It’s your problem, dads – you raised us this way
Idon’t mind Jeremy Clarkson. You’d be forgiven for writing him off as yet another middle-aged angry bore. After all, he has a deeply unappetising air of bellicose-andbloated-British-bloke chic, favoured by men of a certain age everywhere who have a strange affinity for wearing jeans with a belt.
But while most of the time his opinions don’t merit anything more than an eyeroll, every so often you get a peek of his more interesting side. Like when he writes something incredibly funny, or shows off his uncommonly snazzy taste in shoes.
He kinda reminds me of that laddish uncle who talks a big macho game but secretly cries in the Downton Abbey movie – boringly blokey, but with a curious tender streak.
So I couldn’t help but be fascinated by his Twitter stoush this week with his 25-year-old daughter Emily, who’s perhaps the most perfect example of a modern millennial gal there is. An opinionated, oversharing, funny-in-a-ballsy-way feminist who’s got no problems calling out her dad on Twitter.
Jeremy was getting his boxers in a twist over Greta Thunberg (who else these days gets the grumps going like Greta?).
He’d been huffing and puffing that Greta was a ‘‘spoilt brat’’, who was lecturing the grownups on climate change when she needed to ‘‘be a good girl, shut up and let them [the grownups] get on with it’’.
When Emily tweeted her support of Greta, Jeremy replied: ‘‘Wouldn’t it be nice if she learned some manners.’’ And Emily clapped back with: ‘‘A woman doesn’t need to be polite to make a point.’’ Burn!
Suffice to say Emily won that Twitter bout, and went on to sassily skewer numerous other haters. It was fascinating. Not because of Emily herself, who’s a very funny but very normal example of what happens when you cross a smart young woman with a talent for one-liners, but because of the situation that Jeremy Clarkson has found himself in.
See, he’s experiencing the problem facing a lot of fathers of millennial young women. I would know. I’m exactly the same age as his daughter and I can tell you first-hand that Jeremy’s facing the exact thing many of my friends’ dads are facing.
They’ve unconsciously raised feisty, feministy firebrand daughters. Yeek!
Honestly, though, it’d be hard not to. Not only because Jeremy’s not exactly a wallflower himself. But he’s also raised daughters in an era when girl power has never been more accepted.
Even if he’s not a feminist, he’s raised his daughters in an era where a lot of the generic ideology around raising children is generally feminist-y. Everything from our cereal boxes to Kmart accessories tell us that ‘‘girls can do anything’’ or ‘‘stand up for what you believe in’’ or ‘‘do what you love and just be you’’. And, like many people, he probably believes in these mantras of individual power and fulfilment without really thinking about them too much.
Like many dads, he seems proud of Emily’s general feisty spirit. In the same way my dad is proud of me when, despite the fact he never really consciously tried to ‘‘raise a strong woman’’, he still gets stoked when I do something ballsy.
[Clarkson’s] experiencing the problem facing a lot of fathers ... They’ve unconsciously raised feisty, feministy firebrand daughters.
Now combine that with the socially conscious sassy-chic of the millennial era, and you end up producing oversharing, outspoken young women like Emily Clarkson, who blogs on everything from pubic hair to feminism to IBS.
But the problem is that, while you and your millennial daughter may get on, as Jeremy and Emily seem to do, it’s not going to stop her calling you out. How could it? You raised us to stand up for what we believe in. Even to you.
And for Jeremy, and dads like him, that’s the rub.
When their daughters see the discrepancy between dads saying patronising things about outspoken young women (like telling Greta Thunberg to sit down and shut up), and compare that to the outspoken principles they’ve been raised on, they’ll call you out on your hypocrisy.
Daughters like Emily make dads like Jeremy consider the question of how they can hold two opposing ideologies in their heads.
So Jeremy is now facing the uncomfortable question of how he’s managed to proudly father his articulate, unapologetic daughter, and yet still can smack down other young women for being exactly that.