Women set to bear 72% of British austerity cuts, report shows

[RamboLiberal]

Source: Washington Post

LONDON - As Britain prepares for the deepest budget cuts in generations to tackle a crippling mound of public debt, the government is facing a pressing legal question: Is its austerity plan sexist?

Like other wealthy nations including the United States, Britain ran up an unprecedented deficit in recent years - a liability that ballooned with a $39 billion stimulus package unleashed against the Great Recession. Now, the new government headed by Conservative Prime Minister David Cameron is making a round of spending cuts that not only roll back that stimulus, but also hit at the heart of Britain's social safety net and big government machine.

Women, recent studies here show, are far more dependent on the state than men. Women are thus set to bear a disproportionate amount of the pain, prompting a legal challenge that could scuttle the government's fiscal crusade and raise fairness questions over deficit-cutting campaigns underway from Greece to Spain, and in the United States when it eventually moves to curb spending.

One major target in Britain, for instance, is the bloated public sector, with as many as 600,000 government jobs - or one in 10 - potentially on the chopping block. But 65 percent of state employees are women, including single mothers in part-time job programs, setting them up to suffer more than men.



Read more: http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2010/08/30/AR2010083003436.html?hpid=topnews

[lumberjack_jeff]

1. So government benefits which disproportionately go to women isn't sexist.

But across-the-board cuts to those benefits are?

[valerief]

3. Women have the kids. Men leave. nt

[Lightning Count]

4. And in general, men lose at custody hearings. nt

[BlancheSplanchnik]

7. therefore, since men are generally saddled with so much more disposable income

Fewer health burdens and higher salaries, they should contribute a percent to the agencies that provide survival needs to women suffering the effects of living in a system that puts their lives at the bottom of the economic pile.

Makes sense to me. :shrug:

[Lightning Count]

8. Or have more men awarded custody?

Couple of questions though. Are similar programs available for single dads? Would it make more sense to be a couple and stay unmarried since then these programs would remain available?

[BlancheSplanchnik]

15. more men awarded custody is certainly positive as well.

The decision should always be based on the fitness of the individual to parent!

Sadly, many people breed but have no concept of parenting--for them, it is an ego exercise, and gaining custody is seen as a point to be scored against the ex.

As for programs helping those in need, I thought that aside from mother-specific ones, they were based on need. It just happens that due to social systems of work, education, gender expectation, circumstance and so forth, the vast majority of those impoverished are women.

[valerief]

23. They'd have to show up in court for that. nt

[BlancheSplanchnik]

39. boy I hate it when I make a reasoned effort to reply to drive-by posters, who never acknowledge.

the courtesy.

Maybe I should give up, but I won't. The consequences of institutionalized indifference to women is too big a topic to give up on. You never know when understanding will dawn on a knee-jerk misogynist.

[pnwmom]

20. Wrong. Men usually prevail in custody disputes.

But men usually don't dispute custody, so women usually end up with joint or sole custody.

[Lightning Count]

25. I have never seen this.

It's anecdotal, but the 4 or 5 males friends I've had fight for custody have all lost. They have won partial custody where they get the child for 2 weekends or so a month, but none have won where the child resides in their home regularly. Maybe men don't usually dispute custody because of the perception that women always win?

[LanternWaste]

28. I imagine that for many men...

"Maybe men don't usually dispute custody because of the perception that women always win?"

I imagine that for many men, their own perceptions takes a higher priority than that of doing the relevant research, homework and planning that any court case should prompt. I personally don't know any of these men, but if you're premise is correct, I suppose they're out there...

[Book Lover]

9. Not when the numbers of women living in poverty are disproportionate

to our numbers in the general population, no.

[RainDog]

37. thank you for responding

to this incredibly piggish remark with some truth. Women suffer from systemic sexism in laws and in jobs - govt jobs do not pay wages that match the private sector and if these women are in clerical fields, men abandoned that profession, for the most part, when women entered that profession.

Wages went down when clerical work went from being a male identified position to a female identified one.

And yet someone wants to claim it is sexism for women to hold those positions.

unfuckingbelievable.

[suffragette]

10. People hiring for government jobs are more likely to abide by anti-discriminatory

laws while many employers in the private sector get around or flout those laws.

So, no real surprise that women, minorities and people with disabilities apply at and are hired at higher proportional rates for government jobs than for the private sector. That's because those employers are less likely to discriminate when hiring.

That's been the case here in the states for years. Looks likely from this to be the case in the UK as well.

And the beginning of that article addressed the jobs these women work being cut.

The double whammy comes in when women are also paid lower wages (or mainly hired for jobs that are paid at a lower rate because they are viewed as women's work) and cuts are disproportionately made to services provided to woman and children.

No job + fewer services = twice cut.

[pnwmom]

19. The benefits have been going disproportionately to women because

women are disproportionately in poverty. Since the private sector doesn't provide jobs to as many women as it provides to men, the government has been picking up the slack.

