"Girls are drowning in equal opportunities at work!" says rich white man.

Women have never had it so good at work, says M&S chief

"Girls today have never had it so good, right?" said Rose. "Apart from the fact that you've got more equality than you ever can deal with, the fact of the matter is that you've got real democracy and there really are no glass ceilings, despite the fact that some of you moan about it all the time.

"Women can get to the top of any single job that they want to in the UK. You've got a woman fighter pilot who went on to join the Red Arrows ... I mean what else do you want, for God's sake? Women astronauts. Women miners. Women dentists. Women doctors. Women managing directors. What is it you haven't got?"

Rose also dismissed the idea that having children can create an uneven playing field for working mothers.

"Childbirth is a biological fact," he said. "Women have children: I can't help that. But I know lots of women who have got two or three kids - Nicola Horlick is a good example - there are many girls in here [Marks & Spencer] who have got two kids who come to work. Kate Bostock [recently appointed to oversee the company's UK merchandising operation, including clothes and homeware] has got two or three kids and she's running the full-time, biggest buying job in the UK, so it can be done."

I emphasised the bits I found disrespectful and/or unbelievable. Girls? Moaning? Dismissing major concerns because there has been ONE female fighter pilot who joined the Red Arrows? And all of this from the male head of a company that until a month ago penalised women financially for having larger breasts.

Just because it can be done doesn't mean that women can do it with the same ease or for the same rewards as men. So some well-paid women (almost certainly middle-class, university educated and very likely white, heterosexual and of a socially acceptable body weight) have children and work. THEY CAN AFFORD NANNIES, CLEANERS AND BABYSITTERS. That's not gender equality, that's class privilege. 

He says that women have children and he can't help that, but I beg to differ; there are many things that large companies can do regarding maternity leave, promotions, breastfeeding or childcare in an attempt to level out the playing field for working mothers. Whether or not M&S do those things is beside the point. To claim that having children is just something women do and that all the employment issues it leads to have been completely overcome is ignorant and offensive to the many, many women who struggle to raise their children and work in a society that, on the whole, does not support this aim unless the women are wealthy enough to afford childcare from the start. 

Frankly, I'd be more interested to know if these women he discuss in his article (sorry, 'girls') are paid the same amount as men at the same level of the company, because the evidence overwhelmingly suggests otherwise. 

(Countered with some good points in The Guardian a few days later: 

Would you buy knickers from this man?)

Why ladettes are scary but shouldn't be

Women beware women

Aggressive women have always provoked anxiety. We have traditionally invested a vast amount of energy into socialising women to be thoughtful of others, gentle in disposition, and dependent - or, as John Ruskin once put it, "pure womanhood" was "enduringly, incorruptibly good, instinctively, infallibly wise - wise, not for self-development, but for self-renunciation" - traits that don't come naturally to anyone. Consequently, belligerent women are regarded as far worse than their male comrades.

...

Only one-fifth of all reported violence occurs in or around pubs. Simply restricting women's drinking is not going to help, because excessive drinking is a symptom of the problem, rather than the problem itself. In a society that valorises displays of competitive assertiveness, is it any wonder that women are spurning traditional feminine mannerisms? And given that a great deal of male violence is taken for granted, even romanticised, why shouldn't young women decide that they too want "a bit of the action"?

More to the point, the disapproving attention given to ladettes ignores the fact that the main perpetrators of violence are still men. Males are responsible for well over three-quarters of all violent crimes, both on the streets and, more invidiously, inside the privacy of homes.

Are 10-year-old girls tarts, lesbians or girly-girls?

Tart or lesbian? How pupils at all-girl primaries live in fear of labels that stick

Teachers regularly made the word "lady" synonymous with ideal behaviour: "Nice ladies open doors for others" or "Ladies don't talk with their mouths full".

The word was also used to refer to acceptable standards of appearance. Two girls said they were told off because they attempted to go home in their games kit.

