There has been a lot of discussion in the media and amongst my women friends in the last few days over a reported comment from “Love Actually” actor, Emma Thompson:
The Newspaper headline runs “Take a year off work to be with your children, says actress who put her career on hold for 12 months... but she is worth £30million!”
At a girlfriend's birthday party this weekend, we shared the thought that a women with £30 million might find it easier to give up work for a year to care for her children than a single mother working in a burger restaurant on minimum wage or even a married mother with 2 or three children whose husband has been made redundant in 2013 from his lowly paid hospital job making her part-time supermarket job financially essential to the survival of the family, at least in the short term.
Some of my friend's hold well paid, much senior teaching or education posts and they were adamant that such a move would destroy their lifestyles – one moved to a larger house in a more select area to accommodate her expanding family earlier this year. We joke with her about her “champagne” lifestyle but she became quite grim about the impact a year without her salary would have. With childcare costs rocketing locally she suggested that she was not getting much more than me and quoted figures to support her argument. She also pointed out that her new house was purchased at historically rock bottom interest rates and recent suggestions that rates will start to rise again in the not too distant future are potentially threatening.
My initial thoughts of “Wow! That's what I call breaking the glass ceiling!” at Emma Thompson's £30 million, only lasted until I tapped “Holywood's Top 40” into my computer and saw her total “worth” fade into the perspective of Johnny Depp's £20 million for appearing in “The Tourist” - apparently a box office failure, £35 million for “Pirates of the Caribbean – on Stranger Tides” then his £40 million for “Alice in Wonderland” in 2011 alone. An initial perception that in acting women had achieved a degree of parity with men was further bruised by the discovery that the highest placed woman, Kristen Stewart, although equally paid the same £12.5 million each film for co-starring in the two Twilight Saga films is the highest ranking woman in the top 40 at number 13 and one of only two in the top 20. There are only four other women in the bottom half of the top 40 making six in all – It was suddenly not so equal sounding.
Surely US women must be regarded as equal to men in the halls of legislatures devoted to independence, freedom of the individual and equality for all, The truth of the matter is the figures reveal that the United States has a terribly disproportionate number of male legislators to female legislators in the US Congress. The Senate currently has 17 female members whereas the House of Representatives currently has 75, which translates into about 17.2% for both chambers. Compared to the legislatures of other countries, this puts the United States in 78th place in terms of female representation.
I looked up the top legislatures for female representation and found only three on or around 50%. All three have small populations and none of them are English speaking democracies although the country in first place, Rwanda includes English as one of three official languages. Rwanda's lower house comprises 56.3% and although the Upper House lets the side down a little although the 38.5% female representation there only just misses being in the top 10 states.
by Mo