I’ve seen “Suffragette” twice in the last week. I know that the way British cinema operates
accounts for a few decisions – the casting of Meryl Streep and Carey Mulligan
should prevent any bad Hollywood remakes. There are one or two historical
cheats, including one that did rankle, where Sonny (Ben Wishaw’s character) and
Maud (Carey Mulligan) discuss what it means to have the vote – that Maud would use
her vote just the same way Sonny uses his.
The 1912 truth is that Sonny, as a man who owns no property, would be
just as vote-less as his wife.
On the whole, it’s a solidly well-made film that pitches
things about right for a modern audience, my daughters as well as myself or my
wife, and I’m glad that the UK film industry can still produce historical drama
with political relevance without just leaving this sort of thing to Ken Loach.
The film ends with a list of when various countries enabled
women to vote. After I visited the
Middle East for the first time last year, one of my aunts in Liverpool told me that
most of the powers that women have in the West are only two generations old, or
three at most. Another opportunity to
work for a few days out in the Persian Gulf has just come in, this time to give
a training course, and guess what?
The letter detailing the job requested that male candidates
need apply.
I took this to the Athena SWAN representative in my
department, and she expressed no surprise at all – The Times and the Daily Telegraph* had run a story on another UK institution actually paying different accommodation
allowances to men and women in Qatar a few weeks earlier. It all reminded me of a confrontation at my
former employers twenty years ago when only men were being sent to jobs in
Saudi Arabia and the Gulf, even if some of my most able colleagues were women. Ultimately,
my current employer cannot climb onto a particularly high horse over this one, as
none of the engineering academics are women anyway. (The Athena SWAN rep herself is a physicist).
If you are a woman and you’re actually reading my blog, can you please
consider an engineering career? We’re
all quite friendly, and the whiff of testosterone is nothing like as strong as
it is in financial trading. Once there’s
enough of you in this particular workplace then you’ll be rather hard to
ignore.
Thank you.
*I’ll link to the Daily Telegraph rather than The Times here,
because of the paywall and because, well, Murdoch.
