It’s not sexist to joke about Diane Abbott
Widdecombe
THE row over David Davis saying that he did not kiss Diane Abbott because he isn’t blind is ludicrous. A professor of politics and gender at Bristol University wails on LBC radio that the remarks were sexist.
Yet if a woman had said she wouldn’t kiss a man for the same reason would that have been sexist? Of course not.
All week people have been making rude remarks about the Speaker’s height, or rather lack of it. Nobody calls that sexist. Nor does the professor complain when others remark on Ken Clarke’s roly-polyness or William Hague’s lack of hair.
Apparently it is only sexist when such remarks are aimed at women. Well, Professor, let me tell you what sexism really is. It is when a woman is forced into a marriage she doesn’t want, when she has her genitals mutilated as a child, when she is aborted just because she is a girl, when she is forced against her will to cover herself from head to toe and look at the world through a slit in the garment. It is sexism to refuse a woman a job she is capable of doing just because she is a woman or to refuse her finance for the same reason.
It may be a trifle illmannered but it is not sexist to comment on a woman’s appearance, especially in a private exchange of texts. In the 1970s women’s libbers wanted us to be equal to the guys, able to compete on a level playing field. That great vision has now been reduced to the portrayal of women as poor, feeble creatures who need protecting from any old waspish comment.
Emmeline Pankhurst would have had a fit. DAVID CAMERON complains there was cat hair everywhere at Number Ten. Was there not also a Hoover? REGAL: Kate oozes effortless style JUSTICE should be even handed and any defendant should have a full opportunity to prove their innocence. Already that does not apply in cases of alleged rape or sexual assault where complainants give evidence behind screens and are given anonymity while the accused is named and vilified before trial and indeed THE Duchess of Cambridge looked brilliant at the Baftas. By contrast all those bare-all dresses favoured by Sophie Turner and Nicole Kidman just looked cheap and trashy.
NOT ALL WHO ACCUSE OTHERS OF ABUSE ARE TELLING THE TRUTH
sometimes before being charged. Now the same wretched principle is to be applied to cases of alleged domestic violence. The Justice Secretary says it is “humiliating and appalling” that victims of domestic abuse can be interrogated by their abusers in court.
Yes, minister, but not all who allege abuse are telling the truth and for those falsely accused one more method of defence has now been lost. It is humiliating and appalling for those innocent souls alleged to have done the unspeakable. But don’t worry about them, minister. They are probably only men after all. Why should they have any rights in the brave new world you are building? THE head of Castle View School in Essex has decided that pupils who behave well can leave school 10 minutes early as an incentive to behave and concentrate in lessons. Instead of applauding the innovation, parents are predictably whingeing and whining.
One says she struggles to get to the school on time anyway. In that case she should re-organise her life because it is her parental duty to fit in with school hours, not for the school to fit in with hers. Another says it means that she might have to pick up one child and then wait a whole 10 minutes for the next to emerge. Yes and she should use the opportunity to do fun things with the child who has behaved well so that the other one has an incentive to do better. Some parents need standing in the corner with a dunce’s hat on.