Saturday, August 22, 2020

What a whinger

What a whinger Michelle Duff is. Writing a piece about how hard done by women have been during the Covid crisis she says:

" 90 per cent of those who have lost their jobs post-Covid are women"

 Well that's BS for starters. Look at her own link.

 The shocking revelation – that of the 11,000 fewer people in paid employment, 10,000 of them were women - should be taken with a grain of salt, said KiwiBank economist Mary Jo Vergara, because the level of disruption during lockdown made it hard to conduct the survey.

“But I think the message there is clear - even if you adjust for some anomalies in the data you’d still see over 50 per cent, probably around 60 or 70 per cent of those who lost their jobs, would be women.”

While men were the hardest hit in previous recessions, this time around it’s part-time workers in the female-dominated industries – retail and hospitality – who are losing their jobs.

So let's split the difference and call it 60%. Consider though that part-time workers are not as reliant on their income as full-time workers. It is often a benefit or Super top-up, or a contribution to the main household income. If it were men (who usually work full-time) being harder hit (which it may well yet turn out to be) it's very likely that would impact their female partners more than the loss of her part-time job. In any case the Covid Inome Relief Payment was made available to women who had lost part-time jobs and had partners. Forgot to mention that.

Duff goes on to cite a survey which finds,

Around 76 per cent of women said childcare is holding them back, standing in the way of career achievements. 

Well frigging well don't have children. Don't make it everybody else's problem.

...women wanted pay equity, better laws to combat bullying and harassment, and for paid parental leave to be granted to both parents...improving sick leave to include looking after dependants, and funding daycares to provide more flexible hours.

Oddly enough the more women get in respect of legislated work-life balance policies, the fewer children they have. So maybe it is just complaining for the sake of it.

Almost half of all respondents said they had experienced violence or abuse from an intimate partner. 

Each time I see a statistic about the prevalence of violence or abuse from a partner it has increased from the last (which was BTW when recently at the Warehouse Stationary where signs everywhere claimed one in three women experienced such. I was asked to make a donation to the cause and declined).

Mobilising the women’s vote can win elections, with 2017 showing that women are overall more likely to vote than men.

To capture that vote, political parties need to get serious about improving women’s lives.

There it is. Who does identity politics the best? Who was the PM's biographer?

Duff's whining on behalf of 'women' (an imaginary collective) is no more than a blatant effort to gender-gerrymander the election result. 

 

 

2 comments:

Anonymous said...

“Women are more likely to vote than men.”

Aha! Clear evidence of systemic sexism in the voting process. Since social justice demands equal outcomes, compassionate politicians must introduce more male-friendly polling booths and policies at election time. Whatever.

David Lenny

Lindsay Mitchell said...

And civics lessons at school tailored for male students!

Whatever.