Ah, what a week; anyone would think all those half-wits who are writing sexist  ‘news’ do it so not to disappoint us because, you know, we’d be really sad to have nothing write about. Really, they’re just making women look like desperate, bitchy, whiny, chip-gobbling, career-having, baby-dissing, undignified liabilities for our benefit. It’s not real news. Sigh. It is with regret, dear readers, that we hereby proffer yet another Week in Sexist News.

 

10) Woman avoids spinsterhood  

 

Thank GOD the wait is over for Kim Sears. The Daily Mail accompanied this news with a lovely picture of Kim’s elated face, no doubt the way she looked when Andy finally ‘lobbed’ the question and she realised all those years trying to land him hadn’t been wasted, phew! Anyway we can all relax now we know she’s not going to be left on the shelf like a bashed tin of baked beans in ‘Home Bargains,’ and enjoy the next 9 years of the Mail journos excitedly drooling over pictures of her abdomen.

 

9) Ladies, Kate has spoken.

Kate Silverton is the latest high profile female with working ovaries to be hauled in as the voice of all women. ‘I don’t think we got it right’ says Kate….. The Independent failed to explain who didn’t get what right but, needless to say, it’s a good enough quote to base a whole article on warning those foolish career driven women, with their DWINDLING FERTILITY, in pursuit of ‘having it all’ that they ought to get up the duff as soon as possible.

 

8) Blonde who landed a job purely on her cold-calling skills has left said job

In a story which reads more like a divorce settlement exposé, the Daily Mail delight in telling us that Miss Green, a woman who eats diamonds for breakfast and crushes ball sacks with her yoga loving thighs, has left her position as Chief Exec, with £8 million. However, with no information at all regarding the hair colour, eating habits or exercise regime of her replacement, Peter Fanhauser, and no clue as to how sexy he looks in an LBD, I’m at a loss as to how we’re possibly supposed to judge who is better suited to the position.

 

 7) The Chip Shop Rejection Diet

Following the confusing premise of their ‘No Diet Diet,’ The Sun’s Diet Club is now promoting a more straightforward ‘Chip Shop Rejection’ Diet. This handily slots in after the Summer Diet, the Back to School Diet and the Are You Thin Enough to be a Sexy Halloween Witch Diet, but before the Flab-Free Festive Diet and the It’s Minus Ten Outside January Diet. Perplexingly, ‘Chip Shop Rejection’ appears on the Woman section, betwixt recipes for chocolate mousse and orange zest pie (whatever the fuck that is).

It’s almost as if….as if The Sun wants us to be so pulled apart by cake yearnings and chip shop shame that we’re too hungry and confused to smash the patriarchy, or take up the dark arts and hex the shit out of Rupert Murdoch.

 

6) Romance is Dead

Question: why is the Daily Mail surprised that ‘men are more turned on by a history documentary than a kissing scene in Titanic?’ What kind of research study is this? Imagine the methodology:

Which is more likely to give you a lob-on: 1) a Norman helmet, or 2) the death, at sea, of 1,517 men, women and children? It’s just sick, Daily Mail.

Also, if I may add; documentaries have come on leaps and bounds, and are often too exciting – in fact, at the back end of 2005, Flora’s brother had to write a letter of complaint to the BBC in light of the flashy camera shots and loud music that accompanied their Neanderthal special.  ‘Why must the camera shake about so much when neolithic man is chasing a deer?’ he queried, ‘it’s like watching an angry wasp – through cheap binoculars – whilst on horseback. I was so dizzy and confused I had to lie on a beanbag in the dark for half an hour.’ Speaking as a woman, I can say with absolute certainty that DiCaprio, gormless in damp trousers on a gangway, could not induce this level of wooziness.

 

5) Boob Embargo

The Sun, who are ever at pains to make sure that boobs somehow make it into the news, have this week reported on Katie Price’s 7th boob job. They were uncharacteristically coy about this story pictorially, as if tits were in fact new to them, despite having printed somewhere in the region of 11,000 pairs of breasts in the last 44 years for no reason whatsoever (unless inducing a semi on the bus is a salient editorial reason of course). They bizarrely report that her boobs are ‘covered in a T-shirt’ – we presume they mean she was dressed – and show pictures featuring no nipples AT ALL. What about OUR RIGHTS DAVID DINSMORE!!! Is the RIGHT to see breasts with our Cocopops/Crumpets/Wah-wah berry smoothies (delete as appropriate) of a morning in danger of being infringed?? Frankly, at Tights we are baffled; ordinarily, The Sun, like an over excited puppy that wants to hump everything, will print tits and arses (sometimes independent of their owners) with scant link to any story whatsoever, but they pass up the chance to show actual breasts in a story that’s actually about breasts.

