Airbrushing out Women

The US Secretary of State sat in the war room as her troops closed in on Osama, monitoring developments carefully with senior operational chiefs including the Director of Counterterrorism. The manner of Osama's taking off has raised moral concerns, but the fact that the US secretary of state, being female, “doesn't have a wee tail like little boys do,” (as a recently seen Edwardian manual of nursery management says) is a matter of fact that would, you’d think, raise no religious or moral concerns.

But you'd be wrong. The sight of Hillary Clinton in role as Secretary of state and Audrey Tomason as Director of Counterterrorism so offended Der Zeitung, a Brooklyn based hasidic newspaper, that it airbrushed them out — a time-consuming operation, but necessary to protect their readers from the dreadful sight of women in positions of authority.

I am sure the newspaper notionally admits these woman exist. Some animals have to cover their eyes so they can't be seen. In that spirit, the paper airbrushed the women out of what soon became one of the most famous images in the world. This was a crass and obvious thing to do, presumably because the satisfaction of the few in their silo outweighed for them the millions beyond their silo who would find their behaviour reprehensible.

Der Zeitung’s reaction was a real give away:

Because of laws of modesty, we are not allowed to publish pictures of women, and we regret if this gives an impression of disparaging women, which is certainly never our intention. We apologize if this was seen as offensive.

In other words, if we don’t consider it disparaging, it isn’t, because we say so. What tosh! The newspaper went on to say its photo editor did not realize he was violating White House copyright conditions.

“We should not have published the altered picture, and we have conveyed our regrets and apologies to the White House and to the State Department,”

So hang 0n, DZ still does not acknowledge its journalistic sin of manipulating the truth, let alone its somewhat medieval attitude to half the human race. As one is usually told by Unreconstructed Discriminators in every sphere of life, this had, of course, nothing to do with women being women — a piece of self-deception that always gives the game away from the start. The reality is that discriminatory is as discriminatory does. All else is self-deception.

Instead Der Zeitung took refuge behind a screen of faux-religiousity. I say “faux” because I take it from the fact that back in the Iron Age there was no need to airbrush the judge Deborah out of the Book of Judges, that the Eternal himself does not feel the same collywobbles about this as his more zealous minders.

So we see the capacity of Religion to become part of the problem, a smokescreen to cover unreality rather than a means of engaging with Eternal reality, including that of the present. Soon those who take this path are safely tucked up in their own religious disneyland in which the thing they most fear is kept out of sight. Their religion thus becomes a cover for fantasy, an alternative world, ultimately an insanity licence.

And just as all of us this side of the pond smirk away at the gormless folly of Die Zeitung, perhaps we need to reflect on our own more ingrained cultural sticking points about women. 30 years after equal pay legislation came in, womens’ earnings still lag significantly behind those of little boys with wee tails, the British Boardroom is still largely a male preserve, and, dash it all, we have all just enjoyed a lovely wedding in which the only female voice in an hour of liturgy was that of the Bride, as though that were normal. We all still have some way to travel ourselves before we arrive at the world of Ephesians 2.

Clergy HR: Eat your shorts, B P Richfield

We use Claire Pedrick of 3-D Coaching, regularly and increasingly, to help and counsel clergy with a variety of professional developmental needs. I met Claire yesterday, among other things, to scope some generic trends affecting clergy welfare, including the impact of new diversity and equality legislation next year.

As laid out by Harriet Harman there are four threads to a bill for the next session of parliament. The current complex raft of equality and diversity legislation (107 statutes, I’m told) is insanely spread out, and driven entirely by giving individuals rights which they are not always willing or able to enforce. The government’s thinking is that this is a systemic problem, and calls for a systemic solution. They intend to pull things together and take positive action in four areas, rather than simply relying on employment tribunals:

1. Greater Transparency
2. Enforcement
3. Public procurement
4. Preventative systemic action — training etc.

This sounds really good, though the devil is always in the detail. There is, of course, work to do about genuine occupational requirements — ensuring the Pope’s a Catholic, and you don’t get The Deerhunter as director of Greenpeace. I don’t imagine it’s beyond human wit to work that stuff out. For common or garden purposes, I see this as a really positive way forward for everyone. As work continues on our own Committee for Racial Justice (which I chair) on developing our own rigorous diversity agenda, to turn it from a motherhood-and-apple-pie aspiration into a way of life based on Biblical and Moral values, I can see benefits in all four of these areas.

Just spare a thought for poor old B. P Richfield. Dinosaurs ran for a few years in the early nineties until Disney inexplicably pulled the plug on what was, IMHO, the best TV they ever did. B. P. Richfield was the ultimate boss from hell, a Palaeolithic Alan Sugar, CEO of the Wesayso Corporation. B. P. ran on high octane Theory-X, and was, of course, the first great mentor and management guru of a generation of bishops. Here’s the kind of workplace encounter he used to initiate:

B.P. Richfield:	SINCLAIR!. I oughta kill you and your whole family, but I'd probably get in trouble with the union. As it is, there's only one thing I can do to you: you're fired, Sinclair, fired, fired, FIRED!!!.
Earl:	Fired? That means I don't have to come to work anymore. Oh, this is the happiest day of my life.

I was delighted to come across evidence, however, that even BP had mellow moments, especially after chewing the Happy Plant: