Virtue signalling

Unless you’ve been living inside a shoe (more on that in the next item) you can’t have missed the controversy around the US Open women’s tennis final, won by Naomi Osaka (more on her later) but dominated by the furore around Serena Williams’ behaviour and subsequent reaction to her outburst. Depending on what side of the net you’re standing on — and it’s hard to find neutral ground here — Williams is either petulant, badly-behaved, selfish (pick your own adjective) or she’s a victim of sexism because her temper tantrum was penalised differently to men in similar situations. She later said in her press conference she was fighting for women’s rights. Naturally, this has come back to bite her in the backside with critics reminding us that in 2013 she commented on a high profile rape case where she blamed the victim for being drunk and even raised the question of the woman’s sexual history (“maybe she wasn’t a virgin, but she shouldn’t have put herself in that position”). She later apologised. Others have pointed to an awful comedy skit she made a few years back when she donned a superhero cape to play a game against an Amelie Mauresmo character, played by a man. It ended with Williams hitting a grenade into her rival and, well, killing her (him). Definitely not funny. And definitely not part of any fight for women’s rights.