Author: George

I have avoided writing a commentary on Brexit, partly because of it’s complexity and partly because the debate centres around fault lines rather than the underlying fundamental issues. I was sent the following article, written by George Friedman and it became clear that Charles De Gaul understood and predicted the current crisis. What it says is that you must understand what has happened in the past before you can explain the present. There are a number of things that De Gaulle got wrong but overall he put historical context first and this is what I think  the debate should be about.

Brexit and Charles de Gaulle’s Last Laugh

In many ways, de Gaulle foresaw the crisis Britain is now struggling to pull itself out of.

As we watch the British government tear itself apart over its relationship to Europe, it is useful to stop and consider the deeper origins of the crisis. They go back decades, to the long-standing tension between Britain and Europe, and in particular between Britain and France. Britain was not a signatory of the 1957 Treaty of Rome or any of the prior agreements that led to European economic integration. But in the 1960s, it applied to join the European Economic Community. At the time, Britain was economically weak, having never fully recovered after World War II, and saw the EEC as a free trade zone with relatively few complexities. The country had stayed clear of excessive entanglement with continental Europe but felt that having less limited access to Continental markets would help in its recovery.
But the British application to join the EEC was blocked by France in 1963 and 1967. French President Charles de Gaulle argued that the British economy was in many ways incompatible with the rest of Europe’s. He also argued that Britain had a deep-seated animosity toward any pan-European undertaking and would perceive a united Europe as a threat to its independence. De Gaulle didn’t view Britain as a fully European country, since its history ran counter to Europe’s history. Since the Norman conquests, Britain had been fencing with Continental powers, playing one off against the other to prevent any one power from becoming strong enough to storm the English Channel and conquer it. Whereas the other European powers were primarily land powers, forced by geography to focus on the threats posed by their neighbors, Britain was a naval power, whose primary response to Napoleon, for example, was to protect itself through a blockade that weakened France. From de Gaulle’s point of view, Britain fought World War II the same way – by shielding itself and abandoning France.
The British understanding of economic life, according to de Gaulle, was also incompatible with Europe’s. The British economy was driven by private investment, innovation and risk-taking. Continental economies had a much more intimate relationship with the state, which helped shape the direction of the economy and cushioned the impact of capitalism on workers. The state’s relationship to the market, therefore, was also very different. De Gaulle did not see the state as intruding on the nation but as the embodiment of the nation.
The European Union derives from the same tradition de Gaulle did. Neither objected to private property, but they believed in the need for state intervention in all aspects of life. The EU has a regulatory bent that is far more intense than the British, and sees its bureaucracy as having authority far greater than Britain’s.
De Gaulle had other bones to pick with the British. Britain’s relationship with the United States troubled him deeply. De Gaulle saw the U.S. as the logical and extreme expression of British ideology and strategy. The U.S. marginalized the state and, like Britain, was prepared to fight to the last European to block the Soviets. De Gaulle recalled the U.S.-British alliance in World War II, and the degree to which he had to resist having France reduced to a dominion of the United States and Britain during and after the war. The tension between Britain and the Continent didn’t end with World War II, and Britain’s relationship to the United States compounded it.
De Gaulle saw the alliance between the Anglo-Saxons as representing a multi-faceted threat to the Continent. In particular, he did not want Europe in a fixed alliance that committed the Continent to military action under certain circumstances. He didn’t want another war in Europe and was not prepared to take the same risks the U.S. was claiming it was prepared to take. He saw NATO as a threat to the EEC in many ways. He also saw the Soviets as a manageable threat, and the Americans as reckless. From de Gaulle’s perspective, then, if Britain were to join the EEC, it would act as a tool of the United States, and he was not willing to let that happen.
For de Gaulle, the cultural gap between Britain and a united Europe couldn’t be bridged. They were just too economically incompatible and their strategic interests too different.
De Gaulle’s goal in all of this, however, was not simply to build a European community. He wanted to build a European community that France could dominate, something that was still conceivable in the 1960s, while Britain remained outside the bloc. And in trying to achieve his goal, he actually anticipated the problem that would arise with the Maastricht Treaty, which established the European Union.
Britain has a very different economic and political culture than the Continent. It has a different history that gives it a different view of the Continent. Leaving other matters aside, it does not fit into Europe, and the attempt at bridging this gap has led to the worst political crisis in Britain since the fall of France.

