Monday 20 October 2008

Quick hit: women's issues are merely academic

We should all pack up shop and go home now, seeing as we are only engaged in "academic issues" here at The Hand Mirror.

Not satisfied with the dimwittery of its subbing on Sunday (Millionaire gives $5,000 to Labour - looking bad for Labour, huh? And it's not until you get five paragraphs down that you realise that the same millionaire gave $5,000 to National too), the Herald has followed it up with an editorial that opines that government departments will need to cut unnecessary expenditure. Here's what the Herald thinks could be cut.

National may be much less interested than Labour has been in endless studies and consultation exercises around fairly academic ideas such as sustainability, work-life balance, pay equity and the like.


That's right. Trying to grapple with issues of deep concern to women, like how on earth to manage work and family, and how to get paid fairly, are just "academic issues." Nothing to worry about, let's all just move on, and forget about trying to work out how on earth to solve the problems.

And just a quick note for the Herald opiners: I very much doubt that the money spent on studies on these complex and difficult issues would account for more than a few hundred thousand dollars of expenditure. If they really want to name some targets for cost cutting, perhaps they could find some where the savings will be more than trivial.

3 comments:

Anna said...

There's nothing as academic and abstract as hauling grumpy tantrum-throwing kids around the supermarket in order to cook tea after working a nine hour day, is there?

If that's the calibre of the Herald's writing then they really should consider scenting the paper so it provides an even better low-cost alternative to toilet paper.

Tui said...

Pay equity is an academic issue? I don't agree that either sustainability or work-life balance are academic issues, but at least I can see how they would be (mis)understood as such. But pay equity? Come on!

Danielle said...

Did Noelle McCarthy write that article?

(Yes, I am still bitter.)