Because The Guardian Hates Men?
Hadley Freeman is a Laydeee.
Unlike those nasty people at the Daily Mail. That seems to be the gist of her article about the Samantha Brick affair anyway.
http://www.guardian.co.uk/commentisfree/2012/apr/04/samantha-brick-thrown-to-wolves
I don’t have much to say on the furore in general. It seemed like usual tabloid hype to me. I have a couple of comments about Freeman’s response though. The first relates to her use of the term ‘female writers’ and ‘female readers’. She says:
‘The Daily Mail uses its female writers in precisely the same way it uses its female readers and celebrities: frequently, centrally and, always, cruelly. Like an abusive husband, the Daily Mail courts women and needs women, but will always turn around and punch them in the face. Because the Daily Mail hates women.’
This reminds me of that uproar about misogyny online against poor, hapless, ‘female bloggers’. As a ‘female blogger’ myself, who has been the subject of quite a lot of hatred, and who was not supported by teh feminists, I don’t buy it. The use of the phrase ‘female blogger’ or ‘female writer’ by feminists is telling. Because when it suits them, they are very critical of sexist language. Men are seen as naturally occupying some roles such as doctor, writer, lawyer, so if we say ‘female doctor’ or ‘female lawyer’ we are pointing out the ‘unnaturalness’ of a woman doing a ‘man’s job’. So the feminists say. But when it comes to them pointing out ‘misogyny’ they are happy to use the ‘female’ prefix. I challenged Helen Lewis of the New Statesman about this, who has both criticised the use of ‘female lawyers’ as sexist, AND herself used the phrase ‘female bloggers’. She replied that the apparent contradiction is ok, because she was using ‘female bloggers’ to point out misogyny, not to reinforce gender inequality. Hmmm.
My second issue with Freeman’s piece, and the feminist reaction to the Brick affair in general, is how it is scattered with thinly-veiled misandry. Suzanne Moore, fellow Guardian journalist (though she does write for the Mail too) said:
Confused. Is this Brick woman transitioning?—
suzanne moore (@suzanne_moore) April 03, 2012
@Ultrabaz a man troll yes.—
suzanne moore (@suzanne_moore) April 03, 2012
So her big clever insult to Brick was that she may be a man? Moore has thrown that insult at me more than once too. Because I don’t behave how a ‘real woman’, a ‘laydee’ should?
As Mark Simpson has observed, misandry is the acceptable prejudice and so it goes by unnoticed and commented upon. But ‘misogyny’ is seized, analysed and condemned.
According to Freeman The Mail just hates women. Well if that is the case then maybe The Guardian hates men.
Hadley Freeman, the poor man’s Caitlin Moran.
haha true
Bugger me those twats at twatter have suspended my account again, how very dare they. Its looking as if I am going to be well sued also. Confession legal vultures I only get £67 a week Job Seekers.
why were you suspended?
@QRG: I wonder whether you’re missing the real trick Freeman’s trying to pull off here. Note this passage:
There was much talk a few months ago about how poorly represented women are in the media. As Kira Cochrane pointed out in her extensive piece on the matter, the Daily Mail comes closer than any other British paper in achieving parity of male and female bylines, yet this paper overturns the assumption that gender equality among writers is, in and of itself, the goal. The paper uses its female writers as Trojan horses to voice its most misogynistic attitudes,
Some of us – well, me at any rate – have repeatedly pointed out ‘below the line’ that (a) being female is not the same as being a feminist and (b) ‘more women’ does not equal ‘more feminism.’ The Guardian has been playing a ‘numbers game’ regarding feminism for a while now, even if one possible outcome – a Tory party that’s 50% female and 100% committed to the cuts in public spending – was always on the cards. If the Daily Mail wasn’t enough of a warning, then the fact that the Sun has had a female editor while the Guardian hasn’t would be proof enough that ideology matters more than biology. For Freeman to claim that the Mail ‘overturns’ the argument that 50% female representation equals ‘feminism’ is a sign that she – and others such as Women’s Page editor Jane Martinson – were too busy counting heads to think it through. Too bad: gender equality applies to organisations and groups feminists don’t like as well as to the ones they do (see also anti-abortion groups for starters).
And yet…the above quote suggests that these women are not to blame; that there’s some cackling male Svengali (let’s call him ‘Paul Dacre’) manipulating some poor helpless woman journalist (let’s call her, say, ‘Suzanne Moore’) from behind the magic curtain. Freeman even tries to make it as though it’s not Brick’s fault because life is tough for freelancers – well, the female ones at any rate – so writing this kind of stuff for the Mail is a way of earning a living. Think of it as the female/feminist ‘Nuremberg Defence’, aka ‘a girl’s gotta eat.’ Freeman can’t even begin to credit right-wing women with being right-wing or misogynist on their own account: there has to be some aspect of men, masculinity, ‘the patriarchy’ or whatever that gets them off the hook. Hence her concluding analogy: Like an abusive husband, the Daily Mail courts women and needs women, but will always turn around and punch them in the face. Because the Daily Mail hates women. – so the poor right-wing female journalist that gets paid to give other women a good kicking is the real victim here.
It’s not so much ‘the Guardian hates men’, but that rather it’s a paper some of whose female journalists really can’t credit women with the responsibility for messes of their own making (see also Moore’s [potentially transphobic?] tweets) when it’s easier to find a man to blame instead.
Hi rp – yep I did miss pretty well all of what you have pointed out.
except for the potential transphobia in Moore’s tweets. And I think there is a relationship between transphobia and misandry from feminists/feminism. But that is another harder discussion.
That is not the real Ron, merely a sad old queen in the EDL called Derek G Haslam, his details have been passed on to some Islamic gentlemen after his last outburst;)
“It’s not so much ‘the Guardian hates men’, but that rather it’s a paper some of whose female journalists really can’t credit women with the responsibility for messes of their own making”
Not just that. It’s part of the superiority complex of the Guardian journalists and readership – thinking they know how everything is, that men are the enemy etcetc. And it really sticks in their craw that many women don’t take the same set of barmy views.
Whenever I see someone reading the DM (admittedly an awful paper but heyho
it tends to be a woman. During my morning-coffee-and-read-of-the-Times I often see the same couple of women reading through the Mail.
A glance at the stats shows us that if 53% of the DMs readership is women, and circulation in 2011 was 2.1 million, then roughly 1.1 million women read it. Compare and contrast with the Grauns measley 279,000 TOTAL circulation. Guardianistas hate this fact and position themselves against the DM (and the BBC follows suit, in my view)
These facts show what this lady – and others in the Graun – are trying to do by attacking the DM – add the usual hysterical “hatred of women” rubbish and the piece is quite predictable
Compare and contrast with the Grauns measley 279,000 TOTAL circulation. Guardianistas hate this fact and position themselves against the DM (and the BBC follows suit, in my view)
I don’t think it’s about comparing circulation (The Sun outsells the Guardian and the Mail put together), it’s about ideology/world view – to the extent that ‘Daily Mail’ reader or ‘Guardian reader’ are recognisable social/political ‘types.’
hmm well I bet they think of each other in that way. I know I’m simplifying – and I do chuck the phrase “Guardian-reader” around a bit
The differences between the two papers are quite interesting – because it must tell us in the UK something about ourselves. There is the perceived xenophobia of the DM – abhorrent to many a right-thinking ‘progressive’*. And the sales of the DM must rankle to those who think they take the moral high ground. On the other hand the DM has regular apoplexy over some changes in society.
I’ve written a little something on this which may see the light of day soon.
*all these terms like leftist/progressive/liberal are all every bit as approximate and flawed as just saying Guardian reader – but there are, I think, similarities