Sigivald, a small business run right with people working 'with' each other can make more money per capita than a large corporation. I don't follow your delineation. A person who is right for the job who also has a healthy uterus is not a burden or expensive proposition when all involved have their priorities right, including her family unit. In fact a mom-to-be can have a wonderful effect on the business and everyone around her. Sure beats employing the slutty bitch who has her tubes tied and proves to be more interested in turning the work place into a soap opera.

Tilesey: Oddly, none of the people at Samizdata seem to think that UKIP is anything like the BNP. (I mention them because they a) despise the BNP, b) generally like the UKIP, and c) know a lot more about UK politics than I, as a Yank, do.)

Solomon, Roger: Note that, while I don't particularly wish to defend Mr. Bloom against the outrage directed at him, that he said specifically small businessmen, not large corporations. He should be attacked, if he should at all, for what he said, not something else that sounds similar, but he did not say.

I suspect there might be some truth in what he says, namely that small business owners may be unlikely to hire women statistically likely to get pregnant.

If this is so, then it is so, and he's not doing anything more than being impolitic for saying it. If it's not so, then he's wrong.

(And he's a lousy politician no matter what for saying such a thing, in those terms, where someone could get it on tape.)

Roger,

I like your ideas for a company and would love to work for a company like that.

I know how costly it is to replace someone; that's not the point I'm addressing. If you had a 25 year old male & female candidate who were exactly equally qualified for a job, on average the female will cost more in the long run. She has a significant work capacity diminisher that men don't have. If she has 2 children over 10 years, that's 24 weeks off that men don't get, X days off due to doctor visits, and Y hours of diminished work capacity due to fatigue and other pregnant related issues. Plus there are other female issues that men don't have that can cause regular disruptions in the daily work flow.

I'm not saying women shouldn't work, or that they aren't as good as men in office jobs; but I do think child bearing women have a major cost associated with them that men don't have. Isn't that true?

Solomon, I don't agree with you at all on your cost assessments. Nor on the amount of unavailablity. You don't see the right investments. Also you don't see that you would be hard pressed to find your male replacement. Nor that if a company is 'worth it' to employees they won't try the 12 week maternity leave and then quit approach to their careers.

There is way too much emphasis on hours over quality time/work. In the company I want to create, I'll apply a technique I've used in running a lab. Tell the guys, we have more lined up next week; lets get ready for it. Why don't we quit at noon on Friday, I'll wash the labware, see you next week. And on the individual basis, I sometimes suggest they ask their wives for date. And the next week they come back to work grinning and telling me they had a great weekend. Having people sitting around waiting for the clock does a company no good. But in return I want a little extra on days when the company/project needs it.

The biggest problem people have in running a business is the lop-sided salary ratio of CEO's to everyone else. Instead of 300:1 try 7:1. If a CEO and clique need 5 homes, a couple of jets, 15 girlfriends, etc. each they'll be soundly beaten by the type of company I want to build. I'll have better(in multiple ways) people working 'with' me. Emphasis on 'with'.

Helen-I want a Morris Minor so badly you wouldn't believe it! :)

Roger - I understand pregnant women don't become paraplegics, but especially during the 3rd trimester, they don't get around as well, go to the bathroom hourly, have doctor visits biweekly (and eventually weekly), are much more drained in energy, and their mind is frequently elsewhere. You're right that companies need the right person for the right job, but is there only one right person?

And now your sister's company has the added cost of networking her from home, not being able to have a face to face conversation at will, and only getting 80% of her time. Prechild, she probably worked for them a solid 8 hours a day, but now she has to spend part of her time feeding, changing, holding, and playing with your niece/nephew. I'm not saying her company should dump her and hire a man; I think they're very smart to accommodate her since she knows their business so well and has helped them so much in the past.

But don't you agree that, in general, child bearing women are more costly than nonchild bearing men? There are exceptions, but businesses should accommodate exceptions not base standard policy on them.

Helen,
My friend Gwynneth has a high powered job in the Holden (=General Motors) company. Her partner Dharaigh is the primary carer for the kids. He does a bit of work for himself during school hours. Gwynneth is entitled to a company car, and gets them replaced almost weekly with anything her little heart desires. Because Dharaigh is the petrol head of the family, it is generally what his little heart desires, as well as a classic Morris Minor of his own.

