I did once intervene when I saw a young woman getting roughed up and got thumped for my trouble. But being a calculating type, I had taken the precaution of calling the police first.
I know my limitations and am quite happy to leave these things to those who are better qualified, where that is possible.
I always found it a very pleasant thing to do, to serve the coffee to the myriad "chargées de mission" present at the kind of meetings we used to have down at the Conseil Régional at the Porte d'Aix in Marseille. Means you could have a bit of conversation with everyone before the Euro-speak kicked in.
My secretary in Antwerp used to drop what she was doing for me (making appointments,typing up market reports, buying me 'plane tickets etc etc) at the drop of a hat to do irrelevant jobs their own secretaries could have done for my male colleagues. But then she was majorly on the sniff for a husband.
I was in a meeting once when one of my colleagues near the coffee machine said 'how about some coffee? ' looking at me & so I said "yes please, black no sugar"; it was only afterwards I realised I was supposed to have poured it & served it to everyone, seeing I was the only woman there.
I don't know if we've got our wires crossed, Mike.
I know maintenance existed but I was talking about property and contents, even when their were children involved.
I'd be a liar if I said I knew the details - I was just told that in those days it wasn't automatic that the woman got any share of the physical property.
Karen I'm not sure that is correct. When my Mother finaly divorced my Father it took an Act of Parliament to do it. For my first it was only after three years of marriage and a Declaration of Infidelity that got it - and the last word made all the difference.
As the 'guilty party' judgement was ALWAYS made against the man- even if the wife had been the one committing adultery - the law at that time was curiously myopic to that possibility!
Although never having had children (to the applause of many!) this was genuinely regarded as the sticking point to all divorces - children or not. To be frank the fathers who didn't want to accept their responsibilities simply skipped, whilst the decent fathers got shredded more often than not, often being left with not enough to live on.
You might be surprised to learn in those days that even if the wife re-married (surprisingly often to a quite wealthy new husband, I wonder why?) the father still had to pay even if he was starving and homeless.
Women in those days and circumstances were not exactly downtrodden under the law.
As I say this was not my case, but I knew several who were in precisely such circumstances.
Brian made a good point.
Half a century ago "experts" were predicting that, with rapid growth in automation, there would soon not be enough jobs to go round, and even those in work would only need to put in a few hours a week. The rest would have to be paid to stay at home and "education for leisure" would be an important requirement.
It didn't happen, because they didn't take into account how the economics of capitalism works. Put simply, you have to keep the money going round, otherwise the whole tottering structure of society would collapse into rubble and dust. So now that we almost all have everything we need, we have to invent and sell people things that they can be persuaded they simply must have, that ends up as trash for recycling six months later.
But of course we don't need everyone to work. Why not give them enough to live on, if they think they have something else they would rather be doing?
Mansplaining, happens all the time: here's a nice link to Rebecca Solnit's 2008 essay.
https://www.guernicamag.com/daily/rebecca-solnit-men-explain-things-to-me/
Splurted my coffee at your tall thin mate called Twigge :)
One time at the Châtelet metro in Paris this Lebanese-type guy snatched a lady's bag just as she went through the turnstiles. I instinctively chased after him, two other guys did, they were plain clothes peelers. She got her bag back and the geezer got carted off, but I was amazed that with the crowd of folk around no-one else went after him...
1.68 and never took myself seriously. I once had a girlfriend of 1.92, but not the only one taller than me (which is not difficult), so never found height an issue. The tallest person I ever knew (his family name is Twigge and he was as skinny as a matchstick) had a best friend of my height from whom he is inseparable, likewise his wife, but the friend's partner was only shoulder tall to me. They all just got on with life irrespective. The two most deadly characters I have ever known were Corkie (from Cork) and Vakil (an Iranian) who were both tiny but indestructible and would beat the **** out of anybody who tried them. Both have come out top when confronted with several assailants, the latter did for four hefty men in full view of a room full of us. It is a matter of how we feel about ourselves probably. I have just ignored it.
