A lady named Mary Honeyball, who I am led to believe is a Labour Member of the European Parliament for London, has got her knickers in a twist about the latest RyanAir Christmas charity calendar.
Quoting portions of a report from the Women's Rights and Gender Equality committee of the European Parliament, Honeyball calls for affirmative action to combat "harmful" and "damaging" gender stereotyping in advertising and slams the "self-regulatory" nature of the British Advertising Standards Authority.
"Why are Irish children", she fumes, "protected from growing up surrounded by sexist stereotypes when British children are not?".
Ms Honeyball is clearly rather exercised by this issue, asking visitors to her website vote in an online poll as to whether or not they consider "Ryanair's advertising for its 'bare all' [it is not a "bare all calendar] calendar offensive and derogatory to women?".
Indeed, it's difficult to see what else Ms Honeyball does in the European Parliament aside from writing rather paranoid blog posts about the plight of women in western society. Of the 191 blog posts she has made since she launched her website in February 2008, the majority have been dedicated to gender issues.
Highlights include:
- Cyprus appoints women commissioner
- No women for new top EU posts
- Bonkers Boris sacks women
- Iceland appoints two women bank chief executives
One could be mistaken, given the tone of many of Ms Honeyball's postings, for thinking European women toiled under the same conditions as those imposed by the Al Saud family in Saudi Arabia.
Whilst no sane person could disagree that women have traditionally been grossly under-represented in the world of business and politics and that problems such as pay disparities between genders must be eliminated is Ms Honeyball's time, especially during the present economic criss, best occupied by campaigning against a charity campaign which raises more than €100,000 each year to provide emergency shelter for Dublin's homeless community?
