• Quick note - the problem with Youtube videos not embedding on the forum appears to have been fixed, thanks to ZiprHead. If you do still see problems let me know.

Split Thread Period dignity officer role scrapped after abuse over man's appointment

Matthew Best

Penultimate Amazing
Matthew Best
Joined
Jun 12, 2006
Messages
11,266
Location
Leicester Square, London
Last edited by a moderator:
If the post was needed, why has it been scrapped?

https://twitter.com/Scot_Feminists/status/1567129798652067841

It's quite annoying how this "abuse" word keeps being used in an attempt to shame women expressing their outrage. Women were furious. I didn't see any abuse, only repeated expressions of extreme annoyance, which were surely perfectly justified.

Even Martina Navratilova, who called the affair ":rule10 ridiculous" was talking about the fact of the appointment, not abusing the appointee.

But if you read down that thread the subtext of what was going on becomes clearer - whose gift the appointment was, and past form in that department.

Why would a man even want to apply for such a post in the first place? That's a huge red flag to me.

ETA: This article is interesting. https://www.scotsman.com/news/opini...or-scottish-public-life-susan-dalgety-3812144
 
Last edited:
It appears, through an evasive answer to a Freedom of Information request, that there was only one application for the post, which was advertised for "about five minutes" in the wrong section of the council's job adverts section.

One comment on Twitter:

The reason the jobs been axed is it was an invented role for the appointing officer's pet person, there were no other candidates nor were there intended to be. Its not actual anything to do with periods, that was just the available budget for a spot of nepotism.
Click to expand...


So much for "the job went to the strongest candidate".

They're annoyed their plan to hand a sinecure to a favoured person has been opposed, and have taken their revenge by abolishing the post entirely. Presumably to save the money so they can use it for another make-work appointment for the same bloke, I suspect. (There is an allegation circulating that the Tayside appointee is or was in a relationship with the person responsible for the appointment.)

Several other councils in Scotland have created and filled similar posts, appointing women, and nobody batted an eyelid.
 
Last edited:
Matthew Best said:
Period dignity officer role scrapped after abuse over man's appointment

"A group in Tayside has scrapped the role of period dignity officer after facing a backlash for appointing a man.

Jason Grant's hiring sparked a heated online debate, with critics saying the job should have gone to a woman."
Click to expand...

I don't think this belongs in this thread, but from the article:
The area's period dignity working group says the role will be discontinued following "threats and abuse" to those involved.

Mr Grant was appointed to work with the group to ensure the legal right to free period products in public places.​
I have some questions. The main one being, why shouldn't a man fill the role?

The reaction seems pretty sexist.
 
theprestige said:
I don't think this belongs in this thread, but from the article:
The area's period dignity working group says the role will be discontinued following "threats and abuse" to those involved.

Mr Grant was appointed to work with the group to ensure the legal right to free period products in public places.​
I have some questions. The main one being, why shouldn't a man fill the role?

The reaction seems pretty sexist.
Click to expand...


If you don't understand the reasons, I don't think there's much point in explaining. However, could you perhaps think about how embarrassed many women and (especially) girls would be to have to discuss menstruation with a man? We're quite shy about discussing it among ourselves, even.
 
Rolfe said:
If you don't understand the reasons, I don't think there's much point in explaining. However, could you perhaps think about how embarrassed many women and (especially) girls would be to have to discuss menstruation with a man? We're quite shy about discussing it among ourselves, even.
Click to expand...

I've asked the mods to split this off into its own thread.
 
Probably nobody would, because probably nobody would know.

Women are shy about talking about menstruation even to other women. Assuming there wouldn't be significant avoidance of engagement with a man appointed to this position is naive. The point has already been made to the council that this is an appointment that would properly fall under the single-sex exemptions in the Equality Act to be advertised as open to women only.

Other local councils seem to have managed to fill their equivalent posts, with women, with no pushback from anyone. One wonders if any men actually applied for these posts. As opposed to in Tayside, where it appears that the post was gifted as a sinecure to an especially favoured candidate who happened to be a man.

