The headline doesn’t always tell the story…

  • 8 years ago
  • 1

Some headlines of last week did leave even The Chesh-the most ardent of human rights supporters…-thinking, ‘ooh, there will be trouble in the goalmouth with that one’.  The header that caught the attention the most (thus achieving every advertising executive’s Holy Grail of the headline making the headlines itself), was the tag line on the Cardiff agent Cathays advertisement for, “a good looking girl to work in the front office of a property agent’s…to get the students in” [sic] Well, my mother did always say that honesty is the best policy, but such candour was met with cries of opprobrium and chest- beating anguish from every female of the species whose favoured garb is a hemp smock and who hasn’t attended to any personal topiary since Sharon was on the X Factor.  Leading the outrage was that professional outraged person, Harriet Harman.  As one would expect from someone who-after 28 years on the Front Bench- came up with the quite brilliant idea of Labour’s Pink Bus, she was almost incoherent with indignation.  In fact, I hadn’t seen her quite so agitated since Michael Gove, in response to her getting all hot and bothered about elitist (read ‘unfair’) fee paying private schools pointed out that she had actually been a pupil at the £20,874 per annum St Paul’s Girls School; an establishment that specialises (through its ruthless selection policy) and rightly prides itself, on creating the much despised by the Left, elite.  Sorry, I was off on one there.  HH tweeted that the advert was “unlawful” under the Equality Act and demanded to know what the Equality and Human Rights Commission (EHRC) was going to do about it. The EHRC gamefully and through gritted teeth thanked HH for drawing it to their attention and said that they would investigate.  As Cwmbran’s own NGO on such matters, I looked at the advert again.  First of all, it caught everyone’s attention.  That’s one big gold star.  Secondly, what were those protesting seeing as their main cause for complaint?  Surely they would not be so narrow-minded and whisper it, discriminatory, to think that the advert only appeals to men and thus only women would be offended?  Like any student city heaving with multi-culturalism, Cardiff  is crammed with testosterone filled Alpha males, but also with bi, lesbian, homosexual, transgender, transsexual and every other nuance or variation of the human condition.  Were those most offended (HH and her supporters) aggrieved because the words ” good looking” and “female” were used and would they have been equally offended if it had read “good looking person, male or female”?  Over the years, I have made the mistake of picking the good looking one (human and equine), for the said specimen to be absolutely f;&@-€g useless, be it typing up details or putting its head in front at the lollipop.  It may also be the case that the looker ( that’s looker with an ‘L’), has the exact skills required to perform the job to the exacting standards demanded.  Returning to Cardiff, if the pulchritudinous one can do the job well, what is the problem?  Incidentally, attend a motor show, a trade show, or any other event where people are being asked to buy and count how many “unattractive” girls or boys are being employed…

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