Cathy Dobbs on skin colour and role models
The BBC has gone and put its woke foot in it again! For years we’ve been told that women don’t play enough sports. Report after report has analysed why girls turn away from games and PE at school, while boys are more likely to grab a football at lunchtime and head to the school field with their mates. Just as it looks like we are turning a corner, thanks to role models such as the England Women’s Soccer Team - the Lionesses, the BBC had to go and flex its virtue signalling muscles and bring the ladies down a peg or two. What should have been a celebration of an 8-0 victory over Norway for the Lionesses ended up being tainted by a BBC presenter criticising the skin colour of the players – it seems they were all too white.
Interestingly the BBC has overlooked the fact that its top earners – which includes Gary Lineker, Zoe Ball, Alan Shearer, Fiona Bruce and Huw Edwards all share the same skin colour as the Lionesses they criticised.
Talking of role models, a new study commissioned by LinkedIn shows that 43 per cent of women believe they would be more successful at work if they had relatable role models to look up to. It reminds me of an event I went to a few years ago when I spoke to a couple of women who were company directors. One raved about the excellent boarding school her children attended, while the other was really pleased with the au pair she’d hired. There are a couple of reasons why there are so few ‘relatable’ women at the top. Firstly, there are very few companies that will promote someone to a top job who needs part-time hours and squeezes work in between the school run or caring for elderly parents. Also, very few ‘relatable’ women just don’t want the job. They are already juggling dozens of commitments - adding becoming CEO to the list is just not on the agenda.
