THE SECRET AGENDA OF GENDER

Barbara Amid says that the Conservative Government has become a willing agent of radical feminism IN THE PAST 20 years, our society has gone a good way towards becoming a matriarchy. Just as it was not necessary for there to be a male sovereign in the days of Queen Elizabeth I for that society to be organised along patriarchal lines, so it is entirely unnecessary for there to be a majority of women appeal court judges, Cabinet ministers or policemen for this society to be on the road to matriarchy. All that is required is for our institutions to be governed by the needs of radical feminism and for social engineers to carry out the agenda of radical feminists. And just as I, being a supporter of liberal democracy, would fight a patriarchy, the fight now must be against matriarchy. I wish our Prime Minister was on board, fighting against radical feminists in domestic poll- eY, rather than avoiding trouble by sending danegeld and having his ministers imple- ment the radical feminist agenda. Feminism was for many years a respectable and worthy descendant of the classical liberalism that flowed from the Scottish Liberals to the framers of the American constitution. So long as femi- nism was in pursuit of equality — equality ?I opportunity, equality before the law — It was a movement to which one gave one's whole-hearted support. The notion that the state and its laws would not encourage sanctions or prescriptions against any indi- vidual on the basis of gender or indeed race or homosexuality was a worthy goal, and one we reached. But soon feminism developed less respectable tendencies. Extreme feminists Could not say to the Lord Chancellor or the. Prime Minister, 'Look, we abhor your society with its naïve liberalism and old- fashioned notions of individual liberty or heterosexual families. We want power to modify your rather outdated notions of blindfold justice, and fairness in the work- Place.' Instead, they used a sleight of hand: they substituted the notion of group parity for equality and muddled up the two ideas. The result is that all our notions of fair- ness, equality and liberty have fallen down. This, actually, is the key to where the women's movement went off the rails from enlightenment to reaction — and George

Jonas has documented this in his book Politically Incorrect. First, Jonas says, there was a foolish tolerance for stretching — in the way of all prejudices — perfectly ratio- nal ideas to absurd and irrational limits. Second, there was a willingness to make a pact even with the devil for the immediate purpose of women's advancement, and to dismiss all other considerations of fairness, equity, aesthetics, national interest, civil liberties or commonsense as 'negligible' if they seemed to hinder the 'cause'. But third, and most important, was to identify the cause itself as no longer the fair and equal treatment of human beings who happened to be women, but as the advancement of the status of women as a group.

It is important to understand that equal- ity for the individual — as in equal oppor- tunity or equality before the law — is a classic liberal ideal, while parity for a group is at best a political and at worst a profoundly reactionary notion. Equality stresses that any qualified human being may become an engineer, plumber, prime minister or jet pilot, regardless of gender, religion or race, while parity maintains that a proportionate number from each group must achieve such positions regard- less of merit or utility. The belief in parity is based to some extent on a genuine error — the view that any disparity in society has to be the result of discrimination — as

well as the cynical politician's view that when disparity makes some people restless it should be eliminated, even at the expense of freedom and fairness. By choos- ing parity over equality as its main goal, the women's movement embarked on the tor- tuous path of having to make its own think- ing as prejudicial and nonsensical as that of any genuine male chauvinist.

The notion of group parity was quickly adopted by every other special interest group — ethnic groups, blacks, homosexu- als. There was a curious symbiosis between government and special interest groups about this illiberal idea: the notion of pari- ty enhanced the power of both. Enforcing it was a means of giving a statist govern- ment more power and regulatory authority, and the special interest groups more fund- ing, more scope. So quietly, without much fanfare, we buried the notion of equality.

We stopped being colour blind and gender blind — indeed even justice itself now

peeks from under her mask to see if the witness or defendant is female, in which case evidentiary rules and procedures may be modified to protect her. When I asked the Lord Chancellor, Lord Mackay, about this, he explained to me that while he still believed in the level playing-field of justice, we 'had to make up for past disadvantages'.