There are, of course,  many other variable to consider when looking at the current situation. Globalisation, technology, urbanisation, environmental issues  have all changed the world since De Gaulle’s day but he identified key difference between Britain and the continent that still hold true. Most of them have a historical trajectory and you can see an example of  this by contrasting the constitutions of Britain and Europe. Most of the EU countries have written constitutions that has been forged after conflict, whereas Britain has a mainly unwritten constitution that has evolved over time and is  grounded in common law. This has evolved into the principle of parliamentary supremacy whereas, by revolution or war the continental systems have produced a stronger executive branch that can take unilateral decisions with much less constraint. We can see this in the way that Brussels, Germany and France  rammed Monetary Union (EMU) through on the back of the Maastricht Treaty to consolidate national currencies into one European currency. I can remember people saying that Britain’s refusal to join reflected her attachment to the pound and empire but what made more sense was that Britain and a few other states just couldn’t see how it would work. In the end they were proved right and the fundamentals of a stable currency have still not been resolved. What was seen to be an attachment to former glory was, in fact, a practical assessment of the EU’s plans which were the product of an ideological construct and the ambitions of a politicised bureaucracy.

Britain joined the EEC which was a common market that retained decision making at the national level. I  think that most British people accepted that, over time, as economies moved together so would the links between countries. The problem was that France and Germany wanted to keep up the momentum to expand the geographical community and the power of the EU establishment. The problem of keeping up the pace is that you can quickly create a disconnect between the people that you are representing and the governing body. It became very clear that the  Maastricht Treaty was treated with suspicion by many countries and to counter the fears of forced centralisation the concept of subsidiarity was established. The principle of Subsidiarity does not just state that decision making be devolved to the lowest competent authority but that it is the responsibility of the central authority to make the case that it is necessary to take it away from local jurisdiction.

Specifically, subsidiarity means that proponents of centralisation are the ones who have to prove that further integration is justified. If they fail to make the case, subsidiarity means that the powers should remain de-centralised. (Making Sense of Subsidiarity: How Much Centralization for Europe?)

The authors of the 1993 report, Making Sense of Subsidiarity: How Much Centralization for Europe? clearly saw the tension between “efficiency-enhancing centralisation and democracy-enhancing sovereignty.” It also identified the principle’s weakness in that it was not defined  in law and that any dispute was adjudicated by the ECJ, hardly a disinterested body. The inevitable consequence has been the expansion of Brussels at the expense of local decision making. To paraphrase Ronald Reagan, Brussels will never voluntarily reduce in size and the EU bureaucracy  is the nearest thing to eternal life that this earth will ever see.

If the trade-off that Europe has chosen cannot be explained and justified to citizens, consequences are unavoidable. The loss of sovereignty can easily turn into a loss of identification with the European project, and, as seen today, the missing identification can generate a dangerous democratic deficit, and a concomitant longing for the autonomy of the nation-state.

The problem, that was clearly seen by the authors of the 1993 report , has come about. The institutions of a European wide super state are all there. The flag, anthem, judiciary, executive, parliament, external borders, membership of the UN and the beginnings of an EU military are all there to see. But who will defend this super state? Yes, we can identify the economic benefits and for some the prevailing liberal ideology but the democratic deficit that the report identified has resulted in a return to identification with the nation state that can be seen all around Europe.

