Thursday 10 May 2012

FEMINISMS........

Just watched five mins of This Morning which don't have or make the time to do normally but first there was Penny Junor who was dissing Princess Diana for being a mother who was more like a big sister to her kids because she didn't have a good role model, and then there was Liz Jones from the Mail, who was dissing women for behaving less like mothers for having kids, and not focusing on their work.   I admit I enjoyed seeing the usually extremely placid Holly Willoughby wanting to lean over - especially with LJ - and punch her.  I know both girls got their words in the Daily Mail, a paper for women who have self esteem issues and subconsciously want to chip it away even more.   Having written for it in the past I know that's the case (the first about a bullying relationship in a marriage and the second about bullying relationships in the playground), so it's features are about bullying but they also manage to intimidate those reading them at the same time. About abuse for the abused, while abusing them.     Not sure if that is evil or commercial.

Junor has always been very pro Pro Charles and fortunately people know she's pro Charles. I expect despite all the media hype about trying to make him and Camilla more popular it still ain't working, so having a dig at Diana's ability as a mother is really a last ditch attempt to get rid of the ghost.  Shoddy one. Guarantee there will be articles on how fab and balanced and successful Camilla's brood have been. Point is, so have Diana's so far.  Which is more than you can say for the nannies who looked after Charles, Anne, Edward and Andrew.   (will I get beheaded for saying that??)

As for LJ saying she wouldn't employ women of child bearing age, I understand it's very frustrating for employers who invest time and money and then the woman goes off and gets pregnant and has a baby.   She says that happened to her a lot when she was an editor of a fashion magazine.

But in both cases it's women attacking women.   It shouldn't be that way.   I remember I interviewed the late Barbara Cartland for tv and radio long time ago. She told me women should never read the news as their voice lacked authority and they should be in the home looking after their man, although she managed to keep down a job as a prolific writer.   And there was another Barbara. Barbara Castle, who I interviewed at the anniversary of the suffragette movement.  She'd just written her autobiography and there were loads of women (few men) asking her to sign their copies.    I asked questions of her (for the Standard actually, part of the same group as the Mail) and at the end she thanked me, told me I was a very good interviewer.   "women in journalism lose their femininity, they feel they need to be tougher, harder, more ruthless than men. And they are more ruthless with their own sex than they are with the opposite. That is a mistake."  she said.  "Stay the way you are feminine.    Femininity is all about strength, real strength, not arrogance."  I thanked her. I wasn't going to get a book but I did.    She wrote in her book 'never let it be a man's world'.  That was over twenty six or so years ago now.    I think we're going backwards.   Come on girls, be good to one another.   Then the men will follow.

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