For a man to apply for such a post ought to be a big red flag. Maybe Jason doesn't have a menstruation fetish but we all know about men who have. (cough, cough -- Jonathan Yaniv -- cough, cough)

Can you imagine that JY wouldn't apply for such a post if he saw the advert? Can you imagine the results? Can you imagine that any normal man, without that sort of fetish, would want the position? Would you want to risk it?
 
Rolfe said:
If the post was needed, why has it been scrapped?

https://twitter.com/Scot_Feminists/status/1567129798652067841

It's quite annoying how this "abuse" word keeps being used in an attempt to shame women expressing their outrage. Women were furious. I didn't see any abuse, only repeated expressions of extreme annoyance, which were surely perfectly justified.

Even Martina Navratilova, who called the affair ":rule10 ridiculous" was talking about the fact of the appointment, not abusing the appointee.

But if you read down that thread the subtext of what was going on becomes clearer - whose gift the appointment was, and past form in that department.

Why would a man even want to apply for such a post in the first place? That's a huge red flag to me.
Click to expand...


Was it a man who menstruates, or one who doesn’t?
 
d4m10n said:
I'd be interested in hearing answers to this as well. Presumably no one would complain if the PDO was an amenorrhic woman.
Click to expand...

I think you could probably make a case that the person appointed should at least be somebody who has menstruated and experienced what it's like. The UK Equality Act 2010 does allow exceptions to discriminate on the basis of sex in some circumstances, although this might be a borderline case.

This also seems to have exposed some shady dealing in how people are appointed. I don't see any clear explanation as to why Grant was meant to be the best person for the job, and from what I understand he was thought to be he best candidate for several completely different jobs, all decided by the same person (I think from memory this is the case but I can't find the link now).
 
It was discussed on Twitter by people who were familiar with the circumstances. It appears that he was probably the only person who applied, because the post was advsrtised (only very briefly) in a place nobody would normally expect such a post to be advertised. The person who appointed him had appointed him to two other positions and is rumoured to be in a relationship with him.

The feeling among the Scottish Witches is that the post was seen as a sinecure to be awarded to the favoured person.
 
Elaedith said:
I think you could probably make a case that the person appointed should at least be somebody who has menstruated and experienced what it's like. The UK Equality Act 2010 does allow exceptions to discriminate on the basis of sex in some circumstances, although this might be a borderline case.

This also seems to have exposed some shady dealing in how people are appointed. I don't see any clear explanation as to why Grant was meant to be the best person for the job, and from what I understand he was thought to be he best candidate for several completely different jobs, all decided by the same person (I think from memory this is the case but I can't find the link now).
Click to expand...


It has already been opined that this post falls into the EA exemption category, which includes the need to preserve the dignity of women and girls.

I think asking a woman applicant if she had ever menstruated could be construed as offensive. Is it something that would even occur to anyone as a possibility under the circumstances?

It would probably also be offensive to ask a male applicant if he had a menstruation fetish. Although (nepotism and sinecures aside) I would imagine that only a man with such a fetish would apply for such a job. Better make it open to women only and avoid the possibility.
 
Rolfe said:
If you don't understand the reasons, I don't think there's much point in explaining. However, could you perhaps think about how embarrassed many women and (especially) girls would be to have to discuss menstruation with a man? We're quite shy about discussing it among ourselves, even.
Click to expand...

Maybe it's time to stop demonizing periods. But surely there doesn't need to be any intimate discussion of periods at all, "to work with the group to ensure the legal right to free period products in public places." And if such intimate discussions are necessary to advance the project, the women involved are going to have to make their case to men at some point.

If the argument still needs to be made, that free period products are necessary to ease the suffering of women, at some point the men in the community, who will be equally burdened to uphold the legal right, must be convinced to support it.

---

Honestly, Rolfe, I think your dismissal is a cop-out.