 

 4) Let’s Talk About SEX

‘Excellent! Just what I need,’ I thought, rubbing my hands together excitedly, ‘97% of my most embarrassing moments have occurred during sex and finally, FINALLY, the Daily Mail are going to reassure me by answering my filthiest questions.’ Alas, dear readers, this Femail article appears to have been ripped from the pages of Jackie magazine, circa 1989. ‘If he wakes up with an erection, has he been dreaming of sex?’ is one of the downright disgusting queries broached in his hotbed of journalistic filth; ‘can you get pregnant from oral sex?’

It has been my long held belief that, despite the butter-wouldn’t-melt-middle-England-send-em-back veneer, Mail readers are, in fact, despicable sleazebags between the sheets. I imagine them at it with servants, sacks of Jersey Royals, Queen Anne writing desks, those posh chickens with the fluffy legs. This article is not fooling anyone you PERVS.

 

3) The Mail Sex Ed Continues…

The Sex Education theme continued over at the Mail on Wednesday, as resident right-wing troll, Sarah Vine, posed yet more crucial questions. In an article in which she dubbed Jack Monroe ‘cruel’ and ‘heartless’ (yes, really, coming from a woman who married a Tory MP) she gallantly spoke on behalf of readers ‘wondering how, as a lesbian, she got pregnant in the first place.’

‘This is awkward,’ I thought. Perhaps husband Michael, most famous for his annihilation of our education system, ought to re-think his stance on SRE after all.  If that’s not enough to make you cough up your cornflakes, just imagine, IMAGINE going for a dinner party chez Vine/Gove….

 

2) Put it away, Ladies!

 

Ladies! Where’s your DIGNITY??? Daily Mail crone Annabel Cole is begging you to stop squatting on the floor whilst performing pseudo RnB-pop crossover hits. She’s BEGGING you to take heed, particularly as those debauched festive karaoke sessions loom sluttishly on the horizon. This is CRUCIAL if you happen to have birthed offspring OR if you are middle-aged (note – what IS middle age? Surely, we can only calculate middle age when we die?) Anyway, to avoid the perilous fashion quagmire of slag vs dowdy, why not just stay indoors this December and cook lots of delicious food for your useless husband and spoilt children, like the women in the Asda Christmas adverts? You never see their vaginas on MTV, do you?

 

1) Women should worship Page 3 because reasons

In a piece that purports to further body confidence, Emily Clarkson (self-proclaimed feminist and daughter of professional guff-monger Jeremy) manages to insult virtually everyone except Page 3 models, men who love Page 3 and Adele. Apparently, the nuclear levels of stinky, toxic, body anxiety that women endure is all our own fault because we’re bitchy and shallow, and men don’t care about whether capes are ‘in’ because they are sensible and don’t buy Vogue. Last time I checked dudes LOVED capes – I think I’m right in gleaning that Batman is fairly popular amongst fellas, regardless of their Vogue buying status. So, really, we should be asking your average dude about capes, not Anna Wintour.

Anyhow, Emily implores us to see reason by suggesting that a woman ‘…could perform a miracle, but you can absolutely guarantee there’ll be someone somewhere with something nasty to say about her thighs.’ Yes, probably in The Sun, for money, or The Mail, or The Star, or The Sport, or Heat Magazine, or Closer, or Neo-Liberal Sexist Toss Weekly… it’s funny, anyone’d think there’s money in making women feel like shit! Ha, if that were true people like Rupert Murdoch would be loaded. Oh.

Ultimately though, I’m loath to have a go at her since, in all fairness, Ms Clarkson does want everyone to have a big body positivity love-in, it’s just a shame she’s gone about it in the way her father might approach a seminar on racial harmony. One can only hope she’ll realise that she doesn’t have to follow in the footsteps of that denim-clad bag of wind, and has a rebellion of some kind. Maybe she could join the Green Party, live in a caravan and campaign to make hybrid cars mandatory?

 

 

Well, that’s it for this week beloved readers; we’re off to await the delivery of a skip – a fitting start to a weekend packed with excitement. See you next Friday!