On a Gender Bender

It’s a funny thing, nature. It deprived the Labour MP, Miss Chi Onwurah, of sense but has given her the power of speech. And bless me, Miss Onwurah speaks. Like a shark that must keep moving or perish, Miss Onwurah must keep talking. There is no subject Miss Unwurah does not hold an opinion on, and which she is not moved to share with an unreceptive world. She has spoken with sorrow about unemployment, with anger about rising prices, with fury about energy companies, with passion about cyber security, with dismay about spending cuts and with ire about the government. Recently, she rose up in the Commons to deliver yet another yawn-inducing speech. She accused “big business” of pursuing “aggressive gender segregation”: by marketing pink coloured toys. Pink toys, Miss Onwurah declaimed, warming to her theme, are responsible for “holding girls back in life” and deterring them from pursuing careers in science and engineering. Which may explain why Victoria Beckham isn’t an astrophysicist. Miss Onwurah’s fellow Leftie, Professor Mary Beard, ventures further. She says that to be regarded seriously, women must first “un-gender themselves”. “Even Elizabeth I was turned into an androgyne”, Professor Beard said, adding thoughtfully, “In a sense you could say the same about me.” No, you couldn’t. Miss Beard looks exactly what she is; a curmudgeonly old bat with a mouthful of dodgy teeth, unkempt skin, hair like a barn yard and in urgent need of a more supportive brassiere. has given her unfettered access to his e-mail account. “I think,” Miss Blanchett mused, “in the end a really important component of a good marriage is honesty.” So do I. As in “I did not have sexual relations with that woman, Monica Lewinsky.”