Friday, you’ve not come a day too soon. And yet, with your end of week joy comes the knowledge that much of our media is idiotic, crass and sexist. We’re not against crassness per se; Flora and I enjoy a bawdy joke as much as the next louche harpy, but the sheer volume of brain swill that these jokers, sorry, journos, spaff up so regularly certainly takes its toll on our collective psyche.

Without further ennui or ado we proffer The Week in Sexist news…

10) Spin(ster)ing Around

Oh, Kylie. The body that launched a million furtive, bottom-obsessed wanks, the owner of the gleaming smile that says ‘these shorts are giving me thrush.’ And here, writ large, is her sad indictment on twenty-first century masculinity. Reflecting that her past boyfriends were ‘too good-looking,’ (read fickle and self regarding) she wants you to know that if you’re bald and with a paunch, you’re in with a shout, which is exactly what George Clooney said to all us ladies when he was still a lonely spinster looking for lasting love… oh hang on…

A cynic could speculate that Express readers might be men who are bald and with a paunch, or that this news turd is thinner than Frank Bough’s combover. We couldn’t possibly comment. But when you have to be introduced to tabloid readers as the person behind ‘I Should Be So Lucky,’ romance is the last of your worries.

9) She’s got legs and knows how to use them etc.

Look, everyone. It’s a slightly bored woman with a leg. And another woman, smiling sheepishly, like someone who’s just noticed an ardent admirer’s budding stiffy. Both are featured in this Star story (copied from the Mail*) arguably the saddest words ever typed, about a Chinese restaurant that gave discounts to women in short skirts. Star man Ian Proctor points out that you get ‘a whopping 30% discount’ for showing 13 inches of flesh, neglecting to say what happens if you get Your Actual Badger out. Arrested, quite possibly, and charged with outraging public decency, which is funny, because that’s pretty much what Proctor and the rest of his abysmal excuse for a ‘newspaper’ should possibly reflect on.

*Do any of these people ‘research’ their own stuff anymore or is ‘journalism’ just dolefully eating itself?

8) Strict shoe rule opens up a Cannes of worms (sorry, really sorry)

Apparently no one is bigger than an event’s dress code. Something a few film-buff revellers discovered when they dared to flaunt Black Tie rules and wear… dun dun duuuh FLAT SHOES to Cannes film festival. Urgh gross. How were bystanders not violently ill at the lack of glamour? Who wants to be in the presence of lumbering HAGS in Crocs when they’re at some kind of swankathon? Would put me right off my vol-au-vents.

Luckily, the Daily Mail enlisted etiquette ‘expert’ William Hanson to patronise the living shit out of all of us mere mortals who find stilettos a trial for anything but lying down in. Hanson, who is basically a wooden spoon with a face drawn on, shares advice about heel wearing, and he speaks from experience, since in a bid to save all shuffling, slouching, tottering women folk from themselves, he donned a pair of godawful court shoes to teach us a thing or two. And we really have learned from William. We have learned that he’s a bit of a cock.

7) Floral Pants

I once got so cross at the thought of pandering to the idea that women need to look decorative in lingerie above all else, that I cut the gusset out of a thong with a pair of nail scissors in front of my then boyfriend. Thus rendering what had been pants (however negligibly) to essentially a hairband. It was a powerful and symbolic metaphor for um… anyway I ruined a perfectly good pair of kickers, and left a man bewildered, but moving swiftly on.

I used to think the pinnacle of idiotic knickers were those bits of string from Agent Provocateur, (which surely provoke more mirth than lust) but the ante has been upped in the woman as talking knicker-bearer stakes. The Sun has thankfully alerted us to the fact that one can now spend the best part of a month’s rent on sexy-drawers made from actual flowers – flowers that will die leaving you with wilty pants. Yes. We know. We don’t understand why anyone would want to wear geraniums on their fanny either.

