Little Miss Look-at-me is anything but a victim
OH NO, is she still here? Say what you like about lawyer Charlotte Proudman, but you have to admit she is making the most of her 15 minutes of fame. The 27- year-old who accused a senior lawyer of linkedIn sexism has been busy, busy, busy.
She has been on television, enjoyed uncritical interviews in various news programmes and magazines, written a selfserving article dutifully published in The Guardian and seems generally pleased with the situation to date. What next? Desert Island Discs, Celebrity Bake Off and mudwrestling for charity with Amal Clooney? Nothing would surprise.
And as she complains about yes, yawn, receiving death threats on Twitter, note that Charlotte’s cannonball trajectory through the media has followed the usual trope. Who, me? Why me? look at me. Since revealing on Twitter that lawyer Alexander Carter-Silk made inappropriate comments about her appearance, she has presented herself as equal parts heroine and victim, something only Joan of Arc has successfully pulled off in the past.
In many ways, I have no argument with what she initially did. A young woman should be able to post an advert — for that is essentially what it is — about herself and her credentials on a business networking site without having to suffer the unwanted attentions of men commenting on her appearance.
And Mr Carter-Silk has been punished harshly for his moment of politely worded, timid madness. Miss Proudman ticked him off, and made the exchange public on Twitter, presumably to show everyone what an excellent feminist she is. Result: he has been humiliated and she has been vindicated. Yes?
Not quite. Because she has become a victim, of course.
‘ This morning,’ she writes: ‘I opened my email account to find another death threat. The sender said they knew where I live and work. They said they would be waiting. Within two months they would cut off my head and place it in a plastic bag, and my head would be their prize possession.’
Oh Charlotte, come off it. like any regular user of the site, she must know that death threats and rape threats are certainly a repellent component of Twitter. And they are far worse than anything her erstwhile admirer ever did. Yet has there ever been a case of someone actually carrying out any of these menacings? No.
However, this does not stop women l i ke her f rom grandstanding, portraying themselves as heroic martyrs who are being demonised by evil forces — instead of being outspoken women who have attracted the pale attentions of the green ink brigade before they move onto the next outrage. Yes, in the Doing the rounds: Charlotte Proudman on Newsnight and Channel 4 News this week make-believe of cyberspace, the malcontents and malignant forces that patrol the shadows are revolting, but common sense suggests that their threats are not sincere or authentic — so why pretend that they are?
As ever, all this indicates is that this argument is less about sexism and more about narcissism — the centrifugal force that keeps the me-generation spinning.
ReAl ki l l ers do not announce their intent. Your actual psychopath is not going to broadcast his next move on Twitter but it suits the self-regard of folk heroines like Charlotte to pretend that they just might.
With her public shaming of an over-enthusiastic flatterer, Charlotte Proudman put it out there on the internet, presumably to invite comment. When not all of those comments were flattering, should she be surprised?
She regards critical judgment by others as ‘ demonisation’ and her angst at her Twitter detractors is awesome to behold.
Yet the nature of the microblogging site is no secret. If you cover yourself in honey and climb into a sewer, don’t expect any sympathy if you come out covered in cockroaches.
And if you don’t want to be judged on your looks, why include a terribly flattering photograph of yourself in the first place. What does it matter what you look like? Why bother?
except here is the thing that everyone knows — and even Charlotte Proudman knows deep in her heart, too. It does matter. Fortune favours the pretty. That’s why she put it there in the first place.