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    1. Life
    2. Money and Work

    Male academic says women are 'biologically unfit' to operate at senior levels of business

    Outrageous comments made during a parliamentary business committee

    By Marie Claire
    Published 13 November 2012 In Features

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    Outrageous comments made during a parliamentary business committee

    An academic claimed that women are 'biologically unfit' to operate at senior levels of business during a parliamentary business committee.

    At the inquiry, set up to report on women in the workplace, Steve Moxon said 'damn right there is a difference between the sexes', going on to say that 'there is no surprise that women have difficulty in the work place, not only do they have difficulty but they don’t want to be there in the first place!'

    Arguing that women who worked in boardrooms were 'not typical women'. He said: 'Presumably the whole point of having women in boardrooms is to bring some womanly qualities' and that a 10:1 male to female ratio at the top level of business was based on scientific differences.

    The ludicrous claims carried on, with Moxon adding it was 'difficult to explain why women would want to climb the hierarchy', suggesting women only wanted to do it to put themselves in the path of high status men.

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    He also said the gender pay gap should be larger than it is, and that sex equality legislation should be called 'sex inequality'.

    'In order to have a life as a man, you have to display and gain the status, this does not apply to women at all.

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    'Underemployment for men should be considered a far more serious situation than underemployment for women', he added.

    Moxon was speaking to MPs alongside Mike Buchanan from Campaign for Merit in Business, sociologist Dr Catherine Hakim and Heather McGregor, director at Taylor Bennett.

    Author of book 'The Woman Racket', which explains these claims in greater length, Moxon was also a local election candidate for UKIP before being dropped for praising Norwegian mass-murderer Anders Breivik’s account of political correctness in Europe.

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    A UKIP spokesman told news site Londonlovesbusiness.com that Moxon was 'completely barmy' and that they no longer have any connection to him.

    However, Conservative MP and business committee member Robin Walker said Moxon would have been chosen in order to represent 'a wide range of views', before adding: 'He was definitely on the extreme end and he didn’t come across as very reasonable at all.'

    What do you think of Moxon's statements? Let us know in the comments below.

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