Back Of The Class

Gender attitudes in schools have not changed since the 1960s and girls are still far more likely to be encouraged to do hairdressing, catering and childcare courses, while boys go on to do mechanics and plumbing, according to the equalities watchdog. The women’s rights movement has encouraged women to compete harder and they are now more likely to go to university, get good degrees and become doctors. But girls from working-class backgrounds have been left behind, according to the research, published today by the Equality and Human Rights Commission.

 Trevor Phillips, the chair of the commission, said attitudes in some schools were stuck in the mid-20th century. The research, based on interviews with 1,000 14- to 18-year-olds, found white working-class girls were four times as likely as white middle-class girls to work in childcare. Phillips said: “The majority of young women who come from working-class backgrounds believe they will fail. They believe the best they can do is to be a hairdresser or work in one of the three Cs: catering, childcare or cleaning. These are proper careers and I don’t want to do them down. The problem is we have a society where young girls who aren’t from well-off professional families can’t see themselves as successful in anything but a limited range of jobs.

 “Within education and careers services, the expectations for these girls are pretty low. Even well-meaning teachers and careers advisers are saying … ‘you could be a very good hairdresser’. They should be saying, ‘why don’t you want to be a doctor or lawyer?’ It’s wrong if girls are told they can only do certain things.” The research found that four times as many boys as girls believed they would go into engineering, with similar percentages of boys over girls choosing building, architecture, trade and IT careers. There were also strong class differentials for boys. White middle-class boys were twice as likely as white working-class boys to become a teacher or police officer.

Iranian Women Vote

From Naj @ Neo-Resistance–

How That Bailout Works

On May 12, the day the city inspector came to board up his house, Ted Poetsch was eating lunch. After living all of his 53 years at 823 Penn Av. N., Poetsch had an hour left to pack his stuff and get out. Cane in hand, he lurched around, throwing a few things in bags, putting Kitty in the carrier. He heard the contractor outside starting to drill into the door frame. Poetsch made his way down his narrow stairway, resigned to the end he had resisted for three years, through personal financial missteps, the false promise of a foreclosure “rescue” and a court victory that gave him short-lived hope. He came to the door and realized that he was too late. A truck had driven away from the house, prompting those outside to think the tenants were gone. Poetsch had been boarded up inside his house.

The house at 823 Penn, vacant and already a target for thieves, is now owned by Fannie Mae. In September, the federal government took over the mortgage giant in a multibillion-dollar bailout after it was brought to the brink of collapse by the housing meltdown. Poetsch got no such assistance. The city determined that the house was potentially unsafe and that Poetsch was essentially a squatter in the only home he had ever known. Now this North Side neighborhood has one fewer neighbor and one more boarded house. “Everybody loses,” said Poetsch’s onetime attorney, Josh DuBois, who helped Poetsch get out of his boarded house that day in May.

Surely There Should Be A Court Jester Too?

(AFP) – A US “taster” tested the food being dished up to President Barack Obama at a dinner in a French restaurant, a waiter said Sunday. “They have someone who tastes the dishes,” said waiter Gabriel de Carvalho from the “La Fontaine de Mars” restaurant where Obama and his family turned up for dinner on Saturday night. “It wasn’t very pleasant for the cooks at first, but the person was very nice and was relaxed, so it all went well,” he said on the Itele news channel. Asked by AFP to comment, the restaurant confirmed the report.

And In Other Election News

(Reuters) – Hezbollah leader Sayyed Hassan Nasrallah said on Monday he accepted the result of the country’s parliamentary election in which a U.S.-backed alliance defeated his group and its allies. “We accept these results,” Nasrallah said in a televised address.

As’ad AbuKhalil @The Angry Arab notes-

Meet the new MP, Khalid Daher. He won on the Hariri list in `Akkar. This Bin Ladenite is now part of the coalition that the Western media insists on labeling as “pro-Western.” I am not sure how Daher would react if you were to call him “pro-Western.” Pro-medieval would be more appropriate. Mr. Daher allegedly helped recruit volunteers for Abu Mus`ab Zarqawi. By the way, was Zarqawi “pro-Western” too?

New Labour Is To Blame

But dramatic as they were, the BNP results should be analysed carefully.

They actually got fewer votes in the North-West and Yorkshire and the Humber this time than they did in 2004.

The reason the party now has two MEPs is because of the collapse of the Labour vote rather than any huge surge in support for the BNP.

It’s the same for the Tories in Wales. Their share of the vote increased by less than 2% – but Labour’s dropped by 12%.

Well done Labour stay at homes, couldn’t have voted Green (or Plaid)? Any left party? Maybe just Lib Dems for a giggle? You do get PR yeah? Something, can it really be news Blairite noeliberals have infiltrated the party and made it tory lite? Iraq was ok with you, but expenses were the final straw?!?!? Their handling of the financial crisis, because until then they had been socialists?!?!?! Jeebus! Ok you’ve been had, now get angry, retake the party, support John McDonnell, do something instead of sulking at home! You know what the real story is:- Turnout was only about a third of the electorate, so the verdict on our non-choice of different styles of neoliberalism is by majority opinion- no thanks, now imagine the possibilities!

Hope Not Hate Says-

I’ve just received some bad news – the BNP have just won a seat in the European Parliament. It is terrible news for our country.

While the BNP will take a seat in Brussels they will not represent me – they are not going there in my name.

I’ve just launched a petition saying just that: BNP – not in my name. We will deliver this petition to the European Parliament on the first day that their MEP takes their seat. I’d like you to sign the petition as well – let’s show the rest of the EU what we think of this new MEP:

http://action.hopenothate.org.uk/notinmyname

I am disgusted that the BNP have at least one MEP.

We will deliver our petition to the European Parliament – I want you to add your name and then get your friends to join in as well.

Let’s send a deafening message of defiance: NOT IN OUR NAME.

http://action.hopenothate.org.uk/notinmyname

Thank you so much for all that did during the elections – but now our fight for Hope Not Hate must go on.