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I HAVE THIS brilliant idea for a new TV show. We’ll discuss the issues of the week with a panel of funny male comedians and include one woman we pull randomly off the street. It’s bound to be hilarious if we include a token unfunny woman who we will then reduce to a traditional female role of gasping and tut-tutting at the boys’ impudence while attempting to stifle her giggles.
BBC director of television, Danny Cohen announced a blanket ban on all-male comedy panels in an interview with the Observer earlier this month. “We’re not going to have panel shows on any more with no women on them. You can’t do that. It’s not acceptable,” he said. What should have happened next is that Cohen goes off and gets himself the telephone numbers of the dozens of excellent female comedians out there and everyone else could just move on. But he didn’t and the debate rages on instead.
Dara Ó Briain did an interview with the Radio Times where he said: “I wouldn’t have announced it, is what I’d say, because it means [comedians] Katherine Ryan or Holly Walsh, who’ve been on millions of times, will suddenly look like the token woman. It would have been better if it had evolved without showing your workings, if you know what I mean. Legislating for token women isn’t much help.” Too true. Although Ó Briain later retracted his position slightly, saying “I’ve no problem with a policy of no all male panel shows. I just wouldn’t have announced it.”
Today, gender is not entirely irrelevant. But we have robust anti-discrimination laws, and most men and women want to be treated as individuals first and foremost – judged on their talent and hard work. Quotas will never resolve the battle of the sexes. They’re regressive, counter-productive and a very short-sighted solution to gender representation. A panel show isn’t all that different from the boardroom and neither women nor the companies they work for benefit from bias.
Positive discrimination undermines the principle of equal opportunity – it makes some more equal than others. It can be bitterly divisive for colleagues to be passed over because of their gender. The wholly undemocratic notion of using gender quotas in our political voting system is laughable.
When groups demand quota equality, rather than equality of opportunity, they can’t be surprised that others don’t think it is right for them to get a leg-up. I can’t imagine how any independent woman would want someone, let alone a man, smoothing her career path for her. I certainly don’t. It’s demeaning. It’s degrading. Gender quotas don’t say that women are as good as men. They say that women are inferior to men. Our credibility is undermined if we are getting special treatment. Besides, feminism was all about women getting equality of opportunity and we can’t just turn around now and try to strip men of that same equality.
Is there a humour gap between the male and the female? Don’t make me laugh. Asking if women are as funny as men is a question as redundant as it is annoying. Take Christopher Hitchens and his theory on why women aren’t funny. According to him men are funny only because they are using it for a tool for sex. Sex with women. He’s dead now, so can’t add to the debate and hopefully the “Are Women Funny?” debate is dead too.
Comedy has a reputation for being a boy’s club. Show-going audiences have been split evenly between men and women for decades, but female comics had a hard time winning over new male crowds and finding acceptance in spaces crammed full of male performers. That has turned around. There are lots of fabulous female comedians out there like Maeve Higgins, Katherine Lynch, Deirdre O’Kane, Dil Wickremasinghe, Eleanor Tiernan and Carol Tobin to mention just a few. And there are more and more every year. We’re only on the comedy bench if we choose to be.
The BBC’s idea of mandatory women on panels is deeply patronising and insulting. There’s no punchline to the joke about banning all-male panels. Nor is there any laughter. We women can stand up for ourselves.
Lorraine Courtney is a freelance journalist. Follow her on Twitter @lorrainecath.
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Convenient they can blame the EU now
@Pj Browne: god forbid we follow laws and agreements.
I wouldn’t mind but it’s literally the government’s job to know how to pass laws and give enough notice to those affected. They’re getting away with doing it to renters, but it sounds like the people who have managed to afford a spare room are able to stand up for their agreed legal right to fair notice.