6) PROOF that women can wear trousers

Ah, feminist broadsheet the Daily Mail; fighting inequality and uniting the sisterhood one crap pair of WHITE jeans at a time. Even women over the age of 22 can rock these babies, as long as they wear a knee length cardigan to conceal their massive arse and stay indoors mostly. You too can live the Liz Hurley dream. #YesAnyWomen

5) The dark side of GCSE Biology

Thank goodness The Sun is on hand with this ‘exclusive’ report, outlining the dangers of sex education. You see, just a slight grasp of the basics of biology can transform a run-of-the-mill public schoolgirl into an insatiable rampant shag BEAST. It’s probably best for everyone if girls aren’t taught about their reproductive organs and, instead, photos of topless teenagers with massive knockers appear in the paper every day for forty years. That’s a far safer way to teach kids about women’s bodies, innit?

4) Another ‘Gove effect’

In this engrossing Femail article, Resident Handmaiden of the Patriarchy, Sarah Vine, suggests that loads of women simply go off sex after the age of forty, admitting that she rarely experiences the heady fizz of amorous inclination herself. Many women of this vintage feel self-conscious of their disgusting, terrifying bodies and just don’t want to put out, you know.

NB: I’m not mentioning Michael Gove, I’m not mentioning Michael Gove, the low sex drive is 100% gender and age specific; it’s nothing whatsoever to do with being married to Michael Gove AT ALL no way.

3) A Masterful Minge

Where, ladies, would our pathetic minges be without regular and reliable tabloid instruction re. anti-aging, strengthening, tightening, lasering, waxing and trimming? Honestly, I think mine would’ve fallen off. Who knew there was such upkeep involved? I always thought a vagina was essentially a nice warm boiler cupboard that needed very little servicing but, like keeping horses or growing asparagus, a surprising amount of maintenance is required.

Just last year, for example, a man at a party – who introduced himself as a tantric sex wizard – told me that my vagina needs to meditate. Fancy! I’ve been dragging a depressed minge around for DECADES without booking it in for any crystal healing or past life regression whatsoever.

And now, the Daily Star are saying my vagina is numb and under-functioning, and should be operating power tools and putting shelves up and playing sodding boules.

There’s no wonder it needs to meditate.

2) Weather presenter presents weather: installment DCCVII

 

On Monday, the Express ran an article about Carol Kirkwood’s outfit.

On Tuesday, the Express ran an article about Carol Kirkwood’s outfit.

On Wednesday, the Express produced this article about Carol Kirkwood’s outfit.

I’m not sure what they published for the rest of the week, because I threw my laptop in a ditch.

1) A rape by any other name…

So this is a bit of non-funny one. Not that sexism in itself is ever soil-yourself hilarious, but we do our best to point out the funny side, lest we all give ourselves concussion slamming our heads on our desks.

Anyway, a piece in that news organ of all things politically equal, The Sun, which should be laudably exposing the abuse of a very young girl, is titled ‘Old man paid me £2 for sex.’ This of course should have read, ‘Old man raped me because I was a child and, therefore, he was a paedophile and rapist.’ The words potentially being a direct quote makes no difference, anyone interviewing her, be it police, care workers or journalists should have pointed out that this was unequivocally rape. A child, by law, cannot consent, and so this salacious framing intended to pique the interests of thigh-rubbers everywhere just fuels a culture of girls and women as walking fuck-toys. That they are currently running a campaign to oppose the cuts to and closures of shelters for abused women and children is only ever going to be undermined by their insistence on belittling the experiences of women; just as Coppafeel was undermined by its association with Page 3. This writer would love to think that these campaigns are the work of Sun employees with hearts but, sadly, the cognitive dissonance of the rest of their toxic output is deafening.

So, here’s a thought Rupert, you  money-guzzling, cowardly, morally bankrupt, hypocritical arse-biscuit, why not really help women by not contributing inordinately to the perpetuation of a culture of misogyny? Oh gosh, that a bit tricky? Lummy, if you did that, you might have to also look at your racism, classism, homophobia, transphobia, Islamophobia, ableism and fat-shaming… can’t have that can we? What the fuck would you write about then? Phone hacking?

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So here endeth The Week in Sexist News … This was just the tip of a particularly large iceberg, an iceberg comprised mainly of frozen sewage but, due to climate change, is a bit melty around the edges and thus quite stinky – we imagine the smell to be like that of one of Rupert Murdoch’s many dark and festering crevices. On that note we’re off to drink coffee and synchronously menstruate. Much love to you all, we’re all going to need it. Iris and Flora x

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