One said: "I should not be seen to be dressed like this by people from outside of the school. I could run into builders and perverts on the way home."

Dr Allan said: "Even by doing something as supposedly simple as wearing a netball skirt to travel home from school, this girl appeared to be caught up in judgments about her moral and sexual behaviour."

Athletic achievement < boobs

34fF tennis player plans breast reduction

STUNNING Wimbledon hopeful Simona Halep has told how she's planning to get out in front - by having a boob job to reduce to size of her, ahem, mixed doubles.

Simona, 17, has been tipped as one of the tennis stars of the future after winning a host of junior titles and a place in the final of the junior French Open last year.

But the 5ft 5in sports star has told how she thinks her 34FF boobs are holding her back.

And of course, this is what makes the news. With a photo gallery.

Teenage mothers fighting stereotypes and stigma

Teenage mothers: We can be role models

Sarah Aouamria, 17, who is due to give birth in nine weeks with her 21-year-old boyfriend at her side, is one of 64 girls attending a new course in Haringey and Enfield on how to manage adolescence and parenthood.

She said: “There is a very negative opinion of young mums, but we are not all like that. We don't all smoke, we haven't fallen pregnant to get a house and we are not all single. I am determined to do A-levels and will not fulfil the stereotype of a teenage mother.”

She backed the call for a London sex czar, adding: “The standard of sex education is so different it would help if someone tried to even it out.”

Casita Sumner, 36, a former teenage mother who runs the course for 14 to 18-year-olds, said: “The girls feel very strongly about the negative view society has. They still face prejudice. One girl was on the bus heavily pregnant and an old man started pointing his walking stick at her and shouting.”

This is so sad...

Doctor defends Botox jabs for teenager

Jodie, who works as a model, had her first injection in May 2007 and since then has become addicted, spending £1,000 on the cosmetic treatments.

According to the magazine, she first became concerned about her appearance as a 17-year-old schoolgirl.

She grew a fringe to hide her forehead and bought expensive anti-ageing creams but still felt uncomfortable.

"My friends' faces all looked much smoother," she said. "Although when I said 'my forehead is wrinkly' they told me it was OK."

The teenager described her mother, who has been under the knife for a nose job, two breast enlargements, a tummy tuck and a mini-facelift, as her role model when it came to looks.

Jodie said: "My mum's always looked so glamorous and she uses cosmetic surgery and Botox to keep her looking young. I plan to follow in her footsteps.

"So what if I'm a teenage Botox addict? I can't think of anything worse than looking old. I'll always find a way to pay for Botox. Now I've started I can't stop."

Women on the front line would probably jeopardise operational effectiveness. Because that's what women do!

Women could serve on the front line after European Union forces army review

General Sir Mike Jackson, the former Army chief, said nothing had changed since the 2002 review.

He warned if the Government changed its mind on the role of women "there would be concerns that operational effectiveness, particularly in the infantry, could be and probably would be jeopardised".

...

In current operations women have served with distinction, sharing the same dangers as men, and a number of have been decorated for their bravery.

There are female Harrier, Tornado, Apache attack helicopter pilots as well as Royal Artillery gunners and many combat medics.

However carrying 100lbs of kit in the 122F (50C) heat of Helmand could preclude all but a small number of women on physical grounds.

...So let that small number of women reach the standard and have the job. If it's a physical requirement, make it about strength, not sex. This is the very definition of gender inequality.

As for the effectiveness of women in this type of situation, a friend pointed out the BBC 2 documentary The Trouble with Working Women to me, and I caught the first episode of it on iPlayer last night (by the time this is published it probably won't be accessible anymore, I'm really sorry about that!). In one part of the programme the presenters interviewed the only female police officer in a unit of armed officers, and asked her teammates whether they trusted her any less, and if the physical difference was a problem. They each answered unequivocally and without hesitation that it did not, and that they would trust anybody who had gone through the training and reached the appropriate standard. One of them said something on the lines of, "We're a team, and she's one part of that. That's all there is to it."