Alan Sugar’s views of women are, “dated” and belittling say critics

November 9, 2009 by Baby Chums
Filed under: News, Pregnancy

Lord Alan Sugar was criticized by the Trades Union Congress, (TUC) today after suggesting that women are more likely than men to discriminate against female employees.

Alan Sugar, the TV star of The Apprentice and successful businessman also hinted he would be reluctant to give a full-time job to a pregnant woman, further, suggesting, in a toy’s out of the pram moment, that because of negative press he may resign his position as the government’s enterprise “champion”.

What makes for good TV entertainment doesn’t fair well in the political world it would appear. Some Labour government figures found the way that Sugar treated female contestants on The Apprentice cause for complaint, ahead of his appointment by Gordon Brown.

In an interview at the weekend, Alan Sugar said the suggestion he did not employ women was “outrageous”.

“Women are the biggest offenders. Women know about women,”said Alan. “They think to themselves, she’s young, she’s attractive, she’s going to get a boyfriend, what’s going to happen. Women think about it more than men, in my opinion.”

When questioned if he would give a job to a woman who was pregnant, he told the interviewer: “Why would anyone give anybody a job knowing … unless it was a temporary job.”

The TUC’s head of equality and employment rights, Sarah Veale said: “It’s this kind of dated attitude that makes working life a real struggle for many women.”

Sugar has had second thoughts about accepting the Brown appointed post, in a rather wimpish quote saying: “Too much negative stuff is really unhelpful. I may decide that this is simply not worth it, when you are giving your time free of charge for no agenda,”

I’ll show you…I’ll fire myself?