They have a great life.

Another woman, Cath, manages a warehouse of aids for the disabled. She employs her partner part time but he is the major carer. Actually they are more 50-50 than the first couple.
They too are doing well.

With regard to a day job, sex is inane.

Some are cool. Some are uncool.
Some are smart. Some are stoopid.
Some become friends. Some become NINemies.

This dude sounds like he didn't get enough attention from Mum in his childhood.

Wow! What a maroon!

Even in the most calculating, cynical, cold business schemer who is slightly astute knows that to make money, it is the right person for the right job.

My sister is/was in the child-bearing age or pregnant catagory and she still works happily in the small company who set up a secure networked computer at her home to "profit" from her attention to detail and responsibility that is in her nature. Responsibility increased further because of her child.

They knew that in countless years she saved them from making accounting/deal/business mistakes more costly than her salary. Pregnant women aren't suddenly paraplegic; she was there nearly the full year anyway before and after birth.

I personally believe a company that intentionally creates a corporate culture that is beyond government regulations and based on a genuine interest and investment in their people, focused on their families and success, can run more smoothly and efficiently managed than any selfish driven-from-the-top enterprise.
As a company grows or maybe is in league with other like minded small businesses, I believe it is in their best interest to include day care and after school programs for their male and female employee's children. A company that reduces external stresses and gains the confidence of it's people is nearly unbeatable and also returns a more rewarding life to it's founders.

And perhaps I should clarify-I have a new man in my life that I hate more than I hate getting razor burn on my bikini line.

*Cringe* Wax darling....wax!

Oh my goodness, did you take him down or WHAT? That was like the verbal equivalent of a Jackie Chan movie. A Jackie Chan movie from Hong Kong, unedited, no plot and all ass-kicking.

TFA. Totally fucking awesome.

I understand. We all have something that gets us hot and bothered.

Sorry, Solomon my dear. I realize you weren't slamming women. I'm perhaps a wee bit hot under the collar about this one.

But you said one thing that I absolutely agree on lately-my rodent work? Pointless.

Hence why I really do need to "get a life".

Helen - You should know me better than to think I would "slam" a woman that way. My point was only that if you or I quit our jobs tomorrow, our companies will find someone to do our work. But moms aren't expendable. You can't just get someone to fill in for raising your children.

What's more important, raising a child, writing a program, or fine tuning hamsters? The programs I write and the rodents you work on will be obsolete & useless within 10 years. Raising children correctly will positively impact the next generation and beyond. To me parenting eclipses any profession in importance.

The man CAN stay home, but then the work force still has to deal with diminished work capacity during pregnancy, 12 weeks paid time off, and moms leaving due to maternal instincts. Very few dads leave a job when they have a child; quite a few moms do. Plus very, very, very, very, very, very, VERY few dads do as well at nurturing children as moms do.

I'm not sure if I'm comforted or disappointed by the fact that UK politicians can apparently be just as stupid and backwards as ours in the US.

Good post, love the way you ended it.

H, the man can't be the stay at home person because he's the one spouting the mysogynistic claptrap.

Generally speaking that is, although I'm sure Godfery Bloom would explain things differently.

The only logical (yet inexcusable) reason I can think of for the woman staying at home with the family and the man working is that men still get paid more for doing exactly the same jobs as women. Of course, that's logic based on an inequality that should have been corrected years ago and so inherently flawed, but from a purely materialistic "kids are expensive" viewpoint, it makes sense for the highest earner in the family to keep working assuming on or other parent quits their job, regardless of gender.

Like Tilesy said, the UKIP are simply the BNP for middle-aged, middle class bigots.

Unfortunately they picked up a sizeable protest vote in the last round of European elections (as did similar bunches of loons from other EU countries), partly due to voter dissatisfaction/disillusionment with the major parties, partly due to the cult of the Daily Mail and partly due to a lot of middle-Englanders quite liking that nice Mr Kilroy-Silk who got sacked by the BBC.

Looking on the bright side, their plan to bring down the EU from the inside by claiming their MEP salaries, but not actually going to Brussels to vote on anything is clearly doomed to failure; and statements like these will hopefully only hasten their retreat back under the stone they've crawled out from.

And why does the woman have to be the one to stay home and raise the family in all of these scenarios?