"Women need to be assured, in law, of freely available period products whenever they find themselves in a public facility."

"Really? Why?"

"It's a woman thing, you wouldn't understand."

"Try me."

"I can't, it's too embarrassing."

---

This goes back to my view of empathy and abstract reasoning in humans. Men and women are not different species. You are not a space alien, Rolfe. We cannot have public policy on the basis that half the community wouldn't understand, isn't owed an explanation, isn't entitled to review the demands, and must simply trust the other half of the community to get it right sight unseen.

If women are too embarrassed to make a case for basic health accommodations in public policy, because it involves uteruses, then maybe we should take another look at women's eligibility for full participation in society. Hyperbole? Maybe. But what else to make of this inability to discuss the subject frankly? Get over it. Or else find a woman who is over it, to be your spokesperson. Or find a man. If a man's willing to make the case you're too shy to make, why not hire him for that purpose?

---

Women are too shy to engage with men as equal partners in the community? This strikes me as on the same level as saying that PMS make it too hard for women to act professionally, or even do their jobs reliably, and one week a month we should just give them a pass in the workplace.

Or the canard that pregnancy hormones make women crazy, so crazy that they can't be held accountable for their behavior.

This is the can of worms your dismissal opens up. I'm ready to put the lid right back on it, but if you're too shy to discuss period accommodations in public policy, I'm not sure why I should.
 
Rolfe said:
If you don't understand the reasons, I don't think there's much point in explaining. However, could you perhaps think about how embarrassed many women and (especially) girls would be to have to discuss menstruation with a man? We're quite shy about discussing it among ourselves, even.
Click to expand...


As far as I can see discussing menstruation in that sort of situation wasn’t really part of the job, it was about getting the necessities available where they are needed.

From the linked story:
Mr Grant was appointed to work with the group to ensure the legal right to free period products in public places.

…

Mr Grant had been expected to lead a regional campaign across schools, colleges and wider communities to raise awareness of the new law and ensure that Scottish government funding is allocated appropriately.
His duties would also have included discussing issues around menopause.
Click to expand...


It doesn’t seem to be a role as a counsellor.
 
theprestige said:
Maybe it's time to stop demonizing periods. But surely there doesn't need to be any intimate discussion of periods at all, "to work with the group to ensure the legal right to free period products in public places." And if such intimate discussions are necessary to advance the project, the women involved are going to have to make their case to men at some point.

If the argument still needs to be made, that free period products are necessary to ease the suffering of women, at some point the men in the community, who will be equally burdened to uphold the legal right, must be convinced to support it.

---

Honestly, Rolfe, I think your dismissal is a cop-out.

"Women need to be assured, in law, of freely available period products whenever they find themselves in a public facility."

"Really? Why?"

"It's a woman thing, you wouldn't understand."

"Try me."

"I can't, it's too embarrassing."

---

This goes back to my view of empathy and abstract reasoning in humans. Men and women are not different species. You are not a space alien, Rolfe. We cannot have public policy on the basis that half the community wouldn't understand, isn't owed an explanation, isn't entitled to review the demands, and must simply trust the other half of the community to get it right sight unseen.

If women are too embarrassed to make a case for basic health accommodations in public policy, because it involves uteruses, then maybe we should take another look at women's eligibility for full participation in society. Hyperbole? Maybe. But what else to make of this inability to discuss the subject frankly? Get over it. Or else find a woman who is over it, to be your spokesperson. Or find a man. If a man's willing to make the case you're too shy to make, why not hire him for that purpose?

---

Women are too shy to engage with men as equal partners in the community? This strikes me as on the same level as saying that PMS make it too hard for women to act professionally, or even do their jobs reliably, and one week a month we should just give them a pass in the workplace.

Or the canard that pregnancy hormones make women crazy, so crazy that they can't be held accountable for their behavior.

This is the can of worms your dismissal opens up. I'm ready to put the lid right back on it, but if you're too shy to discuss period accommodations in public policy, I'm not sure why I should.
Click to expand...