20-odd years ago, in England, coming into the town I lived near on my way back from work, I saw a bunch of young men (late teens/early twenties) bashing up another young man in a fairly half-hearted way (pushing & batting him around, throwing his stuff on the road etc) so I stopped & asked them what they thought they were doing & they immediately turned into 6 year-olds (body-language-wise) & looked v sheepish especially when I asked them if I should be ringing the police etc etc. I told them to run along & not let me catch them behaving like that again. Cue lots of shuffling & looking at the ground & sorries.
I didn't know any of them & didn't go away until they had all gone their separate ways. It didn't occur to me not to intervene, but when I told my then husband he said I should have left them to it, not got involved because they might have turned on me etc etc; well I think that's pathetic and a cop-out. It wasn't stupid horseplay among a bunch of friends, judging by the victim's reaction.
I think my point in reality was that for my Mother it was literally 'the choice of one'. Her own moral code would not have allowed her to make any other.
Different times, different standards.
like lots :))))
Mike you remind me very much of several occasions when my brother and I were bouncers at the Adelphi Ballroom in Slough - he 6'6" and 21 stone and me a far more modest but hefty 6'1", 16 stone. Being an inordinate coward I only took the job for the money and the fact that he was there as the 'leader'.
It was a brilliant learning experience. We would break up fights almost as soon as they were at the pushing and shoving stage - and 90% were 'pride' and not wanting to look wimps before their girlfriends.
We were seriously the most welcome people to arrive on all counts. Brian (my brother) would take one from the back and hold his arms back, whilst I did the same with the other. They would make all the 'pulling away' so-called efforts to impress that it was only us 'bastards' who were stopping our respective retainees from beating the other one to a pulp.
The reality was only known to us, that we were holding them by our fingertips and they could have got back to the brawl in a second. Like your guy, a few words of warning and off they would shuffle duly 'restrained by the big buggers'. I was always amazed that not once did anyone make any efforts to take us on. I personally didn't have a clue what would have happened if they had.
I do admit these were the days when 'one on one' was regarded as the only way to settle disputes. I don't think that applies now where it is seemingly gangs against one, which disgusts me.
Not that I'm aware of.
But I do think it's reasonable.
I hope you can cope with the tension of waiting, Mike. I wouldn't want you to lose your beauty sleep over it.
What a pity, we were all looking forward to making your acquaintance.........
So I think you mean single mums should do their best to find work. Married woman, apart from child benefit of course, don't take from the benefits system - unless child tax credit and working tax credit count as benefits?
But in the real world, having a couple of kids and trying to work, is rather difficult if you are on your own I would imagine.
The fairest result I can see - and I do know a woman who went to court to insist on it (and won) - is if the fathers had the children for 50% of the week. Then all this 'single mum' stuff would stop or at least it would be split fairly.
A lot of men try and get away with financial responsibilities, but it might be that the whole 'breeding' scenario would be taken a lot more seriously if there were practical downsides for both parties (rather than simply financial) which would make them (or others) take more care in the first place?
Also of course there is the issue of divorced parents. A woman may well have a career and children but then get divorced. In this scenario, it may well be that her current job is impractical when suddenly being left in sole charge of the children apart from one weekend a fortnight or whatever. If the fathers had to have the children 50% of the time then the impact would be such that both sides may well still be able to contibute to the economy, rather than one party suddenly becoming accused of taking from it, due to no fault of their own.
There must be the jobs to begin with...
Yeah, it's my religion.
Thanks, Mike.
If a woman was at the side of me slapping my head and screaming "Get up!!!!!" Then it could well have been me who offered her seat.
It doesn't matter if Tony is referring to us - many men, when they come across women who disagree with them, immediately refer to it as being aggression. It's the art of deflection.
I'll defend my right to a point of view and I will substantiate it - and then watch certain people ignore the points and comeback with heresay and personal opinion.
You do make a good point in that people sometimes don't have the choice - and it was a lot worse years ago. I can't remember when it happened that things changed, but in the UK I know that when a woman got divorced she had few or little rights to the property acquired during the course of the marriage.