Group parity is now the measure of our times and misleadingly is used interchange- ably with equality — just to confuse people.

If women are 51 per cent of the popula- tion, then they ought to be 51 per cent of

the executives at the BBC or 51 per cent of judges on the appeal court. Only that, argue the proponents of group parity, sig- nals that true equality has been reached.

If an idea is a good idea, you do not need ministerial edicts to get a democratic soci- ety to accept it. But because ideas like group parity, or equal pay for work of equal value, or reverse discrimination would not survive in the arena of free dis- course because of their intrinsic weakness, they have to be artificially entrenched by exclusion, by policies, by law. They must get the status of dogma or doctrine to be enforced by ministerial edict.

The dogmas are these: first, parity for the group. This statistical concept is not only wrong because it is illiberal, as I have mentioned. It is wrong because people do not exist in single interest groups. If you use gender as a basis for policy, favouring women, drawing up lists of women for jobs, you neglect the fact that women are wives as well with husbands; they have sons, they are the sisters of brothers, they live in fami- lies supported by fathers. This is a funda- mental flaw in the entire notion of group rights. What are you doing to a society when you advance the cause of one group at the expense of others? How could a Conservative Government — as it does — embrace such a notion?

The second dogma is equal pay for work of equal value. This is entirely different from the notion of equal pay for the same or similar work, a decent principle with which few would argue. It may be a human right to be paid the same for the same job, but at best it is a human ambition to be paid the same for a different job. But if pay equity becomes the law — and every company has to draw up pay equity plans, grading their jobs and comparing them — as it has in a jurisdiction in which I lived for many years, Ontario, Canada, and which the EEC recommends as a model for the United Kingdom, the following happens: the cost to business skyrockets and investment falls. And in an arbitrary situation where committees rather than the market-place decide the value of a job there will be arbitrary winners and losers. In a practical sense, the equal value initia- tive could be as disruptive to jobs as once was unrestrained trade union power. Con- flicts between men and women will spread to other groups as opposing racial, ethnic and professional interests surface. And underneath all this, of course, is the persis- tent drumbeat of radical feminism: low wages for women, women are victims, we are all victims, we are a society of the oppressed.

The third dogma is the notion that the two-parent, one-income family with a non- working mother is a structure based not on women's choice but solely on women's oppression. The suggestion that some mothers like to stay at home and bring up their children is anathema to feminism, including such bodies as the Government- supported Equal Opportunities Commis- sion, whose research reports are filled with the contention that any social policy — such as a minimum income or transferable personal tax credit — which sustains the ability of a woman to remain at home without working is a bad idea and leads to — a favourite gloomy phrase of theirs — `women's economic dependency'.

I am not optimistic that Mr Major will attack these problems, for the Conserva- tive Government is guilty of furthering extreme views. One example of this is the Central Council for Education and Train- ing in Social Work (CCETSW), the quan- go that sets the guidelines and monitors candidates for the Diploma in Social Work and effectively controls lecturers, students and practitioners in the social work field. It reports to Mrs Virginia Bot- tomley, the Secretary of State for Health. She appoints all its 25 council members and guarantees them £20 million of tax- payers' money.

On 16 June 1989, their council passed a series of equal opportunities and anti- racist strategy statements — among other things these state:

CCETSW believes that racism is endemic in the values, attitudes and structures of British society including that of social services and social work education. CCETSW recognises the effects of racism on black people are incompatible with the value of social work and therefore seeks to combat racist prac- tices in all areas of its responsibilities.

CCETSW will seek to ensure that in all dimensions of its activity — as an employer, validating body and in its development — individuals are not unfairly disadvantaged on the grounds of age, gender, disability, lan- guage (including sign language), race, ethnic origin, nationality, sexual orientation, social class or religion.

