And another thing...

Sir Stuart Rose, Chairman of Mark's and Spencer, reckons the glass ceiling no longer exists and women have never had it better. He says

"Women can get to the top of any single job that they want to in the UK. You've got a woman fighter pilot who went in to join the Red Arrows yesterday. I mean, what else do you want to do, for God's sake? Women astronauts. Women miners. Women dentists. Women doctors. Women managing directors. What is it you haven't got?"

I think Sir Rose is missing the point entirely. The fact that a woman pilot making it into the Red Arrows is even newsworthy - the fact that it still spawns such 'hilarious' comments as the below, plucked from the Daily Mail:

Stanby for the first crash involving the Red Arrows for years. I'll give her six months.
- Stan Still, UK, 12/5/2009 20:42

After all the money that has been invested in her she had better not get preggers!
- G Brown, Manchester UK, 12/5/2009 22:40

The fact that an article on the same website quotes a recent study shows that the pay gap between the genders is as strong as it always has been - these are all reasons why gender equality is still a goal we need to fight for. From the TUC study:

Women earn up to 60% less than men in the finance sector, an Equality and Human Rights Commission report says.

The research indicates that although numbers of men and women in the sector are equal, the pay gap is more than twice the national average.

The study also points to a 79% gender gap for annual incentive pay for full-time workers.

Seventy per cent of men in the financial sector as a whole earned more than £29,400 in 2007/8, while 70% of women earned less than £29,500.

Yes, that sounds like we've got it all, doesn't it? Sir Rose is in the priveliged position of a man at the top of his game, who will never know how it feels to be paid less because he lacks a penis, who will never know how it feels to be rejected for a promotion because he has had a child, who will never know what it's like to be blamed for taking maternity leave he's legally entitled to...

Isn't it easy to throw stones when you're sitting in an ivory tower?

The Daily Mail - the new Sun?

For a conservative newspaper which frequently runs articles condemning Paris Hilton and her ilk for 'flashing the flesh', the Mail sure does like to illustrate its pages with semi-nude ladies. Take today's Mail Online, which gifts us with a veritable cornucopia of ladies in a state of semi undress. The list includes perennial Mail favourite Kelly Brook. The article features the following gem.

The producers have revealed porn star Riley Steele will also be joining the cast as a stripper named Crystal, who meets a bloody end....The actress, who appeared in Naked Aces 5, also revealed that Kelly had shown a strong interest in her pornographic background.

It must be very difficult to write an article with your hands in your trousers.

Then there's this article, in which the Mail salivates over Paris Hilton in a bandage. Sorry, swimsuit. The porn theme continues:

The camera-loving 28-year-old, who famously starred in 2004 sex tape 1 Night In Paris...

Although they're quick to remind us that Paris has 'no discernible talent'. That's okay, then. But enough of this, there's perving to be done!

Mel B is the next piece of meat on the rack. The Mail marvels over her 'killer abs'. We're also helpfully informed that

'She has the perfect female form, great curves, boobs, a bum - all the assets of a sexy, healthy woman.'

- just in case you weren't aware of the standards you should be judging your women by.

Not enough flesh for you? Well how about Katie Price. Look at how awful and thin she looks! No, really, look! The Mail simultaneously bemoans her 'concave stomach' and 'visible ribcage' whilst plastering pictorial evidence of this awful development just in case you didn't quite twig on from the headline and opening paragraph.


The point at hand is that the Mail likes to distinguish itself from 'lesser tabloids' by presenting 'scantily clad lady' stories as a sort of what not to wear warning story. And yet it will also smother these stories with as many bikini shots as they can. Case in point: Miley Cyrus A story about a 16 year old being criticised for her weight (which, given that she's teeny tiny, is a ridiculous non-story anyway) punctuated with salacious shots of said barely-legal teen in a bikini. Lots of them. To quote a wise Feminazi:

How can the Mail promote the idea of hanging paedophiles from the nearest tree and yet continue to publish such intrusive and inappropriate pictures of young children? How can the Mail bemoan the sexualisation of young teenaged girls whilst simultaneously objectifying pictures of teenaged girls in swimwear?

LIZ HURLEY LOOKS FIFTEEN YEARS OLDER THAN SHE DID FIFTEEN YEARS AGO: Exclusive!

What better way to kick-start this blog than with this glorious non-story? Liz Hurley dares to leave her house looking "haggard and wrinkled". How awful! Surely her career is over! Except...wait a second...where are those wrinkles?

I've studied the accompanying photo (well, okay, I've glanced at it once or twice. Once. For about ten seconds) and honestly, I think the Fail may have been having a slow news day, because I can't for the life of me find the wrinkles. Nor can I see the sagging. The Fail wax lyrical about the picture. From the way they describe it, you'd think she had toes growing out of her eyebrows.

Whether the unflattering picture was merely due to the harsh glare of an unforgiving camera flashbulb we may never know. Or perhaps the chilly London night air had momentarily taken away her ageless glow.

Her 'ageless glow'! Quite an accolade. Of course, Liz Hurley is not immortal, and therefore ages like a human being, thus her 'ageless glow' is simply a construct dreamed up by the Daily Fail (probably after perusing their impossible list of attributes for the Perfect Woman) to justify the article.

What is for sure is that Miss Hurley did not look as fresh-faced as she did at her public debut on Hugh Grant's arm for the 1994 London premiere of his film Four Weddings and a Funeral.

