The Glass Ceiling

Words for Life 11 The Glass Ceiling

The stitched words are taken from Government stats and World Health Stats as well as articles in the Independent and Guardian. Most of the cementing text is my own though. I have had people in the past saying I should state my sources, but I’ve refrained thank you.  It’s a piece of art work and my voice not a GCSE history essay!!

Leg 1 “Silly Girl, Silly Girl, you’re only good for one thing” My God says that it is a woman’s place to have babies and look after them and obey her husband. It’s the mans job to protect woman by marrying her. In 10 countries around the world women are legally bound to obey their husbands. 99.3% of women and girls in Egypt have been subjected to sexual harassment. 38% of all murders of women worldwide are committed by a woman’s intimate partner.

Leg 2 Misogyny is the hatred or dislike of women or girls. Misogyny can be manifested in numerous ways, including sexual discrimination, denigration of women, violence against women and sexual objectification of women.

Leg 3 In the UK the gender pay gap is 15 percent  On average women earn £5,000 less a year than their male colleagues. For part time work it rises to 35 per cent. Globally only 24 percent of senior management roles are filled by women. In 1997 9 out of 10 senior civil servants in Northern Ireland were men.

Leg 4 The Equalities and Human Rights Commission have said it will take at least 70 years at the current rate of progress to see an equal number of male and female directors in the FTSE 100 companies. Closing the gender gap in agriculture and using the skills of women, we could reduce the worlds hungry by 12 to 17 percent.

Leg 5 There are as many men in the cabinet who went to Eton as there are women MPs in the whole of Westminster, which is 147 female MP’s  out of 650 or approximately 24%.

Leg 6 If the skills and qualifications of those women currently out of work in the UK were fully utilised the UK would have an extra £15 to 20 BILLION, which is double the value of the UK exports to China.  Females out perform males at 0 level and A level, and undergrad and post grad qualifications by approximately 1.6 to 1.0. There are 1705 male and 1090 female staff in higher education establishments.

Leg 7 73% of the Police force are male and 82% are male above the rank of Chief Inspector.  There are 10,100 male barristers and 5,300 female.  77% of UK parochial clergy are male and 89% of senior clergy are male. The UK is rated at 59th in the world for numbers of women in Parliament under Rwanda, Andorra, Cuba, Senegal and Nicaragua.  SHAME on the UK.