Tuesday, March 01, 2011

Equality? Hah!

I heard on the radio this morning that the EU has ruled that it is sexist for insurance companies to charge different premiums for people based upon their gender.  I nearly ran off the road in surprise ;)

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/business-12606610

Of course this means that women's premiums will go up big time, and mine will go up too to pay for all the administration.  However, there is one benefit to this outcome - surely it will sound the death knell for Sheila's Wheels.  I so despise those adverts.  I think the worst one was this:



Women are safer drivers are they?  Half the time in that advert they don't even have their hands on the steering wheel.  Driving forwards and looking backwards is safe is it?  Apparently Sheila's Wheels now do home insurance.  Is that home insurance only for women too?

That got me thinking about all the man bashing going around at the moment.  Prime culprits for me are:

1) Feminax Express "Pain"-killer



This is the kind of crap I can't stomach.  Let's look at the evidence - what has the guy done wrong here?  OK, he possibly has his feet on a table which even I would find a little irritating.  He chuckles quietly at something on the television - hardly a crime.  He is examining the results of a possible nasal or aural excavation and has dropped it on the floor, that's a little disgusting but surely merits little more than a verbal warning.  But NO!  He is violently ejected out the window by a woman meting out disproportionate summary justice!  Take that, man, you utter bane of my life!

2) Oven Pride



This is the worst of the bunch.  I can't begin to tell you how demeaning I find this.  If you don't think this is sexist then you're an idiot.  Sorry.  They've also brought out a sequel for Shower and Bath Pride with the same theme.  Great - more man bashing.

Why am I writing all this?  I've never had to make a claim on my car insurance that was my fault, and I've got 14 years of no claims discount.  I can clean and have cleaned ovens before, using nastier chemicals than that Oven Pride stuff.  It may work well, but I'm not buying it on principle because of their stupid, sexist adverts.  My wife won't mind me saying that I iron better (and more often) than she does.  Any woman who has a problem with my behaviour and deals with it in a highly disproportionate way would be shunned like any idiot.  "Please stop doing that" or ejected violently out the window.  Who's the baddie here?

This man bashing must cease.  It isn't funny, it isn't fair, and I don't see why it is tolerated when turn about would most definitely not be fair play.  If the roles were reversed in any of these situations, these adverts would be banned very quickly.  I think I'm a pretty fair guy - men and women are different, but why can't these differences be seen in a complementary way?  There certainly should be no difference in terms of opportunities.  If you want to do something, do it - it matters not one jot to me what revision of the human hardware you are.  What I strongly object to is putting my television on and being told that I'm rubbish.  I'm not.  I'm really not.  Why am I being made to pay for historical wrongs which I do not and have never perpetrated?