A gender balanced Sports Personality of the Year Shsortlist #BBCfail Updated

Yesterday I posted about how the BBC had managed to produce their Sports Personality of the Year list without including a single woman. Today I'm going to produce a gender balanced list of champions, looking at some of the criteria of the all-male list, I have the double World medalist, the emotional champion winning year, the complete dominance of her sport, the inspirational captain and the one who's put disappointment aside in a preferred event to succeed elsewhere.

Mo Farrah

Rebecca Adlington like Mo Farrah above came back from the Worlds with a gold and silver medal. Only see got gold in her longer event the 800m and silver in the 400m. She had also tried to compete in the 200m, but as the result of failing to make the semis in Shanghai has decided to concentrate on just her two gold medal defences for next year.

Rory McIlroy

Beth Tweddle well if the English Cricket Captain can make the all male top ten I'm putting Beth in there. She may not have won any world titles this year but she did inspire the GB women's team to 5th place overall, their highest ever position. She put in possibly her last world level uneven bars routine to lead the way with 15.666 and made the apparatus final in the floor. A mistake in qualifying meant that Tweddle didn't make the uneven bars final but in the team competition she showed she is still the best.

Mark Cavendish

Chrissie Williamson while Cav produces the sprint finish how would you like to swim 2.4km, cycle 112 miles then run a full marathon. Now do that against the best in the world and for a fourth time cross the line first. But for illness last year she may well have been celebrating her fifth in a row. Yeah talk about rowing Sir Steve Redgrave only won his SPOTY after five Olympic Titles four years apart (okay there were Worlds in between). Chrissie has dominated the world Ironman scene for the last five years. Surprisingly I don't recall any of our world class Triathlon competitors being short listed for SPOTY.

Alastair Cook

Victoria Pendleton may have lost her World Sprint Title earlier in the year for the first time since 2006 but came back in the Europeans to take two of the five golds in what should be Team GB&NIs star event next summer. The set back of failing to get to the medal rounds of her favoured sprints once again didn't deter Vicky who won Gold in the Kerin and Team Sprint.

Luke Donald

Sarah Stevenson is a World Taekwando champion. Building on her bronze in Beijing she was working towards greater heights in London next year. However, this year she lost her mother in January of a terminal condition and her father to a tumour 3 months later. Therefore it was an emotional performance dedicated to her absent parents that lifted Gold in Korea last month.

Update According to the BBC here is a full list of those nominated by the main newspapers plus Zoo and Nuts. Where were the votes from Cosmo or Prima.

Here is the rundown of actual nominations, in order of nominations, from a largely male press core o 27 publications:

27 Rory McIlroy (Golf) 


26 Darren Clarke (Golf)


25 Mo Farah (Athletics)


23 Mark Cavendish (Cycling) 23


18 Alastair Cook (Cricket)


17 Dai Greene (Athletics)


14 Andy Murray (Tennis); Andrew Strauss (Cricket)


11 Luke Donald  (Golf)


7 Amir Khan (Boxing)


6 Rebecca Adlington (Swimming); Jenson Button (Motorsport) 6


5 Alastair Brownlee (Triathlon); Keri-Anne Payne (Swimming); Graeme Swann  (Cricket)


4 James Anderson (Cricket); Stuart Broad (Cricket) 4; Sam Warburton (Rugby Union) 



3 Carl Froch (Boxing); Scott Parker (Football); Sarah Stevenson (Taekwando); Sam Tomkins (Rugby League); Sam Waley-Cohen (Horse Racing); Chrissie Wellington (Triathlon)




2 Kath Grainger (Rowing); Victoria Pendleton (Cycling) 2





1 Nicola Adams (Boxing); Ben Ainslie (Sailing); Gareth Bale (Football); Ian Bell (Cricket); Dmitri Berbatov (Football); Glen Chapple (Cricket); Hannah England (Athletics); Jessica Ennis (Athletics); Dario Franchetti (Motorsport); George Groves (Boxing); Lewis Hamilton (Motorsport); Tony McCoy (Horseracing); George North (Rugby Union); Shanaze Reade (BMX); Stef Reid (Paralympic Athlete); Jamie Roberts (Rugby Union); Wayne Rooney (Football); Paul Scholes (Football); Louis Smith (Gymnastics); Yaya Toure (Football); Jonathan Trott (Cricket); Judd Trump (Snooker); Hayley Turner (Horse Racing); Patrick Viera (Football); David Weir (Football)




So there were a total of just 12 women nominated from 51 names put forward. I'll work out the breakdown by sport later but there seems to be quite a chunk of the England Cricket team.

