Monday Funday - Satsumas

Well what I wanted to do this Monday was embed a YouTube video of a great clip from a Yes Minister episode I watched recently. But the clip I wanted isn't on YouTube, and the only clip from the episode in question which is available online has had the embedding disabled by the BBC.

So instead here is a link to the clip I could find, and a link to the Wikipedia entry on the episode in question.

My favourite bit, the clip I wanted, is the discussion amongst the (all older white and male) civil service mandarins. They are in total agreement with the principle of more women at the top levels of the British civil service, but of course it just wouldn't be practical in their individual department. Women couldn't be expected to deal with matters of security, or wouldn't be suitable as diplomats in the Middle East or Africa, or they just wouldn't be able to deal well with all those men in the military or the police, but of course the typing pool is nearly entirely female, so aren't we doing wonderfully there!

Times have changed since 1982, and there are a number of examples given in this discussion which have been surpassed. Sir Humphrey jokes that if a woman could be Head of Security "M would have to become F". In the early 1990s Stella Rimington became head of MI5, and of course in recent years Judi Dench has portrayed M in James Bond movies. In New Zealand a woman is currently Minister of Police and no one batted an eyelid at her appointment either.

There's still significant progress to be made though. Sadly there are still some who hold the opinion that women are more suitable for looking at than working with.