Fair pay?

I've been meaning to write about men and patriarchy on here for a wee while, and then Kate and an anonymous commenter started an interesting dialogue on Kate's post, so it was a good push in the right direction.

This is not a post about the Telegraph. This is not a post "defending" feminism. This is also not a post about saying who has it "worse". This is a post about the often-heard cry of "What about the men? The patriarchy hurts men too!" that I shall refer to as PHMT.

Let's take the example of equal pay. Equal pay for equal work. It's been feminist orthodoxy for longer than I care to think about, with the rationale that work is (equally worthy) work, whoever is doing it.

It's certainly the case that there is a gender-based trend with regard to certain work being unpaid or underpaid. This is a feminist concern.

It's also the case that not all the work that is underpaid is work done traditionally by women. There are a whole bunch of hard, skilled, boring, or dangerous jobs out there that are done predominantly by blue-collar men. Often: non-White men. Often: immigrant men. Often: working-class men.

For sure, I don't want to be paid less than my male co-workers for doing the same job: it's just not fair.

I also don't want the same shitty National Minimum below-the-breadline wage as the bloke next to me on [some basically shitty job]. My work is work. His work is work. We should both be able to put roofs over our heads and food on our tables. If we can't, that's also not fair. I also happen to think it's not fair that some people have to work basically shitty jobs.

So fair pay, to my mind, means something more than just saying "I want same number of pounds sterling per hour as the men I work with". It means "we all get fair pay". It means we have to re-think how the money is distributed and how the work is distributed. It means we have to re-think what fair means. "The same for men and women" is part of it, but not all of it.

The patriarchy does hurt men too, in lots of ways. (Lack of) Fair pay is just one way, and we can say that and also, at the same time, say that there is a specific problem with discrimination against women in pay and employment.

But PHMT is a problem feminism needs to take seriously. If for no other reason than that the Fair Pay Problem shows that men's liberation (and antiracism, anti-xenophobia, and anti-classism) are part and parcel of women's liberation.

--IP

UK Asylum seekers can come out

Via Colorlines (which you should all be reading, by the way, because it's a fantastic blog), I found this fantastic piece of news which I had somehow missed until now: the UK supreme court has ruled that it is not necessary for LGBT asylum seekers to hide their sexuality, and they can apply for asylum if they are open about their sexuality.

(Um, yeah. Apparently, it was previously seen as completely acceptable to return asylum seekers to places they were going to be persecuted or killed, with the words "suck it up and deal, and don't flaunt it!" Le sigh. Thank goodness for the bravery of these two gay men, one from Cameroon, one from Iran, who have fought this up through the courts.)

The BBC coverage is here, and the Guardian coverage is here. The BBC article quotes Lord Hope as saying:

Lord Hope, who read out the judgement, said: "To compel a homosexual person to pretend that his sexuality does not exist or suppress the behaviour by which to manifest itself is to deny his fundamental right to be who he is.

"Homosexuals are as much entitled to freedom of association with others who are of the same sexual orientation as people who are straight."

About time too.

Also: the court's decision was unanimous.

--IP

Speaking out

As feminists and queers and queer feminists, the writers of this blog come up against a lot of societal resistance to our views - and the ways in which we live our lives.

But today at work I was lost for words at lunch time when someone started complaining about call centres and the 'Paki fucks you have to talk to.' 'I tell them to put someone Scottish on the phone so as I can understand them.'

What on earth can (or should) a person (with strong feelings against racism and discrimination of all kinds) say to this?

I want to hear your thoughts.