More women but still a ways to go #AE11

One of mine and politicians of all persuasions over the weekend was the sight of Dawn Purvis being eliminated from the count in East Belfast. Last year after the UVF the paramilitary group associated with the Progressive Unionist Party of which she was leader murdered Billy Moffett, she stepped down as leader and resigned from the party. She was a vibrant and feisty member of the Assembly and did a lot of work in highlighting the double and triple jobbing of some of her colleagues. She will be sorely missed.

However, there are now more women in this Assembly that in the last, which had 15. Twelve actually got re-elected and there are eight new faces to join them. That raises the representation of women to 18.5 percent still a long way to go to gender equality. Northern Ireland may be moving out of a warlike status of politics but the combatants are still largely male.

Margaret Ritchie had a appalling performance in the final leaders debate. She really was the sniping old wife at the garden fence with he snide one liners. It wasn't becoming and may have affected some of the SDLP's slide. She is better than that and hopefully some of the new in take will show what women can do. Of the women returning both Anna Lo (Alliance) South Belfast, Michelle Gildernew (Sinn Féin) Fermanagh and South Tyrone and Michelle McIlveen (DUP) Strangford all managed to join Ritchie in topping their polls and getting in on the first count. Sinn Féin's Jennifer McCann (West Belfast) and Martina Anderson (Foyle) along with the DUP's Arlene Foster (Fermanagh and South Tyrone) were other women returned by reaching their quota on the first round.

They include Brenda Hale the war widow who is now DUP MLA for Lagan Valley who has already said she will fight for war widows' rights, the DUP's Paula Bradley who is just completing her term as Mayor of Newtownabbey but now now MLA for East Antrim, the UUP's women's officer Sandra Overend was also elected in Mid Ulster and Judith Cochrane of the Alliance Party continuing the party's success in East Belfast where she joined Chris Lyttle who had replaced Naomi Long as MLA when she was elected to Westminster.

 The other debutantes in the Assembly are DUP's Pam Lewis (South Antrim), UUP's Joanne Dobson (Upper Bann), Sinn Féin's Michaela Boyle (West Tyrone) and Karen McKevitt for the SDLP in (South Down).

Somebody's put a little tribute together for Dawn, I like it especially as it has a shot of Dawn out with us for the Yes! campaign last Sunday in it.

Is Job Sharing MPs Idea Sexist?

I know it is being suggested by a female MP.

I know it's aim is to get more women into Parliament.

But is the idea from Caroline Lucas, the Green Party leader, to allow job sharing MPs not inherently sexist. She s suggesting that people should be allowed to stand as a pair of representatives. Her aim to lift the ability of women to represent the people in the commons.

While her aims are noble, does not the suggestion that women are not able to work in Westminster because of the hours of commitment to do so full time a sexist position? Yes there are needs to allow female members to have the same rights as workers elsewhere. For example how would constituents react to a female member taking her full maternity entitlement? Also if that were to happen what arrangements could be made to cover the duties of that MP.

There are issues of childcare, schooling, the two-centred living for out of London MPs and hours of working which need to be addressed to make the job more attractive and doable for women, or maybe especially younger women with or hoping to start families. Too many of the Blair Babes from 1997 have already voluntarily stepped down from the House because of the pressures they faced.

For years part-time work was all that married women were able to take on. They had to juggle housework, childcare and job, so could only be employed elsewhere for limited hours. It was a glass ceiling on their achievement. How could a job-sharing MP hope to progress beyond the back benches? Is it really possible that a sensitive issue could be handed on to another minister and back again depending on the day of the week. The same would also apply to case work, if you are sharing a job on certain days of the week, how is a job sharing going to make the constituent feel about a sensitive issue if they have to talk to two separate individuals about it. There is a certain member/constituent trust, would that be broken by a job share.

There are issues to be addressed in Parliament of that I have no doubt, but I also think that the proposal from Ms. Lucas appears to have been poorly thought out and indeed is degrading to female politicians. Bear in mind that the Green Party breakthrough has come after the party in England and Wales did away with co-convenorship of the party for gender balance purposes and selected a single leader, a woman.

Yes encouraging women into the chamber is to be encouraged. But to do so by offering them part-time jobs there is surely not progress but a retrograde step.

