So now it's high heels !!
Gender discrimination has raised its head again with apoplectic women lining up to complain about the company who insisted that a woman wore high heels to work.
The aspect of dress in the office has, as with everything become an
issue of personal rights which from a very early age seem to define us.
Of course we all have rights (?) but to judge your right to have rights
outside the home is littered with exceptions.
I can be prosecuted if I decide to exercise what I assume my rights
if and when I break the law. If as a child, I go to a school which has a
school uniform not dressed in that uniform. Men in an office
environment are often expected to wear a suit and
tie.
The news reader interviewing the young woman, who has taken this matter of what she claims is discrimination, (through
her female MP) to Parliament, was dressed immaculately, as news readers
always are, as required by the television channel. She knowing
she was to be on show in front of the cameras had spruced herself up
and was dressed to kill, high heels and all.
When, for what ever reason her company had told her, on her first day with them, she must, as part of the dress code wear high heels she felt her gender slighted.
Now whether high heels are appropriate or not it seems to me that if on joining a company on your first day you might
be expected to comply. This is your desk, these are your duties, this is
when you start and finish and these are the standards of dress
we wish you to conform to, with the unspoken caveat and if you don't
like any of these issues then please don't apply for a job with us. Simple as that !!
But of course it's not simple anymore and we of the older generation are adrift in this "make it up to suit yourself world" we live in now.
Listening this morning to academics propounding the theory that
under no circumstances must one shout at a child, no matter how bad the
behaviour, no matter how you perceive the danger. So slapping is out,
shouting is out and apparently singing to them
is in. All our actions towards the young and we are not talking about
toddlers, has to understand the motivation of the tantrum, the root of
the trauma since it is never the child's fault. It can never be the
child's fault, they are too precious to hold grudges
or wish you harm, they carry a clean slate and it's up to you, the
teacher or the parent to suss out the causes of why they are screaming.
The simple old fashioned expedient, because you had said enough is not enough. It's a question of rights and your rights
come way down the chain.
The intellectualising and psychoanalysing has drawn us into a very
dark place where every mood-swing, every attention seeking ploy, is run
through the prism of some sort of underlaying fault line and we had
better get to know our child's true emotional
landscape so we can mollify their concerns and modify our need to bring order into our lives.
As a sentient being I am to subordinate my consciousness to the
consciousness of others, in fact the conscientiousness of all others is
more important than my own and my rights lie not in my hands but are the
business of everyone else and it's for me
to wait 'their' decision.
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