Better Than Cheerleaders

Bounding Off the Reservation

Watching the spluttering apoplexy of the Commentariate in full throat is "so diverting", to borrow one of Jane's phrases.  When something beyond the pale happens, one sees an anger, grief, and outrage that resembles confrontations with blasphemy.  Which is what they are, of course. 

Alisdair Thompson, Chief Executive of the Employers and Manufacturers Association has just run off the reservation.  He has suggested that (some) women have less productivity in the workforce because of severe monthly menstrual cycles.  To the Commentariate this action is not just duplicitous; it is a blasphemy against the established religion of Woman and her rights.  Consequently it has erupted.  As Gwendolyn Brooks would say,

And true, they are hurling spittle, rock,
Garbage and fruit . . .

The feminists have gone into a dervish, lacerating themselves, calling for vengeance.
  Green politician, Sue Kedgley has called Thompson a Neanderthal, which carries some credence coming from her since our mothers told  us "it takes one to know one".  Men have lined up as a Greek chorus behind the apoplectic laceratives  bemoaning the traitorous assault upon our "values". 

Of course, Mr Thompson did not say, whilst he was bounding off the reservation, that all women are less productive than men, but that some women are, which is a very different proposition.  He also pointed out that some men are less productive than women, which is an entirely different proposition again.  In context, he was apparently calling for equal pay for equally productive work, which sheds a very different light on the matter--one which ContraCelsum would heartily endorse as a reasonably fair social outcome.  Which, of course, would imply that some women will be paid less than men (and other women) in similar positions because they are repeatedly on sick leave due to their unfortunate menstrual afflictions. Maybe the splutterers deny the very possibility of any woman in the workforce constantly incapacitated by  bad menstrual pains.  Apparently they do, which is why they regard Thompson's otherwise mild observations as blasphemously against our goddess, Nature. 

But these sub-texts got drowned out in the maelstrom of outcry against incorrect and unacceptable speech.  And as is traditional in cases of blasphemy, heads will roll and flames will crackle.  At least one board member of the Employers and Manufacturers Association is already calling for Thompson's resignation. 

EMA board member Laurie Margrain last night said he had not heard Mr Thompson's comments but had seen media coverage of them.  He said they were indefensible - "totally out of call, completely inappropriate and certainly inaccurate".  Mr Margrain said the board would be meeting to discuss the comments and Mr Thompson's future at the association.

The eponymous Margrain clearly has a severe headache.  As does the rest of the Commentariate.  But one thing you have to admit when it gets a good dervish going--everyone moves in perfect lock-step synchronicity. 

More perfect, in fact, than a team of banal, cheerleading floosies.  Certainly more diverting.