They then published a glossary of what was meant by these terms and it forms the basis of their so-called anti-oppressive poli- cies to which any candidate for social-work diplomas or jobs must subscribe. What fol- lows is a pure if not simple Marxist/feminist analysis. These are just some of the cate- gories of discrimination as they see them: Gender: women are not a minority group (51 per cent of the UK population is female) but they are oppressed by systematic 5tereo1Ving and discrimination on the basis of gender and/or marital status. As a result they are seriously disadvantaged in employment, training and promotion and this remains the case in spite of legislation designed to ame- liorate this state of affairs. It is also impor- tant to recognise that men are also oppressed by gender stereotyping, e.g., in terms of per- missible roles and behaviour.

Race: race is not a biological fact but a con- cept which has been socially constructed. The physical characteristics, skin colour, hair, facial features which distinguish various people from one another are invested with social meaning which can prove advanta- geous to the group or not, depending on the ability of the group in question to assert its right of self definition and have it respected by others. Oppression of black people is acknowledged by CCETSW in its anti-dis- crimination statement of 4 November 1988.

My comment on this is straightforward. It is a lie: race is a fact and not a socially constructed concept. What is evident is that no thinking per- son outside the extremist fringe could sub- scribe to these concepts. But if you want to study or get a job in social work you have no choice: you must. And that is why, for example, no member of the Conservative Party would be eligible for training or employment as a social worker.

This was brought to the attention of Mrs Bottomley by Gerald Hartup of the Free- dom Association, who patiently photo- copied the relevant passages and on 14 August sent them to Mrs Bottomley with the following questions: 1. Do CCETSW's equal opportunity statement, anti-racist strategy statement and its definitions of the necessary attributes for a social worker now repre- sent your department's philosophy? 2. Were the above originally agreed with Your department? 3. If your department approves of the Philosophy outlined in question 1, does it approve also of restricting social work lec- turers and students to those sharing that Philosophy? The letter was not answered until a month later on 19 September by the Health Minister, Dr Brian Mawhinney, on Mrs Bottomley's behalf. Here is what he said:

The Department of Health fully shares C.CETSW's commitment to equal opportuni- ties for all. We have taken a number of ini- tiatives to raise the profile of equality issues in the social service field and fund the Race Equality Unit at the National Institute for Social Work which advises social services departments on both staffing and service delivery issues. I would expect all social work students and lecturers — and indeed every- one working in social services — to show a real commitment to equal opportunities throughout their working lives. CCETSW's Rules and Requirements for the Diploma in Social Work which were launched by Vir- ginia Bottomley make this expectation quite clear.

Mrs Bottomley has effectively excluded any people from the field of social work but Marxist feminists or those who are Prepared to lie about their adherence to the anti-oppressive creed. She has exclud- ed all members of her own political party. (Incidentally, I understand similar policies exist in the field of youth work and I expect we can find equally disturbing creeds in the teaching polytechnics.) Why is Mrs Bottomley doing this? One could take refuge in the fact that the lady can't think her way out of a wet paper bag and that may be part of it, but I fear she gen- uinely believes in what she is doing.

Another example of this feminist infec- tion in government is Opportunity 2000, officially launched by John Major on 28 October 1991. It is an initiative to get more women into business. Behind it is the Women's Economic Target Team, chaired by Lady Howe, a quango which spawned another quango, Business in the Community. The aim is to get the 'proper balance' of men and women in the work- force at all levels and in all areas. The CVs of the members of this quango are intrigu- ing: Joanna Foster, 'chair' of the Equal Opportunities Commission; Brenda Dean, the former trade union leader; the cam- paign development manager has a 'strong equal opportunities background' and so on. By now, righting the perceived wrongs of women has become a career choice like dentistry. Here, Opportunity 2000 flogs the notion of group parity, extolled by Lady Howe and John Major as a primary aim of the Conservative Party.

Under Opportunity 2000, firms have pledged to up the percentage of women in senior management jobs. NatWest aims to increase women managers to 33 per cent. British Airways is upping its female work- force to 42 per cent, London Weekend Television to 43 per cent.

