%.

Or, to be clear - one female MP died, Gwyneth Dunwoody, the longest serving female MP in Parliament. So to make their point, they use the death of a long serving public servant (and no matter your political views, she was a public servant) to make their case.

They don't mention that a female candidate attempted to replace her - Tamsin Dunwoody, her daughter. They forget that she lost the seat because, by a huge margin.

But - nope - this is evidence that "women's power" is increasing ever so slowly.

One death.

Talking of one...let's talk about Prime Ministers...let's talk about Margaret Thatcher- one women. How many years in power...?

Nothing like a fair, unbiased report...but no, this report has an axe to grind.

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Or another little quibble.

One of the categories they look at is..."Small businesses with women the majority of directors" - no direct link, it's in the PDF they link to.

So lets be clear here - based on last years figures, 14% of small businesses were controlled by women. Sounds clear, right? Or maybe not...

• Husband and wife teams don't count - not a female majority
• Small businesses with only one "director" don't count. Definition is plural
• Any even mix doesn't out
• If you've got an odd numbered board - which is common to prevent deadlocks - and it's even apart from the casting vote...it doesn't count

So this "clear" definition hides a multitude of excluded directors. And it's such an odd definition to use...not the percentage of small business directors who are female - but the majority of female controlled boards. It's not directly comparable to well, anything - it's a useless number.

Call me cynical, but why pick such an odd definition - unless the more typical one doesn't show the point you want?

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And one final point. I'm willing to believe "female power" is slowly increasing, over all. But I'm finding it increasingly hard to take this report seriously. Take this paragraph, copied completely without edits - but the bold is mine...

"This year's report, which traditionally estimates the number of years at the present rate of progress it will take for women to achieve equality in key areas, indicates that compared to previous year's predictions it will now take 15 years longer (a total of 55 years) for women to achieve equal status at senior levels in the judiciary, and women directors in FTSE 100 companies could be waiting in the wings a further 8 years (a total of 73 years)."

55 years + 8 years = 63 years.

This report has odd non-obvious definitions, uses the death of one person as a significant statistical point and can't even COUNT.

So being interested in Equality, what do I think of this report?

Well, what do you think I think?