[dflprincess]

22. Olbermann did a segment last week where it was discussed that

Social Security disproportionately benefits women & especially minority women. This is because overall women earn less and are less apt to have other retirement income. So this does not apply just to programs for those with dependent children.

[lumberjack_jeff]

24. Social Security is a different kettle of fish.

Women benefit more because their retirements are roughly twice as long.

[dflprincess]

27. No that wasn't even mentioned.

What was discussed is that women are less apt to have any other source of retirement income, including 401Ks. Keep in mind that the current stats for this do still include a large number of women who belonged to generations that had very limited career choices either because of sexism or racism (and for many woman both "isms"). There might be some change as Boomers start collecting SS, but even with now women earn less than men and will collect smaller checks.

He wasn't talking about life time benefits paid, but what someone needs to get by from one month to the next.

[lumberjack_jeff]

34. It should have been. Longer lifespans are the fundamental reason for the huge disparity. n/t

[superconnected]

29. You're right, they should get the fathers back and make them help support those kids.

[lumberjack_jeff]

35. They don't?

http://www.law.cornell.edu/uscode/18/usc_sec_18_00000228----000-.html

[valerief]

2. Women are like all non-whites. They don't count. They're not real people.

:sarcasm:

[superconnected]

30. From the amount of women murdered in the local news everyday

this is true. If men were being killed by their spouses and girlfriends every where in America daily, or if any particular race was killed in the same frequency by another group, as the female gender, the violence to that group of people would be the biggest news in the country. I guess that since the group that it does happen to is women, it doesn't matter.

[defendandprotect]

31. Seems TV has been teaching this violence for decades now . . .

that's all I see when I put on my TV --

[valerief]

33. White men = first class citizens. Everyone else = proles. nt

[KakistocracyHater]

36. everyone else=Prawns, don't you mean that instead?

white men=1st class citizens

[Lightning Count]

5. This is a very odd percentage.

And especially from a country that I see as much more progressive than the US.

[BlancheSplanchnik]

6. what a surprise.

Not.

Most industrial and post industrial nations thrive on the amount of work women perform, for low wages. Ironically, women further contribute to economies by being the main consumers.

It's no surprise that women make up the largest percent of those dependent on the state. That will also continue as long as traditional/conservative social forces prevail. To the traditional mindset, women exist solely in the roles of homemaking, childbearing and childrearing. The many other facets of women's lives and potential, and the negative consequences of the limited traditional role just don't exist--are shunned and denied.

[KoKo]

11. We ALL must Sacrifice...If women are "disproportionate" in the "workforce" then they must take loss

in "proportion" to their numbers.

As Our President has warned us here in the US...."Everything is on the Table!"

And we must understand with a Global Meltdown of this size we must all realize we cannot expect the standard of lifestyle we were used to. We "consumers" overspent and abused the credit system. We assume the blame of our wanton abuse of credit. Those who profited most...(like women in workforce) must suffer in proportion so that we all can "move forward" and "not look back."

:sarcasm:

[SharonAnn]

12. If the main beneficiaries of the boom were men, then they should suffer in proportion to their gains

[lumberjack_jeff]

13. That mark was overshot long ago

You do know that 80% of the jobs lost in the last recession were held by men, right?

[KoKo]

14. You didn't see my "sarcasm" emoticom in the message?

?????

[Amonester]

16. R All British Pols That Stupid?

Attack 50% Of Voters, And... (cry after they'll vote you out next time?)

[quakerboy]

38. It works here just fine, and they rarely get their comeuppance.

Why shouldn't it work there too? Plus, its harder to vote if you ain't got a job or a home.

[liberal N proud]

17. "austerity" - Why don't they just call it what it is

Stealing from those who don't have it to give.

[starroute]

18. What a horrible, slanted, propagandistic article

"a crippling mound of public debt"

"big government machine"

"the United States when it eventually moves to curb spending"

"the bloated public sector"

This is teabagger languages -- language that assumes the public sector is "bloated," that it constitutes a "big government machine," that government debt is "crippling," and that the United States will be forced to "eventually move to curb spending" as well

None of those assumptions are unarguable, and none of these loaded phrases should be used in an article from a nominally serious newspaper. But the Post is probably too far gone to even notice what it's doing.

[Orrex]

21. Pay them 72 cents on the dollar, and they complain. Give them 72% of the cuts, they complain.

There's no pleasing them wimmin!

[One_Life_To_Give]

26. And when Dress Barn Lays Off?

And when Dress Barn next has to cut back Will they also be required to not have their terminations affect women at higher than 50%? How might that extend to a Trucking Company?

I am not a lawyer, much less know anything about British Law. But it seems that you would have to prove that the actions came about as a result of discrimination. Not just that the results disproportionately affect one minority or another. Every layoff at my current employer disproportionately affects Older people because our median age is in our late 50's.

[defendandprotect]

32. The Unholy Trinity . . . .

Patriarchy -- and its underpinning =

Organized Patriarchal religion -- and it's economic invention =

Capitalism

___________________

The Unholy Trinity