I wonder how much of this is attributable to her being 43?

This very real image of Miss Hurley's imperfections is not helped by the fact that many pictures we have seen of her in recent years have been altered with airbrushing to make her complexion bright and flawless and lips a lot fuller.

You can just see the Fail writers sniggering into their prawn sandwiches as they write this. "This way" they say, "The article looks like a 'down with the Ordinary Woman' article rather than a juvenile and pointless attack on a woman who Dared To Age"


Surprisingly, the comments section is without much of the aimless vitriol it usually contains. I think these people have been directed to the wrong website:

Oh! a girlie can never win! if she has too much botox that's wrong, a face lift that"s wrong, a natually aging skin that's wrong. give a girlie a break. If you have nothing kind to say don't speak, didn't your Mother tell you that!

- Rachel Buck, Cape Town. South Africa

Rachel, at this point, you might as well try to drink the ocean with a spoon.

THE MORNING AFTER PILL IS ABORTION

According to the Fail, which also thinks women shouldn't have sex over Christmas (or at all, unless it is with their husbands, and solely for procreation!)

From the article:

But critics claim the service's scheme to hand out emergency contraception 'gift kits' will fuel promiscuity and the spread of sexually-transmitted infections

The Fail has this terrible fear of 'promiscuity' - that is, women having sex for fun! Women, to quote a particularly wise Femi, are 'supposed to keep [their] legs shut (while giving the appearance of being sexually available without looking slutty of course)' Of course, men are allowed to have sex for fun. That's just being a lad! But women who have sex with multiple partners are loose and dirty and sinful.

The real star of this post, however, is Lisa from Derby, who let loose with this gem:

"This advert will make children copulate even more. I don't think anything will stop children getting pregnant unless the Government take away the housing and benefits from children and their parents, clean up television totally and music totally. We should go back to when Mary Whitehouse was around. We should have programmes like Morecambe and Wise, which were clean and we should get rid of foulmouths like Jonathan Ross who encourages disgusting behaviour."

I am just speechless.

Misogynist Article Of The Week

Christina Aguilera in normal-sized breasts shocker

The Fail alleges that Christina's cleavage looks 'shrunken'. Well, they would be. You see, when women have babies, their breasts fill with milk. This is so they may feed their babies. With their breasts. You mean you didn't know that....?

Image Challenge

Just found out that b3ta.com have an excellent image challenge going on right now - the theme is 'Daily Mail'. Click here for the lulz.

Blatant racism "not racist", Mail readers insist

I am, of course, referring to this article: the completely and utterly racist request made by BBC radio host Sam Mason not to have an Asian driver as it might, and I quote, 'freak her daughter out'.

Says Mason: "A guy with a turban is going to freak her out. She's not used to Asians"

Not used to Asians, eh? Yeah, those funny dark chaps with their silly cloth hats "freak me out" too. I mean, what part of that cannot be construed as racism? The very fact that Ms Mason apparently hasn't bothered to educate her daughter (who, at 14, is certainly old enough not to be 'freaked out' by someone of a different ethnicity) that Asian people are actually exactly the same as the rest of us 'non-coloureds' (and, you know, don't carry machine guns under their turbans) is disturbing enough.

Mason said: 'I work at the BBC. I'm far from racist and that uneducated woman has no right to call me one

This is coming from a woman whose daughter is 'not used to Asians'. Uneducated? Please.

Again, the comments on the website are the most hilarious/worrying part of this article.

What right have the BBC to sack her? As long as she is not being racist in carrying out her daily tasks there should be no issue. Or is it now an offence to have a view that is contrary to the PC view that is constantly being preached to us?

- Gavin, London

No, but it is offensive to demand a nice white driver because your precious daughter is too ignorant to deal with the ethnicity of someone she has to sit in a car with for twenty minutes.

When you telephone for a taxi you enter into a contract. You are paying for a service and why shouldn't you ask for what you want?

- carolfarrell, worcester

I bet when carolfarrell orders a takeaway, she specifically asks for a curry which hasn't been touched by a dirty foreigner.

I hope she sues the Taxi company for recording her call without her permission.
Typical of the PC BBC. Sack anyone for daring to say what they want if it goes against Political Correctness.
What a country Britain has become.

- steve lee, whitley bay, geordieland

Pssh, tell me about it. Only the other day, I found out I wasn't allowed to call my neighbour a nig-nog anymore. I mean, PC madness or what?!

If the request was considered "racist" then I must also be a racist. When dealing with B.T.'s Indian call centres, I always requested to speak to an English speaking person in the U.K. Racist? No! I just could not understand the Indian accent, to such an extent that I misunderstood that I would be charged for an engineer's visit to my home! Charge came to £216 (£99 + VAT call-out charge and £85 + VAT for diagnosis of fault)

- Richard McCann, Liverpool,

I wonder if he's ever complained about being re-routed to a Scottish call centre, or one in Liverpool, where people also speak in those pesky accents. In fact, let's stop employing people with accents Mr McCann doesn't understand, just so he won't have to pay attention to his phone calls.

One commenter, not content with vast swathes of "little Englander" style racism, even manages to get a nice chunky wedge of misogyny in there:

Does this mean that I can no longer request a tall blonde leggy taxi driver (oh and female)?

- Phil Bailey, Shrewsbury UK

No. It's nothing to do with political correctness, though. It's just because you're a twat.