Veteran news reader Michael Buerk has complained that women are becoming more powerful in the workplace – reducing men to little more than sperm donors.
Men gauged themselves in terms of their career, but macho jobs such as mining and manufacturing had disappeared, he said in a Radio Times interview.
“All [men] are is sperm donors, and most women aren’t going to want an unemployable sperm donor loafing around and making the house look untidy.”
Buerk, who reads the news on BBC World, was a foreign correspondent for 20 years before becoming a main anchor for the BBC’s flagship Nine O’Clock News.
Almost all the big jobs in broadcasting were held by women, he said. Social changes were being felt in other industries too, he added.
Most middle management jobs were held by women – something which had “changed the nature of almost every aspect of the workplace”.
Men were becoming more like women because male traits such as reticence, stoicism and single-mindedness had been marginalised, said Buerk.
Sign up to our weekly round-up of HR news and guidance
Receive the Personnel Today Direct e-newsletter every Wednesday
“What we have now are lots of jobs that require people skills and multi-tasking – which women are a lot better at.”
Buerk said many changes had been for the better, but even male sports stars were becoming more feminine. “Look at the men who are held up as sporting icons – David Beckham and, God forbid, Tim Henman.”