Why can't the man be the stay at home person?

How on earth is raising a family more important than working? Often, in terms of single moms, it goes hand in hand.

But it's this that I take umbrage at:

If a woman isn't in the work force, a company will hire a man to do her job, and it'll get done.

Meaning that a woman wouldn't get the job done?

The problem is that he is only saying that to grab the headlines and to make Britain look stupid. The UKIP want to break Europe from the inside by talking crap and making fools of themselves. Hence, he as women's minister goes against everything that he is meant to go for when it comes to women's rights.

UKIP - Posh name for the BNP. Both are an embarasment to Britain.

Unfortunately, my mate's uncle is the head of the UKIP - but we have great fun winding him up.

In the US we have the right to life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness, so women have the right to aspire to any position they want; and that's how it should be. But part of me wonders if they shouldn't aspire to a more important goal, raising a family. If a woman isn't in the work force, a company will hire a man to do her job, and it'll get done. But if a woman isn't in the home raising her family, a lot is getting left undone, and there's no one to fill that void. Daycare workers do NOT care for or nurture your children as much as you do!!

I've seen at least a dozen women have children, take their 12 week leave WITH PAY, and then decide not to come back to work. Every time a woman has a baby, productivity goes down significantly during the 3rd trimester (if not sooner), and then she gets paid for 12 weeks off. When my two angels were born, I used a week's worth of vacation time for each of them. I'm not saying I agree with Bloom, but logically I can see his point on child bearing women being more costly. Can't you?

That's truly amazing. Stupidity of such awesome proportions deserves some sort of recognition.

The link did say that he was trying to be humorous, but some things just aren't funny.

It's amazing that a politician is permitted to say such things it public and remain in one piece. And I second Jim's comment, I assumed a wife of such oa go-nad was told to keep quiet. I figure, if she could think for herself, by this time she'd be wearing the two veg as earrings and Godfrey's tirades would be delivered at a higher pitch.

Now now ladies, you must understand, all this political business is very complicated, and best left to the men who are naturally equipped to handle it. Besides, you have your own issues to attend to, as I mentioned the refrigerator cleaning, and there is also meal planning, the laundry, shopping, etc. Don't you think you have enough going on in your busy little lives that you really shouldn't be taking time out to talk about things you don't understand? What you should be concerned with is that you support the decisions your man makes for you family, and remember just how hard he works to put food on the table. He doesn't want to hear about your petty issues of equality, and women’s rights, not when he has to deal with important, real issues everyday at his job. Remember he has a lot of stress and pressure in his life, you should want to make sure that he doesn't have to lower himself to dealing with all the minor drudgery of running a home. You should be proud that if you work hard, and try your very best you can remove this one nuisance from the list so he can deal with the making the important choices for your families future. Everyone has to do their part you know.

Something tells me that Katie wasn't preparing a laced dinner or bonking the milkman. I think Katie was unavailable to the press because that was what Bloomers told her to be. A man like that does not marry a woman who thinks for herself.

umm yeah. I am in Edinburgh today (London in 4 days!! WHEEE off to another more expensive place in the owrld. HOLY SHIT Is it expensive here.)

And I saw that in the news yesterday, I say we hack his nads and put one on each or our rear view mirrors. As for Katie the wife, I can only assume she was maknig his dinner lacing it with arsenic. that is if she was a self respecting woman.

well said!

Melanie,

It's the UK independence party and apparently they don't have any women members! It's a really bizarre concept - UKIP in Europe trying to wreck it. But then IMHO the UKIP is strange - from Mr Kilroy-Silk down. You hear some of the stuff that Robert spouts, and is it any wonder other members of his party act the way they do?

Mr Bloom - I salute you if only for being a monument to the some of the worst traits of maleness.

Probably coz a lot of the attitude around this country is very old fashion, Melanie.

Maybe someone should tell good ol Godfrey where children comes from and that they are the ones that grow up to take care of his future.
It always pissed me off that woman in child-bearing age or pregnant woman seems to be a burden of some kind.
Hell...without us they would be nothing.

how on earth can someone with attitudes like that get to be his party rep for Womens Issues?? Do they not have women members of this party? What do they think of his attitudes??

I'm honestly stunned. That's just plain... prehistoric!!