Don't be ridiculous. Not every woman who may be required to enter into some engagement with this "officer" can be assumed to be "over it" as you so delicately put it. It's embarrassing. We don't want to talk to a man about it. It has nothing at all to do with PMS or pregnancy hormones, it's normal reserve.
 
Last edited:
Rolfe said:
Don't be ridiculous. Not every woman who may be required to enter into some engagement with this "officer" can be assumed to be "over it" as you so delicately put it.
Click to expand...
The role is to ensure the legal right to access. How much personal discussion of periods would be involved? Manufacturers of period products have both men and women involved in the manufacturing and distribution process. Pads, tampons, cups... All these are surely the subject of co-ed discussion in the factory, in the warehouse, and in the board room.

Grocery stores and the like that stock such products are doubtless venues for further co-ed conversations about them. How do you think purchasing and display decisions are made, about which brands and what varieties the shop will carry?

It's embarrassing. We don't want to talk to a man about it. It has nothing at all to do with PMS or pregnancy hormones, it's normal reserve.
Click to expand...
Can of worms it is, then.
 
Rolfe said:
You think he would never have to discuss menstruation with any woman? Really?
Click to expand...


On that sort of personal level, no.

Rolfe said:
Don't be ridiculous. Not every woman who may be required to enter into some engagement with this "officer" can be assumed to be "over it" as you so delicately put it. It's embarrassing. We don't want to talk to a man about it. It has nothing at all to do with PMS or pregnancy hormones, it's normal reserve.
Click to expand...


The job isn’t about personally handing out the products, it’s about making sure that they are available to be handed out.
 
Mojo said:
The job isn’t about personally handing out the products, it’s about making sure that they are available to be handed out.
Click to expand...

According to the article, the job is about making sure there is a legal requirement to make them available. That seems like less of a job for an expert menstruator, and more of a job for an expert in accessibility law. Perhaps some technical discussion of periods would be necessary, to make the case for their recognition in accessibility law. But that would be more of a medical, statistical discussion. Published articles detailing the health and medicine aspects of the issue, the demographics of the groups that will benefit, and some sociological analysis perhaps of why the community will be better off for doing this.

Perhaps if there are women who want to add their personal stories to the effort, they can be invited to volunteer for an awareness campaign based on their anecdotes.

Meanwhile the group's legal expert could remain blissfully agnostic about individual experiences of menses among the group's women.
 
So men and women should be treated as equals, with equal opportunities for appointments and employment... err, except when one side gets is nose out of joint.
 
Practically accusing this guy of having a period fetish is a bit much, don't you think?

My experience with girls and their periods is that they are all too eager to discuss them. Crikey, the girls at work quite happily launch into a blow by blow account.

In this day and age, there is no reason why a man could not perform this role.
 
I have not thought about this for very long (yet) but I don't see good reasons to require a female for this role. This is from the job description:

• Coordinating an approach to Period Dignity across Tayside which will include advising on good practice, identifying partnership opportunities and regional delivery
• Project planning and engaging project members and participants
• Creating and developing clear lines of communication between the educational institutions and Local Authorities (project team)
• Ensuring coherence and complementarity of all activity
• Monitoring and evaluation of the activity across the region
• Maintaining compliance with the Period Products (Free Provision) Scotland Act
Click to expand...

In particular, I don't see any focus on "period counselling" with individuals. It does say the work would be located over Angus, Tayside and Perth, in different environments including outreach and community based so that may be a part of the role.

In that case, I think it would be more appropriate if the environment for that kind of outreach was designated a female-only setting, which would rule out a man fulfilling that part of the role. It seems blindingly obvious to me that significant numbers of women are not about to respond to any outreach along those lines unless they are promised interaction with a female, meaning that the outreach would fall flat on its face in respect of assisting who it seeks to assist.

Having said the above, obviously significant swathes of female sexual and reproductive health are serviced by male professionals without issue.
 