Liberal governments in Continental Europe saw the Nation State as the source of all modern wars and in the aftermath of the Second World War it seemed reasonable to look for a convergence of states that would lock them together so that there would be an end to international conflict, at least in Western Europe. This would seem a reasonable strategy especially between Germany and France who between them had produced a Napoleon, Kaiser and Hitler to terrorise the continent in modern times. However, the claim that the EU and it’s predecessors have kept the peace in Europe is only partially correct. As already stated, it has stopped two member states from repeating past adventures but has it secured peace from external threats? De Gaulle’s  belief that the Russians can be negotiated away have thankfully never been tested. The reason that the post war expansionist communist states were held at the western borders is NATO. De Gaulle’s nightmare had come about. It is the presence of those Anglo=Saxons that has prevented a nuclear tipped Russian advance into Paris not the EU. To be more precise, it is the presence of 60,000  U.S. troops in Europe, plus all the America military might, on call, that has held Russia in check.

De Gaulle was wrong on many fronts. Partly as a result of his humiliation during the war he incorrectly identified the main threat to post war Western Europe as being the Americans and British. However, his analysis of the differences between Britain and the continental Europeans can hardly be faulted. This means that, given the ambitions of Brussel and Paris, that the union was never going to work within the current framework. It would not fail on immigration, EMU or, the ‘great British sausage’ but on the impossibility of forcing a continental culture onto a British one. Whatever happens to Brexit the EU still has the same problems with the remaining countries and we can see the fault lines wherever you look. The problem with the model is that it attracts little loyalty from it’s citizens. Yes, we all identify as Europeans when we go through passport control but if asked where we come from we respond in national terms. We like the mobility and economic advantages when things are going well but have no accountability when things go wrong. We are told that that there is democratic control via the European Parliament but the electorate rightly sees through this myth and shows little enthusiasm for European elections. What they do see when they make a stand is that huge pressure is put on national governments to correct this aberration as happened when the Irish electorate rejected the Lisbon Treaty in the 2008 referendum. There are many things right with the EU but it is a house built on a shaky foundation and it is not clear whether this is accepted by the ruling elites or, whether they will ignore all the warnings and continue to build even higher in a desperate hope that the foundations will somehow hold.

Reference:

GPF, George Friedman, 2/04/19, geopoliticalfutures.com/brexit-charles-de-gaulles-last-laugh/

Jean-Pierre Danthine, Subsidiarity: The forgotten concept at the core of Europe’s existential crisis, 12/04/17, https://voxeu.org/article/subsidiarity-still-key-europe-s-institutional-problems

I was saddened to hear of the death of Doris Day today.   She  epitomised the dreams of post war America as it settled down to  prosperity and super power status.  Her screen persona was that of the clean living girl next door reflecting all of those all American values that underpinned the American dream .

Born Doris Mary Ann Kappelhoff in 1922 she was destined to be a dancer until a car accident broke both her legs and confined her to a wheel chair where she sat next to the radio, singing along to the big bands of the day. She particularly studied the voice of  Ella Fitzgerald and I fancied that I could hear that influence, especially in slower numbers that allowed her to extend her phrasing. She subsequently broke into the big band scene, changing her name to Day when she made her debut with Barney Rap in 1939.

She described her time touring with the bands as her happiest and she rose to fame with six top ten hits in 1945/46. This included her signature song, Sentimental Journey which became the song associated with the returning troops. She commenced her film career in 1948 with the film Romance on the High Seas and this was the first of some forty films in a long career. We forget how big a star she really was mainly because she was type cast as the feminine star in romantic comedies which did not result in lifting an Oscar. However, in the early sixties she ranked number one at the box office four times, a record only equalled by eight people since. She acted opposite almost all of the biggest stars of the time including Clark Gable, Cary Grant, James Cagney, David Niven, Jack Lemmon, Frank Sinatra, Ronald Reagan,  Richard Widmark, Kirk Douglas, Lauren Bacall and Rod Taylor. As with most Hollywood stars her private life did not reflect her screen roles and with four marriages, one of them being violent and finding that her third husband had spent her fortune she did not have an easy life.

