[Note added 11.3.14: This piece has just been published on ‘A Voice for Men’]
Have you ever wondered why the BBC’s output is so relentlessly female-friendly and clearly designed to appeal to women? Even when men are presenting programmes, or are the key characters in documentaries etc., it’s as if all the viewers are assumed to be women. I’m a fan of the TV chefs ‘The Hairy Bikers’, but it has to be said that ever more of the content of their BBC shows is information-light and entertainment-rich. Even the most factually based BBC pieces are reliably associated with an emotional angle. The Hairy Bikers are regularly put into situations clearly designed to humiliate them. In their latest series, in one episode, they dress up as sumo wrestlers. The suspicion must be that female TV executives are humiliating men for the amusement of female viewers.
A number of people have alerted me to the increasing domination of women in the television sector, and it’s not unique to the BBC. Partly because the BBC isn’t a commercial organisation, women have been enabled to manipulate their way to senior positions.
The following link will take you to the latest edition of the Hairy Bikers’ latest series, The Hairy Bikers’ Asian Adventure. The credits start at 58:33. The programme will be available on iPlayer (in the UK, at least) until 27 March.
Here’s a breakdown of the roles of the people associated with the programme:
WOMEN (13)
BBC Commissioning Editor
Series Producer
Producer
Executive Producer
Edit Producer
Editor
Production Executive
Production Manager
Home Economist
Development Producer
Assistant Producers (2)
Production Co-ordinator
MEN (8)
Editor
Researcher
Dubbing Mixer
Online Editor
Colourist
Sound
Photography
Additional Photography
The most important (and presumably highly-paid) jobs are being done by women, while the technical jobs are being done by men.
As Steve Moxon outlined in The Woman Racket (2008), women display a very strong same gender preference when recruiting and promoting staff, while men don’t, contrary to feminist conspiracy theories such as the ‘glass ceiling’. Steve and I were members of a panel which gave evidence to a House of Commons inquiry (‘Women in the Workplace’) in November 2012:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zwqTi6HN0pM
Two women were on the panel. One was the sociologist Dr Catherine Hakim, whose paper on Preference Theory, published in 2000, we cite all the time. Her research showed that while four in seven British men are ‘work-centred’, only one in seven British women is. And that isn’t changing over time, despite feminists’ conviction it is.
The other woman on the panel was Heather McGregor, who for many years has been the owner and Chief Executive of Taylor Bennett, a London-based executive recruitment company. We challenged a claim she made during her evidence at the inquiry, concerning the financial impact of increasing the number of women on corporate boards in Norway (following legislated gender quotas, in 2005) and she altered her evidence (as published in the final report) accordingly.
Ms McGregor was a founder member of Helena Morrisey’s 30% Club, which aims to increase the proportion of women on major corporate boards. A third of FTSE100 chairmen are members. A reasonable person might think that Ms McGregor is keen on gender equality, so let’s look at the gender balance of her own company:
http://www.taylorbennett.com/team/#/meetourteam
Of the 17 members of staff, just three are men. In the past it’s been just one or two.