Rolfe said:
I would imagine that only a man with such a [menstruation] fetish would apply for such a job.
Click to expand...
One could utter an analagous suspicion/charge against any male who wanted to be an obstetrician or a gynaecologist. But it demonstrably is not the case.
 
Francesca R said:
Having said the above, obviously significant swathes of female sexual and reproductive health are serviced by male professionals without issue.
Click to expand...


Actually, this could be the topic for another thread. It's not one I'm personally acquainted with, not having required sexual or reproductive health facilities myself. (I'm not including breast screening here, which obviously I have experienced, because that has always been delivered by a female-only team, with great consideration, and a big notice on the door reading "LADIES ONLY PAST THIS POINT".)

However, reading accounts from other women, I'm gradually realising that women have been failed by many male professionals in many ways, for decades. In the days when most medical graduates were male, women had no choice but to accept a male gynaecologist or obstetrician, a male doctor doing cervical smears, a male doctor inserting IUDs and so on.

The litany of horrors is shocking. Women being subjected to acutely painful procedures with no pain relief or sedation. Women being treated like carcasses. Women being regarded as sex objects by the professionals supposed to be caring for them. (Actually that last has happened to me, in hospital no less.)

There was one case, which went to court, of a surgeon who routinely removed women's ovaries during pelvic surgery, for no clinical reason, as in "she won't be needing these any more", throwing the women concerned into immediate acute menopause.

We've been conditioned to accept male doctors providing intimate care, and we've been encouraged to regard them as disinterested professionals who will do their best for us and know what they're doing. It is becoming increasingly clear that this has not always been the case. So maybe it's not surprising that women are getting increasingly pro-active about requesting a female gynaecologist (though even there, being trained by men of the old school seems to desensitise a proportion of them) and looking for female-only services as regards intimate counselling and feminine issues.
 
Francesca R said:
One could utter an analagous suspicion/charge against any male who wanted to be an obstetrician or a gynaecologist. But it demonstrably is not the case.
Click to expand...


Well, I did say "nepotism and sinecures aside", because that's what seems to have been going on with the Tayside post.

And as regards this "demonstrably not being the case" for male obstetricians and gynaecologists, see my previous post. Obviously not all of them, but there are many extremely disturbing stories out there. (Not necessarily menstrual fetishism as such, but an unhealthy attitude to women's bodies and women's suffering.)

Also, there's a world of difference between a trained doctor specialising in gynaecology, and Joe Bloggs, administrator and paper-pusher, deciding he wants to be the key go-to person in delivering menstrual products (and raising awareness of menopausal issues) to women.
 
Last edited:
I would sort of agree that there's no great reason to exclude men from the consideration, but I can't see how that justifies this instance, in which only one person was considered in the first place. I can see the possibility that, among a group of candidates, a man might be found to have better qualifications for the various duties involved, but it seems pretty clear that the setup in this case was corrupt and lacking equal opportunity.
 
bruto said:
I would sort of agree that there's no great reason to exclude men from the consideration, but I can't see how that justifies this instance, in which only one person was considered in the first place. I can see the possibility that, among a group of candidates, a man might be found to have better qualifications for the various duties involved, but it seems pretty clear that the setup in this case was corrupt and lacking equal opportunity.
Click to expand...


This.
 
bruto said:
I can't see how that justifies this instance, in which only one person was considered in the first place. [ . . . ] it seems pretty clear that the setup in this case was corrupt and lacking equal opportunity.
Click to expand...
Yes this part ought to go into the "Rotten Boroughs" column of Private Eye among other things.
 
Rolfe said:
Actually, this could be the topic for another thread. It's not one I'm personally acquainted with, not having required sexual or reproductive health facilities myself. (I'm not including breast screening here, which obviously I have experienced, because that has always been delivered by a female-only team, with great consideration, and a big notice on the door reading "LADIES ONLY PAST THIS POINT".)
Click to expand...
Actually I have only been seen by women also (surprised if you have never had cervical screening). But I have long been prepared for the possibility of a male nurse/doctor and I am pretty sure I would be fine with it. I don't like the idea of very extensive degrees of sex segregation in intimate health care that much. It should be a requestable option though.
 