In 1968 she started the last phase of her career by appearing in the Doris Day Show which lasted for five years. Initially, she was obliged to perform to fulfil a contract that her husband had made without telling her. She had also promised to repay the debts that her lawyer had caused by making bad investment decisions which was the subject of a law suit that was only finalised in 1979.

Doris Day stood for a number of things to those who remember the 50’s and 60’s. She played the clean living, all American girl next door and  had a strong moral code which was illustrated by her turning down the role of Mrs Robinson in the Graduate on the basis that the script was vulgar and offensive. She had a very warm and distinctive voice which was enhanced by the recording techniques of the time that had the effect of bringing the listener into an intimate space with the singer. I always thought that her singing Move Over Darling was one of the sexiest songs that I had ever heard. I still have it on my Spotify list. She was the last to represented the Golden Age and had to face the loss of innocence of the late 60’s when her film career started to fade.  What saw her through all her tribulations over the thirty five year she was in the public eye was her honesty, sense of duty, sense of humour,  talent and sheer professionalism.

It is difficult to get a true sense of who Doris Day was.  I think that she was a very private person and her later years would seem to bear this out. Looking through the photo’s on the net they all seem to be controlled and posed and the only one I saw of her where she seemed natural is the one taken of her on the set of Calamity Jane below. As we get older we filter our memory so that we tend to recall only the happier times and the sound of Doris Day singing brings me back to a steamy kitchen with Two Way Family Favourites on the radio. I have failed to do her justice in this essay and even to tell of the important moments in her life. Failed to record all of the tributes and honours she received; failed to record the reconciliation with her son who died before her in 2004. All I can say is that I miss her and thank her for all those memories.

Goodbye Doris and RIP

Refernce: Wikipedia. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Doris_Day#Breakthrough_(1955–1958)

I recently came across the word ‘Vranyo’ in an article written by Michael Binyon in the Times. (14/09/18) It comes from the same people who brought us Glasnost and Perestroika and is one of those words that sum up a whole story in one word. For those too young to remember, Glasnost and Perestroika  were penned in the 1980’s and 1990’s to describe Mikhail Gorbachev’s program to make Soviet society more open and transparent. Vranyo, on the other hand, covers the rest of modern Soviet history and has become more meaningful  in the time of Vladimir Putin’s leadership.

Michael Binyon describes Vranyo as, ” meaning to tell a lie that you do not expect anyone to believe but that is told purely to save face. (The Times, 14/09/19)

This approach to the truth has been amply demonstrated by Mr Putin when he has made statements about the Crimea, Ukraine and the Skripal assassination  attempt. Winston Churchill had a view on the Soviet attitude to the truth, ” the Russian Bolsheviks have discovered that truth does not matter so long as there is reiteration . They have no difficulty whatever in countering a fact with a lie which, if repeated often enough and loud enough, becomes accepted by the people.” (Churchill, 1950)  Mr Putin, of course, is not the only politian to tell lies and a politician at the other end of the spectrum has something of a reputation in this regard. Although the Mueller report cleared Trump of spying for Russia and left the question of obstruction open, the presidents truthfulness or, lack of it became evident in the report. There is a kind of a childlike view of the truth with Trump, nothing cuddly or innocent  but low and cunning when  cornered. If we could transport little Trumpy back to earlier times and ask whether he cut down the apple tree, after a millisecond pause, he would respond that he couldn’t tell a lie and that it was the Brits who did it! There is something of a thread here, although one must be very careful in using any material applying to the President as so much of it is generated by the ‘anything but Trump’ camp, The Presidents language has a childlike quality to it. I am not sure that I would go as far as Emily Shugerman when she writes in the Independent that Trumps vocabulary is at the level of an 8 year old (Independent, 9/01/18) but in a way what you see is what you get with Trump and it seems to insulate him against accusations that would sink another leader.