@Fiona Fitzgerald: sorry what do you mean they are getting away with it on renters ? If you mean not extending the temporary winter eviction ban I think you have that all messed up
Slightly confused about this article? What exactly is the delay? There has to be a reason for this but the article implies that it’s the EU who is for some unknown reason delaying the process. Clearer journalism would help
@Dave Phelan: It says they want to “engage with stakeholders”, which to me means they want to present the data from their analysis and need those at the top to prioritise it over other issues based on that data. The real question to me is why wasn’t this analysis done in the beginning when it was first proposed?
If you have bought a house, paid vat, paye, stamp duty etc, then the government should not be able to prevent you doing something lawful with it. Deflecting blame from their own failures
@Dave Harris: in fairness nobody is allowed do what they like once they buy something. It does seem unfair that somebody could suddenly find themselves living next door to an ever rotate number of strangers on holidays who often don’t respect locals. Think there is a place for short lets but it can’t go on as is.
@Dave Harris: lol lawful? The state decides what’s lawful. In this case lawful is changing it so that you have to have planning permission before turning your property in a domestic structure into a business. All the other people in the area/building bought based on it being a residence not being a hotel. And every other lawful accommodation business needs to register with bord fáilte and have the required standards and checks in place so why should these get away with it?
@Dave Harris: Laws change and rightly so as society evolves. Airbnb has had a huge impact on housing crises across Ireland and internationally. The government has failed on a number of fronts in relation to housing and regulating short-term rents is one thing they need to act on. We have tourists in home while homeless and refugees are in hotels.
@Emma Meehan: never sure on this “huge” impact in Ireland. Never saw any figures.
12,000 rental units – what a load of cobblers. As a former Airbnb host, I know that most rural hosts have a couple of rooms in their own house or a granny flat and they are definitely not viable accommodation long term. It’s probably different in the cities. But now the rules mean getting planning permission, registration fees, etc. So it’s an end to the farming community or elderly people getting the chance of a few quid in summer time and bringing much needed tourism to the regions. When something is not broken, why try to fix it? As the hosts I’ve been listening to are just getting out. Same as with small landlords, there’s too much hassle, beaurocracy and expense.
@Shelley Keary: As someone who uses Airbnb regularly for accommodation in rural parts of Ireland, I’d definitely agree that most places even those at the higher end in terms of standards are definitely not suitable for long-term renters. They are often in beautiful parts of the country and ideal for some quiet time away but located in very isolated areas, with limited access to services such as schools, medical centres etc, and only having a one shop village nearby that requires driving to. Flaky internet so not suitable for remote work etc, prone to dampness in winter, no childcare available & absolutely no transport options. A blanket approach to classifying all Airbnbs in the same way is ludicrous. The reality of available, suitable, properties is much less then the projections given.
@Shelley Keary: and taxes
Ireland, behind the curve as usual. https://www.nyc.gov/assets/buildings/pdf/MultipleDwellingLaw.pdf
@zephyrum: what has US laws got to do with Irish and EU laws?
The change of use planning rules which have not been announced for Short Term Rentals by the Housing Minister but form part of the proposed Tourism Register is the reason thousands of self catering tourist accommodation providers voiced their concerns to the EU via the TRIS submission process. Rural and coastal tourist accommodation is being put in the same boiling pot as urban short term let’s who are capitalising on higher rental rates and should be the target of the government but all offering these services will be put into the same net. This will have a significant impact on rural businesses that provide benefit to all local businesses whether food and bev, tourist attractions, etc. These rural businesses are already reeling from reduced numbers if accommodation in Summer 2022 due to 35 percent of accommodation contracted to the government for refugees.
Not sure why a Tourism Register is being linked to housing policy that hasn’t been announced? TRIS requires that such policies should be transparent. There was no indication either on what the registration annual cost would be, so I’m wondering why the Govt is surprised that this proposed legislation is at a standstill till Dec 23. Maybe Housing Dept should be looking at their shortcomings rather than trying to pin the homelessness problem on anyone and everyone but themselves.
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