It’s all wonderful in the mad world of PC-correctness
They say that people gravitate towards publications and media outlets that reflect/reinforce their own views rather than those that might tend to broaden their horizons.
How did that old joke go? The Times is read by the people who run the country; The Guardian is read by people who would like to run the country; The Telegraph is read by the people who want the country run as it was 75 years ago; and the Daily Mail is read by the wives of the people who run the country … or something like that, anyway.
In which context – and here I do not blame or excuse anything by the age or stage of life of the molarity of its contributors, still less that of its readers – some might feel that some of the Rust’s pub bores, e.g. like myself with prehistoric views on society should be put out to grass or else banished to Hull, the UK’s City of Culture for 2017.
I have already been to Hull, folks. That’s all I’m going to say about it.
Nevertheless, today I spotted an Donald McRae interview with Alex Morgan, the female USA football striker, on the website of The Guardian that made my blood pressure rise way beyond normal because of its PC-brigade stance and presumptions – see here – THE GUARDIAN
What gets my goat about this kind of ‘right on’ espousal of what Private Eye used to (and probably still does) dismiss as ‘wimmin’s issues’ is the sheer lack of understanding of how the world really works … as opposed to how some people think it ought to in an ideal ‘pie in the sky’ scenario.
Donning my tin helmet for this purpose, I’m going to come straight out and say it. There’s one very straightforward reason why female sports stars get paid less than their male counterparts and – sorry tennis(!) – always should be.
The standard of play and competition is so inferior. End of message.
In her interview Ms Morgan waxes at length about how the US women’s football team has already used its collective bargaining rights to good effect and then complains that there is so much more to do to achieve what is apparently the US women footballers’ inalienable right to earn the same as US male football stars.
This is coming straight from cloud cuckoo-land.
If female footballers have the right to earn similar amounts of money as elite male footballers then (in my view) they should either try to join top men’s teams and thereby earn it, or else go away and make their own game so popular and attractive that equal pay would come naturally.
Let me put it another way.
In a world of total equality between the sexes – as no doubt there will be one day, courtesy of Ms Morgan and people like her – on her logic, people like me will have a field day.
To give two examples:
Firstly, I can swing a tennis racquet. I cannot wait for Ms Morgan’s brave new World Order to come to fruition.
I am then going to apply for an ATP tour pro licence and demand that I get paid the same as any of the leading female tennis professionals.
Why not?
It would be intrinsically unfair if they were allowed to make US$2 or 3 million per annum and I was not.
Clearly, in the brave new world of Ms Morgan, the fact that I might be playing on one of my local council tennis courts with a racquet and balls I’ve borrowed from a friend, watched by only a man in a dirty raincoat and a mongrel dog, is irrelevant.
Secondly, I can play the flute a bit and I was given a toy electric piano by my grandchildren for Christmas.
I haven’t yet learned to play much on my baby piano – so far I’m still having trouble mastering the old TV series theme tune from Wagon Train – but quite possibly by this time next year there’s at least a chance that I’ll not only be playing it but composing my own songs.
Last week I learned that the decorative pop song warbler Taylor Swift, who can also sing a bit, play a couple of instruments and has occasionally composed her own songs, was the Forbes’ List of 100 Celebrities top entertainment earner in 2016, making herself a gross US$170 million. She won’t even be 28 years of age until next December.
Obviously, under the newly-enacted ‘Equality’ legislation brought into being by Ms Morgan, I shall be demanding my human rights not only to undertake a 50-date stadium of the United States, but also to receive US$170 million into my Barclays bank current account.
Simples.