I don’t think that Donald qualifies as a purveyor of Vranyo as he lacks the cold calculating, disciplined intellect that Putin possesses. However, we do have practitioners closer to home in the shape of our local muppets Statler and Waldorf, played by Mick Wallace and Clare Daly who returning from a trip to Venezuela declared that there is plenty of food and no humanitarian crisis there.(The Sunday Times, 21/04/19)  If the Red Cross were paying any attention to messers  Daly and Wallace they would be a little surprised as they have just delivered medical equipment, generators and medicine to Venezuela. Someone should also tell the UN humanitarian chief Mark Lowcock  who warned that “an estimated seven million people were in dire need of humanitarian assistance”  (BBC News, 17/04/19) This represents some 25% of the population in Venezuela.

Since 2014 an estimated three million Venezuelans have emigrated from the country citing a collapsed economy,  hyperinflation, food shortages, health issues (e.g. the return of malaria) political oppression and lawlessness. Statler and Waldorf didn’t seem to bump into any of this in their travels. One of the three million emigrants criticised  Waldorf’s claim saying that, “It is either a huge sign of ignorance or a huge sign of blindness, that Daly is saying there is no hunger in Venezuela.” ( The Sunday Times,21/04/19) To follow the theme of the essay so far, we have to ask the question as to whether Wallace and Daly are speaking Vranyo or, a straight lie (lozh) or, suffered from blindness. Just to make things interesting I think that it is a combination of all three options. I think that there is a political blindness that doesn’t accept that any socialist country can fail. I think that the lie is the things they must have seen and heard but refused to acknowledge  and I think that she exercises Vranyo when she talks about the one sided media and presumably lumps in three million emigrants, the Red Cross and the UN humanitarian chief in that group. Well done the Muppets!

Referenses

The Times, 14/09/18, Michael Binyon, Lies, dammed lies and lies you don’t expect anyone to believe.

Winston Churchill (1950). “Europe Unite: Speeches 1947 and 1948”, London, Cassell https://www.azquotes.com/author/2886-Winston_Churchill/tag/lying

The Independent (UK), 9/01/18, Emily Shugerman, Trump Speaks at Level of 8 year old. https://www.independent.co.uk/news/world/americas/us-politics/trump-language-level-speaking-skills-age-eight-year-old-vocabulary-analysis-a8149926.html

The Sunday Times,21/04/19, Rosanna Cooney, Venezuelans Enraged by Daly’s Denial of Hunger.

BBC News, 17/04/19, Venezuelans receive first Red Cross aid amid crisis, https://www.bbc.com/news/world-latin-america-47960734?intlink_from_url=https://www.bbc.com/news/topics/cp3mvpm3933t/venezuela-crisis&link_location=live-reporting-story

Well, what’s the Blog about today? Judging from the title something to do with the Borrowers perhaps or,  Terry Pratchett’s The Wee Free  Men?  Hard to believe that this is an extract from a ‘blistering attack’ on men (Irish Independent, 08/03/19) delivered by a government Minister. Given the quote, you will be surprised to hear that it was delivered by the Minister for Higher Education, Mary Mitchell O’Connor. So, not entirely that far from the land of fiction and make believe.  The Minister was announcing the creation of 45 women only professorships in advance of International Woman’s Day and complaining that there was a lack of interest from men. Well not a total lack of interest but measured as, “… small, as in teeny-weeny small.”

I am not quite sure how to approach the speech as reported in the Independent. Certainly, Margaret Hickey went straight for the throat in her article in the Examiner entitled, Women-only Professorships a Triumph of Optics over Policy. Her main thrust was on the lines of ‘physician heal thyself’   referring to the low representation of women in the Fine Gael party and in the government as a whole.