Read also: Never one to shirk away from starting a debate here is what Kate Joester, the Green party candidate for Edinburgh North and Leith in 2010 (aka Rebel Rising) has blogged in response. Also found this article from Lib Dem Voice back in March which covers the issue.

Religious Hypocricy in Iran Over False Witness in Key Trials

The Koran says:

O you who believe, you shall be absolutely equitable, and observe Allah, when you serve as witnesses, even against yourselves, or your parents, or your relatives. Whether the accused is rich or poor, Allah takes care of both. Therefore, do not be biased by your personal wishes. If you deviate or disregard (this commandment), then Allah is fully Cognizant of everything you do.

Sura 4:135

Therefore the latest case to emerge from Iran, allegedly based on religious teachings must taken in light of what else the holy book is teaching the Islamic Republic. That latest story involves another client of Mohammad Mostafaei, 18-year-old Ebrahim Hamidi, who is accused of sodomy and has been sentanced to death. Mostafaei who seems to have been the only lawyer to have been prepared to stand up to defend human rights at this level in Iran.

With lawyer fleeing for his live to Norway following his defence of Sakineh Mohammadi Ashtiani. The woman who has been sentenced to death for alleged adultery yesterday pointed out the sexism of the Iranian judicial system when she was interviewed and told that the person who had murdered her husband is not facing death. While she is accused of adultery solely on the say so of a judicial official (see the above quote from the Koran).

The case of Hamidi is even more fraught with false witnesses. In his case along with three friends they were involved in a fight with another family. They were accused of homosexual attack on the victim. After threes in which he was tortured Hamidi then confessed, his three co-accused where acquitted when they agreed to testify against him. Last month the alleged victim admitted he had been under pressure from his parents to make the false accusations.

Looking at that part of the Koran again:

you shall be absolutely equitable, and observe Allah, when you serve as witnesses,

even against yourselves, Eprahim Hamidi may have given false testimony against himself but this was under duress and not to free himself but to condemn himself. His victim has admitted to false witness under duress.

or your parents, or your relatives. The three co-accused used false witness against one of their own family to gain release for themselves. In truly Darwinian fashion it was against the one who broke down first under pressure and appears to have been the youngest of the accused. The parents of the alleged victim started the whole ball rolling putting pressure on for the homosexual assault charge, which led to the tortured confessions, then the other false witnesses.

Whether the accused is rich or poor, Surely the judiciary count as being the rich. They have heard facts that the evidence they are basing this on are false yet they continue not to take corrective action. Surely having the truth and acting on falsehoods is also against this part of the Koran. In the case of the woman, Sakineh Mohammadi Ashtiani, it is a judge who without evidence has accused her of adultery.

Allah takes care of both. Therefore, do not be biased by your personal wishes. If you deviate or disregard (this commandment), then Allah is fully Cognizant of everything you do.

So by keeping only a part of law and ignoring other parts their religious zealousness is actually being shown up as hypocritical.

What are Early Learning Centres Made Of?

There is the 19th century nursery rhyme What are little boys made of? it goes.

What are little boys made of?
Snips and snails, and puppy dogs tails
That's what little boys are made of !
What are little girls made of?
Sugar and spice and all things nice
That's what little girls are made of!

The reason that this comes to mind is that Jennie has mentioned this from the Early Learning Centre website.

For the little princess in the family we have great feminine outfits like Butterfly Fairy, Sleeping Beauty, Ballerina and Nurse’s uniform. Why not add a medical case for that extra touch of authenticity.

The boys are catered for too, with great Doctor, Policeman & Fireman uniforms, not to mention fantastic Pirate and Knight costumes. All these can be combined with a range of accessories so your child will really look the part.

Now hang on a cotton picking minute. I was one of four boys in my school choir, I did drama, I even wore tights for the ball scene in the school pantomime. All this before the age of 12. Plus my mother's old brownie uniform was part of me and my brother's dressing up box and often got used for military purposes.

When we were growing up we played football with the family next door, there were six of them and two of us. Only one of us fulfilled those childhood dreams of playing football for Northern Ireland, that would be the elder daughter of the family next door.

One of my nephews loves his gymnastics and is very good at it. But it isn't one of those sports that is seen as butch and macho, like football or rugby. At least not until later in life. As one of the kids who just loved to run I got ribbed for it at school. I even got to wear a predominantly green (the girls' uniform colour at our school) honours tie for it in the sixth form. Neither of those are seen as sports for men until you get really goo at it. Look at poor Tom Daley and the abuse he got as a public example.