Francesca R said:
Actually I have only been seen by women also (surprised if you have never had cervical screening). But I have long been prepared for the possibility of a male nurse/doctor and I am pretty sure I would be fine with it. I don't like the idea of very extensive degrees of sex segregation in intimate health care that much. It should be a requestable option though.
Click to expand...

Shows how varied people can be. My mother intensely dislikes any kind of er more intimate type of medical examination by a woman. And I know this is still the case in her 80s as I often have to act as her voice (long story cancer - medical mistakes - laryngectomee) so have had to request a different person, as discreetly as possible to conduct one such examination in just the past 2 years.

As you say it should always be a requestable option - either way.
 
There was a Freedom of Information request, and the way the information was refused certainly implied that.
 
bruto said:
I would sort of agree that there's no great reason to exclude men from the consideration, but I can't see how that justifies this instance, in which only one person was considered in the first place. I can see the possibility that, among a group of candidates, a man might be found to have better qualifications for the various duties involved, but it seems pretty clear that the setup in this case was corrupt and lacking equal opportunity.
Click to expand...

The problems with this particular instance seem to have nothing to do with the fact that the accepted candidate was male instead of female.
 
theprestige said:
....
Mr Grant was appointed to work with the group to ensure the legal right to free period products in public places.[/indent]I have some questions. The main one being, why shouldn't a man fill the role?
...
Click to expand...


From the links and comments, it sounds like the issue is how the job was created and how the apparently unqualified applicant was selected from a pool of one. I can't imagine it would be much of a problem if a male lawyer who was known as a consumers' rights advocate or a male ob/gyn was selected from a reasonable range of applicants.
 
Bob001 said:
From the links and comments, it sounds like the issue is how the job was created and how the apparently unqualified applicant was selected from a pool of one. I can't imagine it would be much of a problem if a male lawyer who was known as a consumers' rights advocate or a male ob/gyn was selected from a reasonable range of applicants.
Click to expand...

There are problems with this particular position other than the sex of the candidate, but nevertheless, from the article:

"Jason Grant's hiring sparked a heated online debate, with critics saying the job should have gone to a woman."

And from the link in that sentence, we get this article:

https://www.bbc.com/news/uk-scotland-tayside-central-62563165

With the following quotes:
SNP MP Ian Blackford said a woman would be better for the role.

He told Sky News: "I think it's important that we get the policy right, I think it's important that we implement it and I would have thought, as a principle, it would be far better that women are in these posts than anyone else."

"It's a policy that we should all be proud of. At the end of the day, I think there should be a priority of having women in place in these posts."​
And from the original article:
But tennis legend Martina Navratilova described the decision to appoint a man as "absurd", while actress Frances Barber said she was "fuming".​

The obviously nepotic and corrupt nature of this particular position are well-understood, and well-addressed here and elsewhere,. I'm interested in the objections raised on account of the candidate's sex.

Presumably if the position were otherwise completely legitimate, MP Blackford, Ms Navratilova, et al would still object on the grounds of the candidate's sex. My question is, would that be a valid objection? I don't think so.

I also find it interesting that we have before us two BBC stories about this controversy, and both of them ignore the corrupt nature of the position in favor of talking about pretty much any other aspect. It's like they're doing everything but their job, in reporting this story.
 
theprestige said:
t's like they're doing everything but their job, in reporting this story.
Click to expand...
What? The sex of the candidate is the interest in this story. More than the issue of local authority corruption which is not of sufficient interest or uniqueness to make BBC news IMO.
 
Francesca R said:
What? The sex of the candidate is the interest in this story. More than the issue of local authority corruption which is not of sufficient interest or uniqueness to make BBC news IMO.
Click to expand...

And of which we only have some hearsay at the moment.
 
You must log in or register to reply here.

Back
Top Bottom