POLITICAL COMMENTARY
The politics of sexual discrimination
Hugh Macpherson
Traditionally the Tory party has been attacked for parading the wives of parliamentary candidates before selection committees in the kind of beauty contest that Kafka would have organised. It appears that the Executive of the National Union is having second thoughts about these absurd procedures. In fact the Conservative party's record in relation to the role of women is not a bad one. Edward Heath set up a committee a couple of years ago under the coy title Fair Deal for the Fair Sex' and some of the thinking that went on is beginning to come to light. For example, the decisions to send maintenance by cheque, and the change in tax assessment of wives show a sensitivity to the rights of women as does Lord Jellicoe's announcements in the Lords of the acceptance of major parts of the departmental committee report on the employment of women in the Civil Service. This would include a more just attitude towards recruitment, maternity leave and the problems associated with a husband changing his job.
The Labour party is naturally enough in a fine old mess over its women, having made traditionally liberal noises about their role and then found the implementation of supremely worthy ideas more than a little difficult. The Simpson Report of 1968 recommended that the women's section, which elects five ladies to the National Executive Committee, be abolished. When it came to disposing of this discrimination against men, to put women on an equal footing, the militancy of some latter day suffragettes took on a more pacific face. The section is still there, giving five women a privileged place on the National Executive. For the record, these are the women: Mrs Judith Hart, Mrs Lena Jeger, Mrs Renee Short, Baroness White, and Mrs Shirley Williams.
It is to be hoped that on the next occasion on which of these ladies inform the great television public of the iniquities of the Church of England for not allowing women to become priests they give some explanation as to why they did not take their chance in the constituency section of the NEC elections with the chaps. In fact that has been the stance of Miss Joan Lestor who refuses to stand in the women's section on principle. She and Mrs Castle are the only two women who even tried for any other section of the Labour party's governing body and both were successful. Miss Muriel Turner, who represents such a jet set organisation as Mr Clive Jenkins's ASTMS, did not contest the trade union section but tried to take advantage of the discriminatory women's section. The NEC is bumbling on asking for advice and discussion on the question when the choices are patently obvious. To be fair to the Labour party they have this very year elected to remove the distinction made on their membership cards between men and women, presumably their chaps now being able to tell the difference.
The trade union movement itself does not come out of an analysis of its own attitudes towards women particularly well. For example USDAW, a union with more than half its membership women (particularly shop assistants) only employs three women out of 150 full time officials and the National Union of Public Employees with more than a third of a million members, of whom women make up about three out of five, only employs one woman full time official out of ninety. When it comes to the Commons itself, there is still the same number of women MPs now as in 1966. The Conservatives muster fifteen, the Labour party ten and there is, in addition. Miss Devlin as an Independent.
One of the difficulties that face anyone, be it journalist or politician, who approaches the question of women's rights is the confused strands that run through the subject. Try discussing women's pay with a zealot and before long one is being faced with controversial assertions such as that the arrival of oral contraceptive pills is the most significant event in human history since Copernicus passed away. This is of little use in wage negotiations. It is therefore refreshing to find that Westminster is showing some sense in the matter by picking off certain areas of the subject for treatment. One example was the one already mentioned of reforms within the Civil Service. Another was Mrs Barbara Castle's Equal Pay Act, which is certainly not working as well as could be wished but has provided a basis on which the government of the day will be forced to move, The provision of the Act must be fully operational by 1975 and a principle has been placed on record which no party with any regard to the polls will he able to sidestep again.
Now Mr William Hamilton, who drew a place in the Private Members' Bills list, is bringing forward a Bill which will outlaw discrimination against women in the field of recruitment to a job, conditions in the job, or dismissal from it. The Bill will also make it unlawful to discriminate againsr women in the field of training and education. It would include the activities of trade unions and professional bodies, and the legislation would be administered by an anti-discrimination Board. I regret to say that this Bill could produce a coronary in that splendid anti-marketeer Mr Ronald Bell who forecast the arrival of such legislation when he opposed the Equal Pay Bill.
With typical thoroughness Mr Hamilton has mustered facts that would melt the heart of the most icy misogynist. For example Mr David Howell, the Minister for the Civil Service (whom Sir Gerald Nabarro always calls the Minister for the Bureaucracies), had to reveal in a written answer to Mrs Joyce Butler in February some of the jobs in the Civil Service from which women are inexplicably excluded. They included radio operators; the Government butler; museum wardens; the immigration service; special investigators (supplementary benefits) where they are supremely needed; custodians in the Commons; travelling senior photographers; supervisory posts in bookshops, warehouses and presses at Her Majesty's Stationery Office; and the Meteorological Office, which is no doubt why these chaps always look so glum on television. They are also excluded from a mysterious grade of the Defence Ministry called Reproduction Class Grade A.
Other savage blows will be dealt by Mr Hamilton. For example in Scotland out of 1,589 hospital consultants on the National Health Scheme, only ninety-seven are women. Out of 471 learned professors in the eight universities there, only three are women, and the four places of recent creation have only appointed one women to a Chair.
Whilst most enthusiasts for Women's Lib whom I have encountered have revealed little of a Conservative disposition, in any sense of the word, some of their best hopes for advancement could come in the life of this government. Mr. Heath has perhaps revealed a certain doctrinaire attitude towards politics which has already led him into difficult situations but within his own doctrines he has shown a willingness to accept their interior logic — even if it leads up unpopular paths. Hence his encouragement for additional family planning, when faced with the troubled question of abortion, which some of his supporters feel is an unwarranted intrusion by the state. He could smile favourably on Mr Hamilton's Bill — indeed he will have to if it is to receive the parliamentary time necessary for it to become law. Then the unlikely double act of Hamilton and Heath would become as celebrated to ladies of the Women's Lib as Flanagan and Allen. Or perhaps Burke and Hare.
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