Well, it just shows it comes down to optics, and lobbying too no doubt, and it is as crass a piece of social engineering as one could find. The worst aspect of it is that it does a disservice to women.(Irish Examiner,19/11/18)

Margaret was not holding back there but she has a point in that the Minister has picked an easy target in implementing discrimination or, affirmative action in the education industry whilst failing to look at her own glass house. At this point I must state that the other sneaky policy of funding parties according to their gender balance should also attract condemnation. Confidence in democracy depends on there being a secret and unconstrained vote and any social engineering by the government to ensure that only the ‘right choices’ are presented to the electorate are fundamentally distorting the democratic process and contrary to the spirit of the Constitution. (see note) To get back to the Ministers plan, what we are seeing is the doctrine of equality of outcomes. We have seen this in the explanation that Hilary Clinton gave for 52% of white women voting for Trump in the 2016 election. The thinking was that  there was no point polling white  women because they, as victims of the patriarchy, would obviously vote for a woman candidate. When they voted for a somewhat bizarre candidate, the only explanation Hilary  could think of was that they were misogynistic. In other words, if there is an imbalance in the gender equation or, if the party line isn’t followed then it must be down to discrimination.

David Quinn in his article (Sunday Times, 25/11/18) points out that it is not that simple and the Department of Educations own gender equality task force has found that, “… in the past 10 years, 30% of applications for professorships were women and 28% of those promoted were woman. Women made up 32% of applications for associate professor and got 31% of those jobs.”   If that is the case, it would suggest that women have a very high success rate when applying for promotion which we wouldn’t expect to see if there was institutional bias in the system. Part of the reason for the imbalance is the stereotyping of gender roles by girls making study choices. In the case of STEM subjects a study showed that, “of 1,500 girls between the ages of 11 and 18 and 2,500 women aged 19-23 in the UK and Ireland found 30 per cent felt Stem subjects were better fitted to boys’ brains, personalities and hobbies.” (Irish Times) The article goes on the describe various initiatives being undertaken by the business world to change this view but it also shows that the real way to sustainable changes in the gender balance is to have equal opportunity rather than outcomes.

I am glad that Margaret Hickey raised the next point . She says that, “There is plenty of research to show that women value work/life balance more than men and not just women with young children. Success at work even stellar success does not deliver happiness and often women get that before men do.” This is a difficult case to make as, with some  justification, it has been criticised for being the argument of the  ‘patrimony’ to keep women at home and not to maximise their potential. However, in the struggle to prove that women are as good as men there is a danger of throwing the baby out with the bathwater. As in the Clinton example we should be careful of committing ourselves to one explanation of events , to the exclusion of all others.  I think that the measure the Minister uses of absolute outcomes may suit the political argument but misses the true outcome of increased choices for women. To understand this we must accept that there is more than one way to success. The current measure of how many CEO’s or professors are women is only part of the equation. Women may decide that the current societal  model is not for them and make different choices that do not match our preconceptions. We can see this in the pressure for a better work/life balance that does not fit the political and ideological models used by some women’s groups.

Part of the package that the Minister is selling is not only reliance on an over simplistic and dated model but also the concept that equality between the sexes means that woman are the same as men. This is the logical result of focusing on outcomes and insisting that there should be a 50/50 split in the workforce.  The Minister has been very selective by not only ignoring her own party but also not taking affirmative action in the case of the gender imbalance in the health and teaching industries for example. Using her own arguments there should be a very large number of men only appointments for teachers and nurses which are heavily biased towards women. I would argue that there are a number of reasons for this imbalance and would suggest that the better solution is that men should be encouraged to  seek employment in these sectors. Like the girls who think that STEM subjects are more suited for boys perhaps boys need to be convinced that the caring professions  are not exclusively for girls.

There is another threat to the Ministers plan that is blowing in from the campus’s of the U.S. If we have accepted that women are the same as men then isn’t it logical that gender is a state of mind rather that a matter of biology? Janice Turner has  documented the expulsion of Martina Navratilova from an advisory board of the LGBT sports body, Athlete Ally.(The Times, 23/2/19) Her crime is that she opposed the self identification of male athletes as women, so that they could compete in women’s sports using their physical advantages to win.

