They brought up the subject. I didn't.

But the recent stand-off between the Honourable Prime Minister and the honourable leader of SWWTU (and so much else) Michael Annisette, about who treats women worse in their professional life, has forced me to revisit the ever-present subject of gender disparity at work and in political and social interactions generally.

And when I read Reggie Dumas's thesis on emancipation and reparations this week, which was so rational that I could not help wishing we could clone him and put a Reggie in every government board and institution, I could not stop conjoining the two.

The first two gentlemen aforementioned, both exemplars of patriarchal control and dominance in their various organisations, do not admit a lot of variance or emancipation by their followers from their views and direction.

They stay in their positions because their followers perceive them as strong leaders and vote them into office. There are consequences to opposing strong leaders.

Unlike most business managers, who are appointed or promoted on the strength of their qualifications, performance and experience, political and trade union leaders have to be voted in, and, as in all voting exercises, there is a strong flavour of showbiz involved.

Hence the music trucks and sectional different coloured T-shirts and the 'jumping to the rhythm' of the marchers in last Friday's carefully engineered protest march. It was well done.

When it looked like only a few would march in protest against the four per cent increase for public-sector employees who were kept on with full pay when the rest of the country got by on "no pay, no work," they brought in protests against food prices, fuel costs, retrenchment in the energy industry and all the rest.

There is always something legitimately worthy of protesting over, especially poverty and oppression of other people.

There was no section protesting against the unjust war in the Ukraine, however - an opportunity missed, since the consequences of that war are beginning to show themselves in rising supply-chain limitations and costs affecting the procurement availability of some essential medical supplies…

The Scottish poet Robert Burns, in a poem addressed to a flea he had noticed on the collar of a lady sitting in front of him in church, commented: "O wad some Power the giftie gie us/To see oursels as ithers see us!"

Seeing ourselves as others see us, however, may be as difficult as scratching the middle of your back with your left elbow.

Everyone brings to bear upon matters in conflict his or her own culture, background, knowledge and expectations.

In management exercises on diversity and the potential of different people for promotion to positions of leadership, professionals were often asked to first define typical characteristics of women and then of men.

Later in the day they were asked to list 20 qualities they thought typical of people suitable for positions of leadership. The latter were: strength, stamina, leadership control, projection of authori