Andy Gray and Prejudice

This week saw the firing of Andy Gray from Sky Sports, for two filmed incidents of sexism. If he or Richard Keys claimed that women didn’t know the offside law that was totally crass. It is so plainly daft that I wonder if they were just sending themselves up, but seemingly the incident was not isolated so Gray was fired. Well done Sky Sports for taking a stand, even if the result is that they, and we, lose a superb football analyst. People in positions of responsibility have to be held to account.

I guess this is a sign of progress. I believe that acceptance of difference is one of the hallmarks of civilisation, and in many fields progress has been spectacular. Take gender as an example. 200 years ago women were not allowed to sing. 100 years ago they were not allowed to vote. 50 years ago they were excluded from all golf clubs.

There is still a way to go, even if Gray represents a diminishing minority. Women still have to defer to younger male siblings to become monarchs. In my opinion shamefully we still cannot have female Roman Catholic priests – a job unusually suitable for a woman if ever there was one. In India or China a female is quite likely to be aborted or killed at birth. And many other societies still institutionalise gender discrimination. Religion can be wonderful, but it can also block progress.

Although women often still get less for the same job as men, bringing women into the workforce has arguably been one of the great drivers of growth and progress since 1950, both through adding quantity and quality. Yet throughout my career I witnessed discrimination. Some jobs were considered too physical, or too requiring of odd hours, to be suitable for women, an opinion acted on without actually consulting any women. I often heard that customers in some parts of the world would not accept women. Later, the excuse that fewer females graduated in relevant areas was made. All these arguments had a self fulfilling and reinforcing effect, and needed to be challenged, just like Gray and his ilk.

That is where quotas and laws came in. Because of inbuilt prejudice, I support these. Some examples are just good, such as not being allowed to ask a 30 year-old woman about her family plans since men are not routinely asked the same. But, necessary as they are, there is a downside to quotas. Inevitably, quotas work against free competition and therefore sacrifice merit. I believe I have seen many more over-promoted women than men over the years. The result is bad for the business, bad for the women themselves, and bad for embedding prejudice. But often there is no alternative. That is what makes Gray’s remark so shameful, since the few female officials in professional soccer in the UK have come through a transparent merit-based system, at least in recent times.

While gender inequality persists, we can still celebrate progress. One clear outcome is stronger, more creative businesses and departments, more closely understanding their customer’s needs. As usual, the Nordics lead the way. Here, a key enabler has been the provision of truly excellent child care. That is one of those government investments which clearly pay back over time. In 30 years time, maybe Western countries will have achieved full equality. I hope so.

Back to sports, should women’s sport not generally command equal airtime and wages? Tennis leads the way, but in most sports women are very much the poor relations. On this one fair play to Sky, who do give airtime to women’s sports. The answer lies in what the customers want, and in my opinion fair enough, so long as it is given a fair chance to build a following. If men are so much more skilled or fast or exciting to watch in a particular sport, and audience figures support that, then they should command a premium. In that respect, female tennis has got away with a spectacularly good deal for a long time now.

But, just as we need quotas to overcome established prejudice in business, so we should have them in sports. Otherwise female sports face a vicious circle of underfunding, lack of improvement and low audiences. So, like golf seems to, give women a good run, a chance to develop a following. Staging a women’s match just before a men’s one, or a women’s tournament in parallel, is a good way forward. But, once the sport is established, the audience and the market should rule.

Gender is only one form of prejudice. We have prejudice based on age, religion, disability, race, schooling or background, sexual preference, you name it. Together, they represent perhaps the biggest block to human progress, as every bias counts against meritocratic outcomes.

Slowly, Western societies manage to go forward. When I was at school, we routinely bullied mixed race kids, and laughed at “Love thy neighbour”. Anyone doing something a bit dumb was labelled Spastic. My mum still has something against Catholics, even though she wouldn’t recognise one if she saw one and couldn’t describe any meaningful difference between Catholics and others. One of the worst parental fears remains that their child will announce themselves as gay. Yet combating homophobia has probably seen the greatest advance of all over the last ten years. It was only that long ago that I shrunk back when a gay man tried to hug me.

What more can we do? I believe this is one of those many areas where liberals should speak up more, celebrating progress and pointing to the benefits. “Politically correct” has become an easy insult, yet usually the people arguing against it are in fact defending some prejudice or other. Sometimes things are taken too far – for example, I found it weird that I wasn’t allowed to ask someone’s age at an interview. If politically correct means providing ladies toilets, or disabled access, or combating racism then I’m all in favour of it. If you are too, then join me in defending this progress.

Sorry Andy, your analysis is brilliant but you are way out of order, your time is up.