The Emperors New Running Shoes doctrine dictates that biological sex does not exist: all that counts is the amorphous inner feeling of “gender identity” . (The Times, 23/2/19)

This has created another step in the hierarchy  of victimhood and has given woman’s groups some difficulties. What is the situation if a transgender man self identifies as a woman and applies for one of the Ministers woman only professorships? An unlikely event do you think? The case of Karen White, formerly Stephen Wood, illustrates what happens when you substitute ideology over common sense. Wood was 18 months into a sentence for gross indecency against a child when he self identified as a woman and demanded a transfer to a woman’s prison where he committed further assaults against the inmates. (The Times, 08/09/18) Something that was entirely predictable and put the safety of women below that of political dogma.

The problem is that if you live in the Ministers bubble you become separated from the very people you represent. The more you base policy on outcomes and ideology and only listen to single issue activists, the more you distance yourself from reality and end up with Clintonistic logic. Unfortunately, there is no political dividend in creating more choices for both men and women in partnership, as today we have to have an oppressor and a victim and  ‘if you are  not for us, then you are agin us’. I would suggest that there are two reason why the Minister didn’t hear any applause from men on this issue. In todays environment it is difficult for a man to make any public comment on gender issues without being identified as the oppressor and shouted down. If you support that line then you shouldn’t be surprised by the resulting silent and passive resistance and growing resentment of men. The second reason is that men and women, in the real world, just don’t see that logic. In the main, fathers with daughters, wives, mothers etc  and women with male relatives don’t see each other as the enemy and don’t see discrimination as the solution to the problem. They understand that things have to change but life is a little more complicated than the slogans on the placards  suggest. Provision of day care facilities for children and equal parental leave are practical steps in the right direction. The changing nature of employment and higher take up of third level education by women is another positive trend.

I think that the Minister needs to  break the glass floor and bridge the gap between the elitist polemic she currently espouses and the reality of her constituents every day life. Take this ‘teeny-weeny’ step Minister and you might be able to hear what people really think about your policies.

Note The Supreme Court has given leave for Brian Mohan to challenge the constitutionality of funding based on gender quotas as set out in Sect 42 of the 2012 Act,

The Irish Independent, 09/03/19, Katherine Donnelly, Men Have ‘Teeny-Weeny’ interest in Gender Equality.

Irish Examiner,19/11/18, Margaret Hickey, Women-only Professorships a Triumph of Optics over Policy https://www.irishexaminer.com/breakingnews/views/analysis/women-only-professorships-a-triumph-of-optics-over-policy-886200.html

Sunday Times, 25/11/18, David Quinn, Jobs for the Girls do Women No Favours

The Irish Times, 4/10/18, Peter McGuire, Stem Steps Up to Win Women Over, https://www.irishtimes.com/special-reports/diversity-inclusion/stem-steps-up-to-win-women-over-1.3641047

The Times, 23/02/19, Janice Turner, Male Bodies Don’t Belong in Womens Sport.

The Times, 08/09/18, Janice Turner, Trans Rapists are a danger in women’s jails

I had just finished a blog and was casting around for another subject when I saw an article on the Serena Williams implosion at the US Open in September. I had kept some cuttings on the subject but hadn’t done anything about it until I saw India Knights piece in the Sunday Times in the same month. Still doing nothing more than digging out the original cuttings I saw the incident referred to once again by Jo Konya in the Mail, Well I can take a hint and I reread the cuttings to see whether my original concerns still valid.

The facts behind the incidents are that in the US Open final Williams was penalised for three code violations, the first for throwing her racket to the ground; the second for receiving coaching during the match and finally for verbally abusing the referee. As the tennis correspondent of The Times reported,

“A read of the grand slam rulebook, something from which players and some pundits would benefit, showed that Ramos was undoubtedly correct n each of the three code violations that he issued…” The Times

We have to stop at this point and decide whether we agree that the rules were, in fact, broken before we enter into the furore that followed. All three offenses were caught on camera with her coach further admitting that he did coach in contravention of the rules. The argument from now on is not whether it was right that she was punished  but whether  the rules were equally applied. In her post match press conference Williams said, ” I can’t sit here and say I wouldn’t say he’s a thief because I thought he took a game from me. But I’ve seen other men call other umpires several things. I’m here fighting for woman’s rights and for woman’s equality and for all kinds of stuff …. ” (The Times) She went on further to say that the Umpires remark was sexist and that no man had lost a match for calling the Umpire a ‘thief’. Having pressed the gender button we may pause to note that at the time of her outburst, men had been fined 23 out of 33 fines imposed at the Open and that her fine was at the lower end of the scale (The Times). The other thing to note was that she was not penalised for just one offense but for the sum of three violations.