I was also read recently, and I will try and refind the source, some man being interviewed about their childhood saying that they had their action men have sex together because their parents wouldn't buy them a Barbie because that was too gay.

I guess the moral of this story is that don't limit your children's imaginations or ambitions by stereotyping the genders. They will find other ways to use them themselves. In this day where we have female firefighters and male nurses. There are female doctors and male dancers. Have you seen how much lace in on a Jack Sparrow costume? Almost as much as the ballerina's tutu.

So maybe the earlier learning centre should stop gender stereotyping in its advertising. Thus speaks this New Romantic teenage boy from the 80s. Yeah gel, mouse or spray the hair got it all.

Only (Straight) Men Allowed

It would seem that the Anglican Church is set to have another debate about whether to catch up with other denominations, except the Holy See in Rome, and lift the glass ceiling. For 16 years now women have been allowed to be parish priests but with no hope of progress on the career ladder within the church.

In the same time there have been female Moderators of the Church of Scotland and leaders of the Methodists. Yet there seems no certain move for the Anglican Church because of the threat of the Anglo-Catholics either removing themselves or their wealth from the Anglican communion, or merely causing such an uproar to make the who move nearly unworkable.

Of course the other wing of the Church has recently scored by once again halting the possible elevation of Jeffrey John to the Bishopric of Southwark.

So the only senior post that a women, and presumably a gay man can seemingly hold in the Church of England is that of Supreme Governor. Of course to qualify for that you have to be the first born son, or daughter thereafter/instead of the previous monarch or their closest familial alternative. Not much hope for many then, unless a sensible decision is reached this week over women bishops.

Is Today the Day?

After Gordon got up on Saturday to launch a campaign slogan the one thing he didn't do was launch a campaign.So the rumour mill has gathered heat that today being the first day of the working week he will get in his car and drive down the mall to Buckingham Palace to ask the Queen for a dissolution.

Will it be or won't it?

I may well jump at the first text message I get at work today*. Afterwards I may settle back to what I need to do at work, or start rearranging the leave I'd already booked off and wandering to an other election related to do list. It will all depend on one man's decision, whether I ramp up now the activity I've been doing recently or carry on with the gradual ramp up I'd been doing anyway. I guess we'll just have to wait and see.

One thing I'm fairly certain of, if it does kick off today it is liable to hbe in the run up to my 2:30 deadline and my busiest period of the week.

* That is not a cue for those of you who know my number to send me innocent or spoof texts.

Women Can't Jump - Need for Gender Balance

From the London Olympic Games when women's boxing is included in the Olympic programme only one sport will not have male and female competitors at either the Summer or Winter Olympiads. That event was the first to award medals today in Vancouver.

While Switzerland's Simon Amman won the first gold of the Games apparently women can't jump, that is ski jump, at least not yet at these Games. There are 100 women* from 18 countries prepared to hurl themselves off the end of the ramp into the air at elite level, not one of them will be seen doing so in Vancouver this fortnight.

Last summer the women tried to take Vanoc (the organising committee) to court through the Canadian civil law for inclusion on equality grounds. They said their exclusion violated Canada's Charter of Rights and Freedoms. The Judge agreed that their case was discriminatory but couldn't be fought through Canadian courts, but also said Vanoc were right that only the IOC (International Olympic Committee) had authority to decide on sports inclusions. She said:

"The IOC made a decision that discriminates against the plaintiffs. Only the IOC can alleviate that discrimination by including an Olympic ski jumping event for women in the 2010 Games."

Canadian ski jumper Katie Willis said, "It's awful that we lost, but I'm glad we tried." Both Wills and world champion Lindsey Van had previously requested a meeting with Jacques Rogge the IOC President before the court case to argue their case, but the meeting never came to fruition.

There are only five competitive days of Ski jumping on the hills plus three for the Nordic combined. Therefore there is no technical reason why a women's even could not be fitted into the schedule, the women are appealing to Rogge for inclusion in 2014 Games in Sochi, Russia.

Maybe we should get Jo Swinson on their case.

* I have it on good authority none of the 100 is my good friend Caron.

Women Died for the Right to Make their Own Decision

Admittedly when he was doing his fantasy Liberal Cabinet meme Irfan Ahmed said he didn't know a lot about history, so sadly yet again this morning we see a need to educate him a little about this. He writes:

'Many women don’t have a clue about politics so they need someone to make their decisions for them and for that reason its OK for the man to decide who the women votes or is it? I don’t see anything wrong with a man making the decision in the household to who everyone votes but then that is just me.'

