Men are gradually being airbrushed out
Speaking of men, and men relative to women, and women relative to men – James Innes-Smith finds there are far too many women on the BBC these days.
Is it any surprise that research carried out by the corporation for its annual report found that more than a quarter of men feel that the BBC ‘no longer reflects people like me’?
“People like me” meaning what? Just, men? Or is there more to it than that? If there is, Innis-Smith overlooked it.
In a concerted effort to redress gender imbalance men are gradually being airbrushed out. Across much of the BBC men have become something of a rarity.
Really? Really? Really?
I don’t believe it. I don’t believe men are a rarity on the BBC. I think James-Innis is confusing “more women than there used to be” with “almost no men.” I also think James-Innis sees an all-male BBC as quite normal, so that a BBC with some women feels to him like a vanishing of men.
Many of the corporation’s high-profile dramas are now female-focused, including the Pursuit of Love, I May Destroy You, Starstruck and Motherland.
And? What of it? Plenty of high-profile dramas are male-focused, so what’s alarming about the existence of some female-focused ones?
Female presenters dominate shows such as BBC Breakfast, The One Show and Songs of Praise. A rejuvenated BBC Three will be almost exclusively female led while Radio 4 has turned into one long episode of Woman’s Hour.
No it hasn’t.
But you can hardly point the finger at the BBC; its female-centric programming reflects a cultural trend that is rife across society.
“Rife.” Slightly more inclusion of women is “rife across society.” Here’s a guy with his clutching hands stuck between his legs.
Of course, we all know the solution to this pressing problem. James simply needs to become JANE and….
lol. I kid of course.
I thought most men LOVED seeing more women on TV, as long as they’re not in positions of power. Or is this just about radio?
That reminds me of an article I read a couple of years ago bemoaning the fact that OB/GYN doctors are more women now than men. Several of the women OB/GYN students they spoke to said “We need more men; it would help to have a male perspective.”
WTF? A male perspective on female health issues? What exactly would that contribute? A female body is a female body, and it isn’t a matter of “female opinion” and “male opinion” whether someone has endometriosis, a yeast infection, or uterine cancer.
And even if it were, why would we need a male perspective? What the hell would a male be able to contribute? I might accept it better if they were bemoaning the lack of women urologists, saying “we need a female perspective” on the male genitalia.
I’m calling bullshit. I don’t mind male OB/GYN for myself, that was my only choice for part of my life, and I learned to live with it. But I didn’t feel like the man brought some sort of “perspective” to my care that a woman was not able to give, and that was essential to diagnosing or treating any problems.
The advent of a single woman can be overlooked, I think, because they ca pretend she is a token, and grab a little ass, and she hasn’t got anyone to back her up or give her courage. A second woman? OMG, men are being erased!
Yes, I see your point about one vs. two. But don’t you think that one woman would be not simply overlooked, but actively celebrated, because eye candy?
I was in a conference for work on the general concepts and needs for Diversity and Inclusion, and the panel included two white males who were eager to participate. One of them interjected at one point “With all of these different groups being addressed for D & I, I almost feel left out.”
I didn’t say anything, but I was thinking “Well, there you have it, then.”
I’ve also noticed that ownership of this blog is 100% dominated by women. I intend to write a strongly worded letter to…
someone. I don’t quite know who because we men are so marginalized these days.
It’s such an insidious optical illusion. I work in a ‘male dominated’ profession, and remember years ago when attending a large meeting thinking with some satisfaction ‘look at all the women here!’ Then I actually counted, and I think we were something like 10% of the attendees. But because that was more than I typically saw it seemed at first thought like ‘a lot’.
I used to know a bloke who was a very assertive character, and heavily opinionated, and with a rather nervous and deferring wife. He was also a World War 2 air ace, no doubt finding an outlet for his egotism and determination in aerial combat and shooting down the enemy. The more he got shot at, the more aggressive he became. If his plane got shot to ribbons all around him in the process, he did not mind at all; as long as he could land what was left of it and got in his kill.
I have met women with somewhat similar personalities in my time, but never his equivalent. A modern military pilot I know tells me that future air wars are likely to be fought by drones. Women can set them up and fly them just as well as men; giving women from everywhere the chance to become the military equivalent of an Amelia Earhart,. Physical strength and testosterone by the bucketful will not be required.
Another perfect example of how equal treatment looks like discrimination when you’re used to privilege. If you think you deserve more than others, then only getting as much seems unfair. If you deserve a lot more, then only getting more seems unfair. If you deserve everything, then only getting a lot more seems unfair. etc.. etc..
Once again I’m reminded of a study I once read about in which test subjects were shown a video of a mixed group of people – half men and half women – engaged in conversation. The video was deliberately designed to make sure everyone spoke for the same amount of time, got the same number of words in etc. Yet when asked about it later most test subjects reported that the women spoke more than the men. Again, the default assumption seems to be that men deserve to dominate the conversation, so when they “only” get to speak as much as the women, it seems unfair to the men.
One of Deborah Tannen’s books has a chapter on the idea that ‘women talk more than men’ or ‘women talk too much’ (as well as ‘women talk a lot about trivial things; men say few words but what they say is important’); one line in that chapter is something like ‘women don’t talk too much compared to men; they talk too much compared to silence.’
Well Woman’s Hour has become Everyone’s Hour, so it all balances out I guess.
guest, my husband is from a female-dominated profession. The vast majority of librarians are women. He has noticed many times that the vast majority of library supervisors are men, promoted from the few male librarians.
I am in a male-dominated profession, but so many people now think it’s all women, and we need more men! Nope. Our department is female dominated, I’ll grant, but that’s in part because we are a community college. Because there are so few academic jobs, and search committees at large research institutions tend to hire more men than women, there are a lot of Ph.D. women out there for the community colleges to pick up. They will not need to promote us, because, hey, women. They will not need to respect us. But meanwhile, they have doctorates. It’s interesting that there have been almost no men in the science department that have anything above a master’s, but the women? Most of us have doctorates.
So the men can moan and whine and gripe about how science is dominated by women and they can’t get a foothold! No, they just can’t get a 4-year-college full time faculty job with only a master’s degree and no publications.