The BBC’s Woman’s Hour has finally and scientifically proven what it has been telling the nation for nearly 70 years—women are totally brilliant and men are just a bunch of complete bastards.
NB: This is a gender political sketch and while all of the objective facts are true, all of the subjective feelings expressed here are made up and not real!
SEE ALSO: BBC Woman’s Hour hides the fact that male voters are more supportive of women leaders
After years of being dismissed by sexist men who have insisted that feelings are not the same as facts, Woman’s Hour used science this week to put the patriarchy in its place with conclusive proof that men are shits and women are saints.
And to show us misogynistic men, once and for all, how rubbish we are (and how tough women have it), the BBC took some of the licence fee payers’ money (mostly paid by men because of, erm, sexism) and hired a polling company, that’s run by a woman, to prove that the glass ceiling doesn’t exist.
The glass ceiling is a scientific fact
Oops, no, sorry, that should say…..a polling company run by one of the few women who has managed against all the odds to overcome the oppression and discrimination she has faced (from all those mansplaining, manspreading, catcalling men who dominate every aspect of public life), to become a CEO.
And they kindly asked her to take a day off from being oppressed and enter the safe space of Woman’s Hour to explain how her scientific poll of British men and women could be used to prove something really grown up and important like, you know, how women are great and men smell.
What Dr Michelle Harrison’s TNS poll did reveal was that with less than one hundred days to go to a general election, women are now less likely to vote than at any time since the days when women didn’t have the vote (and most men didn’t either, even though they were dying in the trenches, but ssshhhh, we don’t mention that bit).
Dr Harrison started by explaining that a lot of women don’t feel like voting at this year’s general election:
“I think that the thing that struck me the most is that we’ve only got 55% of women intending to vote at the next election. That would be the largest democratic deficit of women in modern times. If you go back to 1992, there were 78% of eligible women who voted and 77% of men. If you go back to the last election it had dropped to 64% of women and 67% of men. According to the poll that TNS has done for Woman’s Hour, this is looking like 55% of women and 65% of men. That’s a really significant issue.”
Women died for the right to not vote
Significant because 45% of women might not vote, but not significant because 35% of men might not vote either—I mean, it’s not as though men are too scared to go to a polling station because they’ll be harassed on the way; they’re probably too busy perpetuating rape culture or trolling women on twitter or neglecting their kids to even bother voting anyway.
Which is no bad thing, as men only vote for other men and hate all female politicians as the Woman’s Hour poll proved conclusively.
Well actually, it didn’t prove it objectively, because that pesky patriarchal construct—you know, statistics—-showed that 11% of male voters thought Theresa May would perform very well as leader of the Conservative Party, compared with 9% of female voters.
But this is how Woman’s Hour presenter, Jane Garvey, interpreted that particular finding using a highly superior and scientific methodology called feminist logic:
“Theresa May …was more popular amongst women than men, right?”
Fortunately, there was no sexist man in the studio to patronisingly “mansplain” that Jane had got the so-called facts wrong. Instead, at long last, Woman’s Hour had a proper scientist in the studio who would simply overlook the fact that her own company’s survey had found that 44% of men and 44% of women said Theresa May would perform well or very well.
Brilliant! Enough of baffling the public with scientific fact, what about scientific feelings—if women feel that men are sexist towards female politicians then it must be a fact—even when the patriarchy’s emotionally illiterate statistics try to tell us otherwise.
Which is why the so-called fact that more men than women say that the feminist Yvette Cooper would perform well as leader of the Labour Party wasn’t even reported—because it didn’t feel right—and we all know repressing feelings is a function of hyper-masculinity and so needs to be challenged and deconstructed by, erm, giving more scientific value to feelings rather than facts.
Moving quickly on, before any “real” statisticians listening could try and mind-rape the women in the studio with logical tweets about the actual facts of the report, Jane Garvey asked Dr Harrison to explain—using science—how life is really shit for women, while men are as happy as a bunch of chauvinistic pigs in shit, enjoying the privileges of the patriarchy.
The good doctor explained thus:
“You will classically see more of an emphasis on public services from women, so in the Woman’s Hour poll women have got education in their top five, whereas men are more likely to talk about the economy or pensions, as you see in the Woman’s Hour poll, men have put the economy and pensions in their top five.
