Bugger the boys!

Hey, fucker, I’m a sexraceslamophobe or some such thing. I don’t care that you irrationally hate me for what I am, because I’m right, you’re wrong… and you smell. So there. My repulsive and abhorrent, inhuman beliefs include the idea that people should be encouraged to do what they are good at and as long as they don’t directly harm others their personal view of the world is no more in need of reform than is gravity. The Law of Gravity kills thousands every year, but nobody seeks to repeal its universal force. And just so, my preferences to associate with people who are more like me than different from me do not make me a subject for re-education.

Yesterday, on the Sunday Politics, the famous ugly, racist, white-ophobe, Yasmin Alibhai-Brown and the rather more rational and easy-on-the-eye-and-ear Munira Mirza were discussing the thorny issue of gender quotas and suchlike. As a totally unbiased and non-partisan male, I have to say I agreed with the pretty one. There are reasons that some jobs are more male-dominated and others more female-dominated. One such area is heavy engineering. A female engineer on the same programme said it was important to get more women into engineering because there would be more diverse opinions. Opinions? I don’t want opinions, I want the bridges to stay up and the roads to last for decades… I couldn’t give a toss what colour they are.

Of course that’s sexist; that’s normal, it’s how we actually are. But hey, let’s deny our natural instincts and forcibly catapult any woman who shows a fleeting interest in a hitherto mostly-male job into a position of authority in that field. Let’s promote all-female shortlists and cram as many of those square pegs into all those round holes. Funny how there are no all-male shortlists, isn’t it? I know, let’s set a quota: by 2030 at least 30% of mothers must be men. What utter tosh that would be and no, it’s not a fallacial and facetious argument; quotas just don’t work.

Not only do quotas not work because artificially selecting applicants for what they are rather than what they can do is logically ridiculous, but they actually have a deleterious effect on those working populations afflicted by them. Brilliant women in 'male' roles will always be tainted by the suspicion that they got there by politically correct means and good men will always feel they have lost out as a result. Ever since ‘personnel’ departments staffed by people who understood their industry were replaced by ‘human resources’ staffed almost entirely by young female graduates, the strategic needs of some businesses have come second to the needs of the workforce. It’s a lovely, very female, idea to have happy, fulfilled workers, but quotas aren’t the way.

I genuinely don’t want 'balance', I want what works. In general I’d rather be nursed by a woman, have my roof fixed by a man and have my politics conducted by people who are genuinely engaged with politics. It so happens that more men than women are drawn to the corridors of power and artificially imposing gender quotas is always wrong; ideologically wrong, logically wrong. Far more important is getting our country back on track. And if that means men use their brute force to do the heavy lifting while women rear the kids, I fail to see what is so wrong in that.

Come on girls, there's dust to bust!

And talking of letting those with the aptitude do the job, is there some sort of connection behind the whole paedo-politicians business? Is paedophilia a power thing? Can women do it as well as men? I don’t see anybody calling for all-women shortlists for nonces.