'Bankish' Behaviour - Sexism at the BoE

As regards the title of this post, just follow the link and READ THIS STORY. READ IT.

I am really quite angry. I didn't think such ridiculous things could irritate me that much, but no, the feminist tiger has been roused and she'd like to rip the head off the 'image consultants' who ran this thing, if nothing else. Though REALLY, what she'd like to do is get some choice 'alone time' with the fuckers at the Bank of England who arranged this. Don't shoot the messenger, etc. etc. etc.

I mean, FUCK YOU. The word 'bankers' has become Cockney rhyming slang for 'wankers' and I tell you, it's feeling like a pretty fitting epithet right now. Although of course, that's hardly fair because not all bankers are, and not even everyone at the Bank of England is.

We're going to use an extreme comparison now to attack what is occurring here. Y'know how, (as anyone who's read/watched Persepolis will know?) the 'Vice Squad' in Tehran roam around policing women's clothes so that they show the acceptable amount of modesty? Well, this is just another version of that, really, but in Britain and done without religion or violence being involved. Not that that makes it any more acceptable for it.

This parallel I've just drawn may seem extreme to some of you, but let me explain:

A memo leaked from the meeting details the advice given to staff, including the warning that wearing certain accessories would make women workers look like prostitutes.

This is the bit that sent me over the edge of calm and hurtling dangerously into the lava-paved fields of rage. Firstly, my brain screamed: WHY? WHY should women not look like prostitutes if they want to? Let me elaborate.

1) By taking this decision in the first place, women are being told how to dress - just like in Tehran - and not being credited with intelligence enough to not dress like sex workers. Ruth Lea, former Centre for Policy Studies director and current economic advisor to the Arbuthnot Banking Group, had this to say:

"Surely it is up to men and women, and their peers at work to decide for themselves what is suitable to wear. If you can get a well-paid job, surely you have the nous to choose the right clothes."

Amen, sister! Seems simple, don't it? Yet this whole fiasco is not just insulting to the female employees and a sheer fucking pisstake at a time of intense economic difficulty for the whole fucking country. It's also insulting to the men who work there.

As Craig David used to popularly sing, re-re-wind:

'wearing certain accessories would make women workers look like prostitutes.'

Here we are, back in the familiar terrain of 'Oh NOOOO! Female sexuality! SHIT! Lock up your sons and fathers and brothers!'

I'd frankly be curious to know what they had in mind here. Maybe they were thinking nurses' uniforms, thigh-high stockings, kinky boots ending above the knee? Or maybe this is just supposed to cover anything that makes you look the tiniest bit attractive and not like someone's stern aunt, or Margaret Thatcher? I have to return here to saying: and what, if women look like prostitutes?

2) If you're working for the BANK OF FUCKING ENGLAND, I think you'll know better than to turn up looking like a prostitute, as observed above. I'm sorry, wanky image consultants, but a woman wearing something which is cut slightly lower/fits slightly tighter/is shorter than you might like is part of a wonderful thing called Choice. It tends to go hand in hand with a concept known as Real Life Is For Living, and although I'm sure the BoE is full of old-ish white middle-class male types, the times they are a-changin'. Plus, it's winter. You certainly wouldn't catch me dead in a PVC maid's dress in this current snowfall!

3) As to insulting the men, I'm quite sure that, er, they're able to discern that the women they have been working with all year are not prostitutes. To be honest, giving the following advice:

'wearing certain accessories would make women workers look like prostitutes.'

is firstly infuriating because it proves that, time and time again, even the merest showcase of female sexuality is a problem for some men - and despite it only being some, all the women must be suppressed accordingly, and also because it wildly insults the intelligence of their male cohorts. Having been hired by the Bank, she knows she's not a fucking prostitute; having worked with her, he knows she's not a fucking prostitute.

The 'logic' that I can see spiralling out of this idiocy runs as follows:

Women dress like prostitutes. This presents a problem for poor, helpless males who let themselves reach the point of unbearable strain. Women subsequently sexually harassed/raped/bullied - go on to take BoE to court and money stands to be lost. Unhappy faces all round!

So, the answer to the kind of bullshit institutional sexism and recycling of outdated gender stereotypes is *gasp* not trying to educate those men who can't cope with a woman wearing a slightly shorter skirt, it's to waste a load of fucking money during a recession period telling women to 'Dress For Success.' The common sense of simply crediting the men with the awareness that their fucking co-workers are evidently not sex workers - and explaining very slowly to the especially thick/bigoted ones - is lost. Do they not think men have enough self-control to avoid leaping on their colleagues at the slightest flash of thigh and humping them unconscious? Do they really think men are that utterly lacking in self-control? Jesus H. Christ.

Interestingly enough, just to dispense with this, I like how women's sexuality is being pummelled into projecting just the right sort of mother/older auntie attitude here. By all means, don't turn us on - but don't confuse us either! Tomboys and androgynes (my coinage) not welcome!

"... always wear a heel of some sort – maximum two inches; always wear some sort of makeup, even if it's just lipstick,"

(BUT WHY?!)