Bank bail out looked at in gender equality terms...

In a fiery article, Janet Street-Porter demonstrates further the way in which women are isolated from top institutions and positions. She names and shames banks such as RBS, who should be more concerned with their representation after taking £20bn from the taxpayer, have no females on the board. So why is that? Well there is a complex set of reasons for why this is the case, and every time, such as Harman, raises their concerns and ways to tackle the problems, men (and some women) accuse her of being a radical feminist who needs to get off men's backs, as she isn't 'shagable' anyway.

She rightly pins blame on the government too, who should have included proposals for equal representation when settling agreements as they pumped billions of tax payers money in the system. Porter rightly remarks:

How can women take the majority of the consumer spending decisions in the UK, make up half the workforce and represent the majority of university graduates, but are still, in 2009, not considered to possess that vital gene necessary to sit in boardrooms up and down the land?

I completely agree. Her idea of there being concrete ceiling is a truer reflection of women opportunity than that of a glass ceiling. In seriousness, yesterday I also referred to a concept that I feel is more substantive with explaining why women are prevented from getting to the top. The concept is labyrinth, which refers to how women have various pit falls all the way through their life, and so refers to wider ares of discrimination than just the top ranks of a women's career.

What this boils down to is simple. There needs to be more focus on the ingrained inequality in society that prevents many women from doing things they want and can do. This is the first article i have really read complaining about the settlements between the banks in terms of a gender inequality basis not a financial basis. Why should women taxpayers fund a system full of men? How is that equal representation? Something needs to be done, it is simply unacceptable.