In my 20s I was a radio DJ. Once every week for three hours the patients of the Whittington Hospital in North London had the pleasure to listen to me and my selection of music. I can imagine my children cringing at this thought, but I would point out to them that this was long before they were even a twinkle and once even your dad could rock.
Except it wasn’t rock but middle of the road and the biggest challenge was sorting out requests put into the list by colleagues as a test. I avoided an early pitfall when the card said Hang on in there Baby, by Johnny Bristol for everyone in Maternity. I moved on easily to somewhere else
One of the skills encouraged by my peers was the segue, moving seamlessly from one thought to another, from one track to the next.
I have not tried to do any segue with these essays but today I see the opportunity. Just sit back and marvel at the ease of this!
Last week was Ben and Hannah’s marriage which took place in the chapel of Trinity College, Cambridge. As well as Hannah, there have been many great Trinity Men, and among the greatest must be Issac Newton and his whole academic life, from 1661 to 1696, was spent there, first as an undergraduate and then as a Fellow from 1667.
Newton’s most known achievement was stating the three laws of motion which have been taught ever since as the basis of classical mechanics. Half of all the maths exams I took at school, right up to A level were based on understanding them.
It’s the third law, paraphrased as every action causes a reaction, that is the subject of this essay, and the segue is complete.
Before we get into the meat we need some background. Here are some quotes from someone quite famous, starting in the early 90s to current days.
“You know, it doesn’t really matter what women write as long as you’ve got a young and beautiful piece of ass.”
You’ve probably guessed it already. These are words of wisdom from the now President Trump. I am not sure how long I need to go on to make the point.
“I have days where, if I come home — and I don’t want to sound too much like a chauvinist,” the President said, “but when I come home and dinner’s not ready, I go through the roof.”
“All of the women on The Apprentice flirted with me – consciously or unconsciously. That’s to be expected.”
“If Hilary can’t satisfy her husband what makes her think she can satisfy America”
Trump hit a new low after the emergence of a video in which he discusses “grabbing (women) by the p****” and states that “when you’re a star, they let you do it”.
I probably didn’t need to go through so many quotes (and the selection is huge) but what I am trying to show is that America has elected a misogynist, sexist, and oaf of a President.
If that was the action we have now started to see the reaction and boy, what a reaction it has been.
To show you the strength of the response we need to go and look at an organisation called Emily’s List. (www.emilyslist.org) whose mission is ‘we ignite change by getting pro-choice Democratic women elected to office’
In 2016, they supported 900 applications from women who wanted to get into representative office. By 2018 and the upcoming mid-terms they have had 38,000 applications.
‘Emily’s List isn’t just about funding elections to get women elected. Our focus is on putting the right .. women into office who will balance the face of the government and make decisions that really improve societies across the country.’
It’s about time we saw this change.
I won’t get into a discussion about Hilary Clinton’s credentials to be President, but she was the first female candidate from a major party to run the Presidential race. Of course, there has not been a female President.
Americans spend much of their time going on and on about equality, the rights of minorities, freedom, and democracy yet when it comes to balancing their government with gender equality they have been useless.
Rwanda had the highest number of women parliamentarians worldwide. There, women have won 63.8% of seats in the lower house. Around the world, as of October 2017, 11 women are serving as Head of State and 12 are serving as Head of Government.
If you rank the countries of the world in order of women’s representation America comes 100th on the list. Come on America you can do better than that.
Unless he is re-elected or impeached, President Trump has 1,003 more days in office and only then will we properly be able to assess his achievements. It is just possible that his greatest success will be finally convincing American women and the electorate that they need women in the heart of Government to be able to change attitudes such as his.
This might be the perfect reaction to his actions.