News came to us on Wednesday, via the Daily Mail (yes, sorry), of an interesting twist in the saga of Ukrainian reform.
According to the report, the countryâs new prime minister, Mykola Azarov, made a strategic decision when appointed to form an all-male cabinet because, as the quote dating back to March 19 went:
âconducting reform is not womenâs businessâ
Which, as well as being sexist, seems to have been a clear slur against his predecessor, the enigmatic and very much female Yulia Tymoshenko.
And it gets weirder still. According to the Mail report, Azarov associates womankind with some sort of disabling and degenerative spirit, at least when it comes to politics:
He also ordered an Orthodox priest to exorcise the spirit of his female predecessor, Orange Revolution princess Yulia Tymoshenko, from his office. âIt was very hard to breathe in there,â he said.
The females of Ukraine, meanwhile, havenât taken too kindly to such talk. A group going by the moniker âFemenâ has called for the wives and girlfriends of cabinet ministers to initiate an Aristophanes-style sex ban in protest.
As Russia Todayâs website reported, Femens members were particularly concerned about where such attitudes might lead policy down the line:
The organization believes that, taking into consideration earlier words of President Yanukovich that womenâs place is in the kitchen and not in politics, the stance of the new Ukrainian authorities displays a dangerous tendency.
âThe Femen movement stresses that people who have such an archaic attitude towards women â who constitute more than a half of the countryâs population â have no right to hold senior roles in the country,â the organization said.
The âmanâ business Azarov had in mind, meanwhile, was probably this (via Reuters):
KIEV, March 23 (Reuters) â Ukrainian Prime Minister Mykola Azarov on Tuesday raised the possibility that his government might seek a new programme with the International Monetary Fund to replace its suspended bailout programme.
âEither (we) continue the existing programme or we work out a new large programme ⦠in order to embark on necessary reforms for the country,â Azarov told a visiting high-level U.S. delegation.
So that would be a larger IMF programme to help the countryâs reforms â because, as ever, size is the obvious solution to every problem. Ahem.
http://ftalphaville.ft.com/blog/2010/03/24/185811/no-sex-please-weve-got-an-imf-loan-to-rearrange/
Ha,ha, ha...ROFL !.
According to the report, the countryâs new prime minister, Mykola Azarov, made a strategic decision when appointed to form an all-male cabinet because, as the quote dating back to March 19 went:
âconducting reform is not womenâs businessâ
Which, as well as being sexist, seems to have been a clear slur against his predecessor, the enigmatic and very much female Yulia Tymoshenko.
And it gets weirder still. According to the Mail report, Azarov associates womankind with some sort of disabling and degenerative spirit, at least when it comes to politics:
He also ordered an Orthodox priest to exorcise the spirit of his female predecessor, Orange Revolution princess Yulia Tymoshenko, from his office. âIt was very hard to breathe in there,â he said.
The females of Ukraine, meanwhile, havenât taken too kindly to such talk. A group going by the moniker âFemenâ has called for the wives and girlfriends of cabinet ministers to initiate an Aristophanes-style sex ban in protest.
As Russia Todayâs website reported, Femens members were particularly concerned about where such attitudes might lead policy down the line:
The organization believes that, taking into consideration earlier words of President Yanukovich that womenâs place is in the kitchen and not in politics, the stance of the new Ukrainian authorities displays a dangerous tendency.
âThe Femen movement stresses that people who have such an archaic attitude towards women â who constitute more than a half of the countryâs population â have no right to hold senior roles in the country,â the organization said.
The âmanâ business Azarov had in mind, meanwhile, was probably this (via Reuters):
KIEV, March 23 (Reuters) â Ukrainian Prime Minister Mykola Azarov on Tuesday raised the possibility that his government might seek a new programme with the International Monetary Fund to replace its suspended bailout programme.
âEither (we) continue the existing programme or we work out a new large programme ⦠in order to embark on necessary reforms for the country,â Azarov told a visiting high-level U.S. delegation.
So that would be a larger IMF programme to help the countryâs reforms â because, as ever, size is the obvious solution to every problem. Ahem.
http://ftalphaville.ft.com/blog/2010/03/24/185811/no-sex-please-weve-got-an-imf-loan-to-rearrange/
Ha,ha, ha...ROFL !.
