Thomas the Tank Engine is setting a poor example to children and needs more female engines to encourage girls to become train drivers, Labour's shadow transport secretary has said.
Mary Creagh described the lack of female train drivers in Britain as a "national scandal" and said that children's television shows and "negative stereotypes" are partly to blame.
All the main characters - Thomas, James, Edward, Henry, Gordon, Percy and even the Fat Controller - are male.
"There is a preponderance of men in the transport industry and I am very keen to unpack some of the myths that stop women from taking up what are often highly paid and highly skilled jobs."
Aslef, the train drivers union, is campaigning for more women and ethnic minority train drivers. Just 1,000 women, equivalent to about 4.2 per cent, of train drivers are women. Mike Whelan, the union'sgeneral secretary, said: "These figures show that there is plainly something wrong in this era of professed quality".
Mrs Creagh said that train companies need to offer female drivers more flexible working hours so they can care for their children. She said: "There are quite a lot of stereotypical attitudes in the industry. I was talking to one fright operator who said we think women don't like working night shifts.

This article is old af but it was trending on Twitter today. Read more at the source:
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/culture/t...r-MP-says.html

And?

stupid SJW's

That's just pathetic.

...

and how is a train driver a highly paid job?

Depends on the company and what you are moving the salaries can vary greatly. I know someone that makes 6 figures with OT. Another example is my business partners brother is a trucker, all he does is haul snow birds cars from the north to the south or west coast and back again and he makes 6 figures. It's just him and his rig. He is in his 40's and can retired in a few years.

It's a cartoon. Not even the super racist,offensive ones from fifty years ago. It's a TRAIN.

Working for TFL (transport for London) is a highly paid job.

This is true. I'm a woman and I want to be a train

Seems like an overreaction but I get where she's coming from. Girls are taught from an early age that some jobs are for men, and they're always the highly paid scientific/engineering/etc ones. It's part of the reason why there's still a pay gap.

Make young girls more comfortable with the idea of being involved and included in previously male dominated jobs and then you'll have more women going into those careers.

High demand with a good Union.

Piss off the train drivers and your countries transport grinds to a standstill. They've been extremely close to striking for a few weeks now and it's pretty big news as it'll screw over a lot of people.

Considering that truck driving is statistically one of the deadliest jobs in the country, that sounds more than fair.

Jay Jay would nevah

These kiddy trains and the controversy

This is sig-worthy tbh

StopTumblrBloggers2k15

People need to stop finding wrongs in everything. So annoying.