Mrs Bottomley is particularly keen on Opportunity 2000 and demands that every short list for NHS senior management must include women and, where there are none, she now has a regional short list of women on standby. Health authorities and trusts have been set eight goals in the field of breaking down barriers to women's careers — setting numerical targets of a 20 per cent increase in women representatives on health authorities and trusts. There are also targets for increasing the number of women consultants and accountants. Of course, as quotas are illegal, the state can only make known its 'preferential' policy. But persuasion is mighty: employers, par- ticularly those getting funding or contracts from the Government, do not want to be accused of being sexist and socially retro- gade. They put in place their own equal opportunities programmes, officers, coun- sellors and booklets. Preferring women may also have its attractions: it provides a cast-iron excuse for getting rid of a man, not least because of personal vendettas. And if he is replaced by a woman, women can shamelessly promote each other in ways that would be seen as favouritism if done by men.

At the BBC, the director general desig- nate, John Birt, is in the lead in the run- ning for the gold medal in progressivism. It was Birt who told a seminar I attended on women in television, 'Every time I am con- fronted at the BBC by a roomful of men, I am always struck by the thought that half of those men are standing in the way of more talented women.' The remark puz- zled me. As in any bureaucracy, at least half of those men were probably standing in the way of more talented men. The BBC under eight numerical quotas (called 'tar- gets', of course) intends to make women 30 per cent of senior executives, 40 per cent of senior management and 40 per cent of management by 1996. Just how this is possible without discriminating against talented men I do not know.

After the last election, Gillian Shephard, Employment Secretary, was given the cross-departmental portfolio for women's issues and became Minister of Women in all but name. She seems a talented, intelli-

gent woman, as yet rather difficult to read. Aspects of her employment bill are very welcome indeed. The problem with a Min- ister of Women, however, is that they invariably become Minister of Women They Like. Thus, Gillian Shephard has set up the women's issues working group, which she describes as 'a small team to give her personal advice on practical mea- sures to extend equal opportunities for women in the workplace and beyond'.

Who are its members? Lady Howe, Joanna Foster from the Equal Opportuni- ties Commission, Sue Slipman from the Council for One-Parent Families, and so on.

I am reminded of a speech Mrs Thatch- er made to the Conservative Women's Conference in May 1988. 'Conservative women are above all practical,' she declared. 'They do not attempt to advance women's rights by addressing you, Madam Chairman, as Madam Chairperson, or Madam Chair or worse [and the PM paused a beat before the lunacy] simply as Chair. With feminists like that, who needs male chauvinists?' That was shortly before Joanna Foster was appointed Madam Chairman of the Equal Opportunities Commission and on her first week let it be known that she wished to be referred to in office life simply as Joanna or Chair. Could Mrs Thatcher have foreseen, having defeated Ilea and the loony-left councils, that the spirit of Lambeth and Hackney would end up in the cosy niches of the Conservative Party, watered by its Prime Minister, nurtured by ministers and fund- ed, as ever, by us?

Back to Mrs Shephard. She has appoint- ed other members to her women's issues working group who appear to be practical people. But we all know the game: only the professional think-tankers and policy specialists can find the time to influence a minister. Business people are too busy actually running their businesses. But 'I spent hours of back-breaking work getting this place to smell of cat and she would rather it smelt of lemons.' where are the Conservative thinkers? Where is the extremely crisp and knowl- edgeable work of Dr Patricia Morgan and her studies on the workplace, childcare and women's policies. Where is the name of Digby Anderson and all the associated thinkers he has assembled at the Social Affairs Unit? Where are those of us who do not cleave to the radical feminist line of the Equal Opportunities Commission and the muddled sentimentality of Lady Howe? It is time that John Major, starting with the Government itself, put a stop to this march towards matriarchy (a government dancing like ours is to the pipes of the radi- cal feminists); and that if his Government is to tolerate ministers who wish to inter- vene before breakfast, before lunch and before dinner, it should at least intervene to prevent the take-over of all our institu- tions by false, wicked and illiberal ideas.

Barbara Amid is a columnist on the Sunday Times. This article is based on a talk to the Centre for Policy Studies.