Tag Archives: discrmination


I was having a chat to my Mum the other day and I had a light bulb moment.  One so huge I couldn’t believe I’d reached the age of 50 without giving it a second’s thought and it was this:

Women are the most persecuted people on the planet.  Bar none.

It seems so obvious yet it had never before crossed my mind.  We have been stoned, executed, tortured daily in our millions by our spouses, bricked up behind walls, raped regularly (usually by our spouses), imprisoned (often by our spouses), kept as ‘chattles’ (ie owned), denied basic human rights, denied the right to vote, denied a voice, denied education and kept in poverty not to mention domestic slavery for millennia.

Here in the West we think of the persecution of women as being either historical or something which happens elsewhere, yet it’s happening right here and right now in every country across the world. Even in good old Blighty. The recent rise in human trafficking predominantly affects women who are sold as both sex and domestic slaves but it doesn’t even really make the headlines. The case of the Rochdale paedophile ring recently shown in the tv drama Three Girls highlights very well that women are still blamed for their own abuse even here in the UK.  Women are still being paid less than men for the same job but apparently it’s our fault.  Working mothers are predominantly the ones who take days off to look after sick children or to take their kids to the dentist or doctor like their work is unimportant compared to men’s, and full-time working mothers still do the majority of child care in the home.  How often does the father pack the children’s suitcases when you go on your hols?

Women are seen as ‘weak’ because we are more emotional than men.  We can’t just be seen as different, we have to be portrayed as ‘less than’ and the only way women can rise to the top in our society is to act like a man.  Even though men have, historically, made an absolute sodding mess of running the world they are still seen as somehow superior and their lack of nurture and empathy as a strength when it is anything but.

I’m currently being financially persecuted because I am a disabled woman. The recent change to the pension age for women in the UK has discriminated against me yet I can find absolutely no-one who will take on my case. Not only that but the Equality Act actually allows the discrimination. The very law which exists to ensure everyone is treated equally allows me, as a disabled woman, to be treated differently to everyone else but….hey….it’s fine.  In fact, so dismissed has my discrimination been that 11 out of the 11 Solicitors I’ve contacted to take on my case haven’t even bothered to reply to me, not even a bog standard automated email.  Mind you, neither did the Women & Equalities Commission, Lilberty nor the Shadow Pensions’ Minister (who is female).  Women are so conditioned to our inequality that I’m actually made to feel like I’m whining.  Why can’t I just play nice and accept the situation?  Don’t I know how much it would cost to legally fight for my right to be treated the same as a man?!

This morning I briefly wrote about this subject on my Facebook page and my male cousin, the father of 3 daughters, commented “but Jak, I believe women shouldn’t have been given the vote….or car keys!”  Of course he was joking, but I bet he wouldn’t be laughing if his 23 year old daughter had been stoned to death by her husband, or his 17 year old daughter had been raped walking home after school in winter then been blamed for walking alone in the dark and not only that for doing it wearing a skirt (like walking the street wearing whatever the hell we like without being attacked shouldn’t be a fundamental human right).

Our children are quite rightly taught in school about persecution of peoples. About the horrendous Holocaust and the equally horrendous African slave trade. Yet nothing, not a jot, is taught about the biggest persecution of all…….that of women.