Ouch! For a start many people of both genders don't have a clue about politics it is not restricted by gender, but we have allowed universal suffrage to both men and women on equal terms since 1928. Yet we don't ask people before they step into a ballot booth can they name all the leaders of the main parties (if we did we'd have even lower turnout). So that is not a valid reason to say it is alright for anyone not to vote, nor is it justifiable to hide the sexism or misogyny of his statement above. It does suggest he himself doesn't have a clue about certain aspects of life.

However, Irfan may be interested to know that that great Liberal mind John Stuart Mill was one of the early male advocates for women to have the right to cast their own vote back as far as 1865 when he presented just such a platform to the electorate.

Women hassled Asquith and Lloyd George in the streets of Westminster in the early part of last century after the women on New Zealand were given the right to vote in 1893. The chained themselves to railings, set fire to mail boxes, set off bombs on occasions, were imprisoned for their direct actions, went on hunger strike. In 1913 on Epson Downs Emily Davison even threw herself bodily and fatally in front of the King's horse Anmer as it ran in the Derby.

It took almost 60 years from when the movement started for women to get equality with men and their own voice at the ballot box. It is not a right they should give away to a husband of father to tell them how to cast it.

Irfan if you really want to describe yourself as a 'political commentator' you really are going to have to learn a little about the political, governmental and social history of the politics and country you are commentating on. Otherwise a lot of what you say is just shallow, ill-informed vitriol.

Sorry Irfan You've Just Lost All Respect

I've just read this post from Irfan Ahmed and I have to disagree with his statement defending his post supporting a Respect candidate:

"I will suspect that many reading this will think that I am promoting a candidate from the Respect party but actually I am not promoting her I am actually just mentioning her as a candidate and making a point that Salma should get elected as the effect it will have on UK politics and the participation of Muslim's in phenomenal!"

Look through our own party's growing list of PPCs and you will see a diverse range of candidates including a number of Muslim candidates in other Birmingham seats. As for Muslim woman I haven't scanned the lot but I do know that there is my friend Shabnum Mustapha over in Glasgow South and I suspect that there must be others.

Yes I agree with you that it is about time we had more diversity in ethnicity and religion across the House of Commons. However, I do see that the Lib Dems list of candidates is a growing mix of just that sort.

Euro Election Reflections 2

When George Lyon is formally declared as the eleventh Liberal Demorcat MEP later today he will actually be in a minority. He will be one of five male Lib Dem MEPs to the six women who will be representing us.

Last week on one of my colleagues blogs or Facebook, and just now I can't recall which, somebody complained that the Lib Dems by not using zipped lists and proportionality were not getting a balance of people. Well without doing so we have achieved sexual parity. Sarah Ludford in London, Fiona Hall in the North East, Liz Lynne in the North East, Diana Wallis in Yorkshire and Humber. Even in the one region we returned two MEPs, the South East, they are both women Sharon Bowles and Catherine Bearder.

It shows that women can indeed rise to the top and I know there is still work to be done to encourage more to the surface in key and winnable Westminster and Holyrood seats, but we are a party that recognises talent and that is something to be proud of.

Star Woman Sought for the East

Since 1918 Labour have had 18 MPs in Scotland's capital but it all that time only one woman, Lynda Clark, for eight years 1997-2005 has been representative for them in Edinburgh Pentlands. She of course then chose not to stand in the Edinburgh South West seat to allow Alistair Darling to find a seat after Edinburgh Central was wiped off the Westminster map.

However, with Gavin Strang stepping down in Edinburgh East at the next general election Labour are considering making some amends for that by considering having a women only shortlist for his replacement. A similar tactic is being used next door to West Lothian for the Airdrie and Shotts seat being vacated by John Reid.

Having recently watched the docu-drama of Mrs Thatcher's early days in politics it does seem sad that there is still something of a glass ceiling in getting through the selection process so often for female candidates. Having seen and worked closely with some excellent female candidates in the past I know that there is no disadvantage in selecting the right candidate irrespective of gender but sadly too many of those involved in some politics still will always place a man before a woman in their voting preference at selection level. Once any candidate has crossed that threshold it is largely the popularity of their party that makes up the bulk of their vote, their own popularity or lack of, making up the topping; which can create a effect either to hold, or take a surprise gain in a tight contest.