Do we need quotas to get women into the board room? It's a debate that keeps on raging. Most recently on 10 O'clock Live with David Mitchell asking David Starkey and Natalie Haynes what they thought. It's a shame they asked David Starkey to argue against quotas (although not a shame from a comedy perspective) because there is a sensible debate to be had here.
Women shouldn't need quotas because it's now pretty common knowledge that we are every bit as capable of doing the job as well as a man. So logically we should find ourselves equally represented in the boardroom right? We have a level playing field now.
Except no, we don't. And okay, part of the reason is because some of us have babies which, unlike men, we have to grow inside us and push out in an explosion of gore and responsibility. And another part of the reason, as Sarah Moran points out, is that certain vocations and subjects are taught in a way which appeals to a male brain.
But there is a bigger reason, and yesterday we saw him bobbing towards the top of the Twitter trending topics like a large shit refusing to flush. Michael Bay.
Women need quotas because in this ridiculous world we live in, former porn commercial directors are handed a licence to create misogynist films targeted at children, and then handed a marketing budget the size of the African debt.
My friends are not allowed to mention Transformers to me in the pub because I have a tendency to go white with rage and pontificate. Luckily henceforth I will be able to just point them to this blog. Transformers would be indescribably sexist and offensive even if it was an 18 or a third rate internet film hidden behind a paywall. But it is a film about children's toys. TRANSFORMERS ARE CHILDREN'S TOYS. Imagine if someone decided to make a Pokémon film where Pikachu hated Jews and went around borrowing money from Fagin-esque old men resulting in a car chase where Ash and Jigglypuff help Picachu escape the baddies who want to extract their pound of flesh with a carefull sharpened Menorah. I feel a bit sick typing that. But Tranformers is exactly the same. And Teenage Non-mutant (they are from space now) Ninja Turtles will be too.
As well as being sexist, Transformers is also a bad film of course. A cinefile friend of mine used to moan about Michael Bay at dinner parties, before he fucked off to live in Australia, describing Transformers as a cinematic sewer. Sadly my friend went to live in Australia, not Michael Bay although no doubt he could piss me off from there just as easily because the mere mention of his name on Twitter has incensed me to write this blog entry.
I live with a gay man who has not noticed yet that I have chucked his copy of Transformers in the bin while he was on holiday. I don't remember a time when he came home to me watching a homophobic film so I don't see why I should have a sexist one in my home thanks. Wonder if he bothers to read my blog entries? I'll find out now.
Anyway. If we stopped conditioning our children from a young age that women exist to drape themselves over cars, boost men's self-esteem by having sex with them then post-marriage abruptly morph into nagging hags who are nonetheless quite useful for doing the washing and cooking, we might not need quotas. We might also have fewer Hollywood actors who think it's ok to hit an intelligent woman to prevent her from, god forbid, winning an argument.
Quotas redress the balance a bit. If men don't want us to have quotas, they should stop subjecting us to Michael Bay films. You don't need to spend a week existing on rice cakes if you have not spent a large percentage of the previous weeks binging on KFC.
The irony is that I've started this blog because the Huffington Post were looking for more female bloggers for their tech section. Go figure.
If like me you are incensed by Michael Bay and/or quotas here's a tip. Find the girls' aisle in your local Toys R Us and swallow back the instinctive gag reflex you may experience due to the overload of pink. Then rearrange the Barbies so the ones with jobs are at the front. Put Dentist Barbie, Vintage Astronaut Barbie and Vet Barbie in front of Don't I Do My Hair Nice Barbie. I have done this and I swear it will make you feel better. You might feel a bit mental and get some odd looks though. If that's the case consider to yourself that you live in a world where the man who directed this is currently working on a new film about some well-loved children's cartoon characters. Still feel like the mental one? On your way out, if at all possible, set fire to the Transformers toys.