This cut very little ice with The American National Organisation for Women who pressed the racial  as well as the sexist button. Both Sue Barker and Billie Jean King joined in with King claiming that, “when a women is emotional, she’s ‘hysterical’ and penalised for it” (The Times) This is a theme that was picked up in India Knights article in the Sunday Times. Her take was that women’s rage was considered unfeminine and out of character by a misogynistic society and therefore had to be controlled. In contrast men who had a ‘short fuse’ were somewhat admiringly regarded as being  red blooded and alpha male. I wonder what world India Knight lives in where boorish and bullying behaviour is applauded?

In anyone’s world, “to threaten, with the help of a few expletive, to shove a tennis ball down the throat of Shino Tsurubuchi” (The Times) is unacceptable

This incident occurred during the 2009 US Open when Tsurubuchi called a foot fault. Two years later Williams imploded again,

“I truly despise you” Williams said to Asderaki before later expanding on her thoughts during a change of ends. “I promise you, if you ever see me walking down the Hall look the other way because you’re  are out of control. You’re a hater and you’re just unattractive inside.” (The Times)

I wonder what Knight would have said if a man had made the same threats to the same female officials? Note in all of these incidents there is little discussion on the facts of the case but an immediate ‘fall to the ground’ to claim victimhood. There is some equality in the fact that Williams can sink to the level of the worst male offender but I assume that is not something that Knight and the other Williams supporters would choose to celebrate.

Mathew Syed wrote a sympathetic review of the problems that Williams has had to face to get to where she is (The Times). He describes a constant series of overt and subtle forms of racism that she suffered and applaused her championship of equality and woman’s rights. He also understands that sometimes the decisions that go against Williams can appear to be a part of the general discrimination that she has suffered on a daily basis. However, in this case he argues that sometimes, ” … heroes can cross the line in their personal conduct and can sometimes claim prejudice in specific circumstances where non exists.”

In her tirade against Ramos she said, “I have never cheated in my life. I have a daughter and I stand for what’s right for her.” What lessons should her daughter take from this particular episode? Should it be that any woman can match any man in a race to the bottom? I disagree with the view that a women’s anger is hysterical whilst angry men are admired but I suspect that society holds woman to a higher standard and that may be unfair. Should the lesson be that any unfavourable action against a woman can be attributes to sexism and victimhood? I refer to this as the ‘fall to the floor’ gambit and as  Jo Konta says “I’m all for equal rights but I don’t necessarily always agree when you don’t like something, you brush it onto the inequality carpet and say because I’m a woman I didn’t get this,”(Mail Online)

I think that Serena should say to her daughter that she has had to fight hard to be where she is and sometimes all the tension and emotion overspills and she says or does something she regrets. The right thing to do is to lead by example and say that this time she was wrong and she should offer an apology to Ramos however much some of her supporters will see this as a betrayal. In the end her daughter should see the sense of fairness and compassion that was shown to Osaka at the victory ceremony when Williams asked the crowd not to boo and spoil Osaka’s day.

References: The Times, 10/09/18, Stuart Fraser, Umpire was not Sexist – Serena Broke the Rules

The Times, 10/09/18,Mathew Syed , She endured a lot but should apologise

The Sunday Times Magazine, 16/10/18, India Knight, Serena Williams, like all women, is entitled to her Rage….

Mail Online, 22/11/18, Mike Dickson, Everyone is human, including Serenahttps://www.dailymail.co.uk/sport/tennis/article-6423275/Jo-Konta-believes-Serena-Williams-wrong-accuse-umpire-sexism.html