“That’s a classic difference that we expect to see and I think it’s a good signal on the way in which women still bear the brunt of things that are quite immediate in the family, so, the cost of caring for family, making that budget manage on a week-to-week basis is their burden still.”
Brilliant! We would never have got this kind of hard proof from a male statistician. A male statistician would have told us something sexist like:
- 31% of men say that the economy (including the deficit and unemployment) is one of their top three political concerns
- 21% of women say the same
- 30% of women say the cost of caring for family is one of their top three political concerns
- 20% of men say the same
Trigger warning!
Then he would have gone on and on and on dominating the conversation, forcefully mansplaining his findings saying offensive, triggering things like:
“This means that if you had twenty people—half of them male and half of them female—then five would say the economy was a concern (three men, two women) and five would say the cost of caring for their family was a concern (three women, two men).”
But this sounds kind of equal, which doesn’t equate with women’s lived experiences, which are more valid than facts—thank heavens we had a proper woman scientist to explain what these findings really meant.
According to Dr Harrison, the fact that three out of five respondents who are concerned about the economy and two out of five respondents who are concerned about the cost of caring for their family are men, is proof that women have it harder than men—-which is a leap of feminist logic that a sexist male statistician would obviously try and suppress.
If only men would LISTEN!
For the sake of male readers, who we know don’t listen to women properly, here’s Dr Harrison’s conclusion a second time:
“It’s a good signal on the way in which women still bear the brunt of things that are quite immediate in the family, so, the cost of caring for family, making that budget manage on a week-to-week basis is their burden still.”
That’s right you stupid men, when two men and three women say they are concerned about the cost of caring for their family—it’s a signal that women bear the brunt and burden of managing the cost of caring for a family.
And what about when three men and two women say they are concerned about the economy and unemployment? It’s obvious isn’t it? Will you pay attention! It’s a signal that women bear the brunt and burden of managing the cost of caring for a family.
Fact is a feminist issue
It’s no wonder that women are so worried—and that’s not a feeling, it’s scientific fact, as presenter Jane Garvey told us with glee:
“What about the FACT that women appear to be SO MUCH MORE worried about the future than men?”
That’s right all women, every single woman, is SO MUCH MORE worried than every man in the country, because men either have nothing to worry about because, you know, the patriarchy is taking care of everything for them or they don’t worry about stuff because they have no feelings—unlike women, who spend all day being brilliantly empathetic, even in the face of daily male oppression and constantly worrying (SO MUCH MORE THAN MEN) about the future.
Fortunately, before any sexist men could try and invalidate Jane’s actual, factual feelings, Dr Harrison was on hand to stroke her prejudices—-I mean back up her entirely objective, perspective with scientific facts.
Stop being sexist
“So 48% of those polled feel worried about the future,” said Dr Harrison, “but a REALLY SIGNIFICANT difference between women and men there—52% of women do as compared to 43% of men.”
Fortunately there were no self-appointed male “experts” on hand to say something deeply sexist like:
“So in our imaginary room of 20 people, that means that about four men and five women would be worried about the future—and six men and five women wouldn’t be worried.”
Because that almost sounds like an equal number of men and women are worried about the future, a “fact” which completely invalidates Jane and Michelle’s feelings that the difference is “REALLY SIGNIFICANT” and women are “SO MUCH MORE WORRIED”, which must be true because Michelle’s got a doctorate and Jane works at the BBC.
Women are the sensible ones
Dr Harrison concluded the interview by explaining how, scientifically, it was “a very sensible thing” for women (but not men) to worry about the future. She said:
“Worry for the future is a very sensible thing…for women who are predominantly responsible for maintaining the wellbeing of their families [and] bear the brunt of trying to look after their household or support their adult children who may not be employed”.
Thank you BBC Woman’s Hour and Dr Michelle Harrison for finally giving us scientific proof that all anyone needs to know about gender in 2015, is that women HAVE problems and men ARE the problem.
Men, eh? When will we ever stop being such bastards and let women have an easy, burden free, worry free life like all men do, because, you know, patriarchy.
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Article by Glen Poole author of the book Equality For Men
Also on insideMAN:
- Election 2015: which political parties are men and women supporting?
- Election 2015: the political issues that concern men and women
- BBC Woman’s Hour hides the fact that male voters are more supportive of women leaders
- Are men more right wing and women more left wing?
- Eight reasons British women are more left wing than men
- Should we allow gender politics to be taught in UK schools?