Boris Keep Your Promise!

We all know rape is a feminazi issue. As we may not all know, good old BoJo is reneging on his election promise to provide Londoners with anything approaching appropriate sex crime victim support - so much so, in fact, that we are now at risk of losing the capital's only remaining Rape Crisis Centre. Please help save it! To this end, any and all promotion of the campaign and its coming fundraiser (09/06, details also available on the campaign homepage) is greatly needed and appreciated.

The Motherhood Penalty

As any seasoned Mail-Watcher will doubtless be aware, being a mother and having a career are completely incompatible (unless, of course, you are a Terrible Person and don't care about your children, who will run amok while you selfishly indulge yourself by going to work and earning money. They will, of course, go on to have nine children by the time they're thirteen, forcing Broken Britain to hurtle towards hell in a handcart - (c) Richard Littlejohn - but that's a different article altogether)

So what of those women who do opt to work? It's no secret that there is still a pretty sizeable pay gap separating men and women in big business - the metaphorical 'glass ceiling'. Given that society is supposed to have moved on since the glorious 1950's, the days of Tupperware parties and depressed housewives on Valium, you'd think that this would be widely considered a Bad Thing.

Not so, squawks Penny Vincenzi, who covers all her bases in her opening paragraph by setting a scene filled with highly successful women who manage to juggle business and family (all of Vincenzi's successful woman friends are married, of course) But, herein lies the twist - they were successful BEFORE pesky equality legislation PC-ified our over-feminised society. Quoth Vincenzi:

Smiling sweetly at me over her glass of wine, she then added: 'All the whingeing that went on from women because they said they were being discriminated against, I just didn't get it. The truth was simply that they weren't good enough.'

Now, if you'll excuse my French, this is patently bollocks, and it's convenient for Vincenzi to paint her little social group as a microcosm of working women from 1970 onwards. HER friends were already successful, and that means that ALL women can be successful if only they'd really put their backs into it. Never mind that years of evidence can show that women have consistently been overlooked in the workplace - all the evidence Vincenzi needs is sat around a table quaffing wine. It's a woman's fault if she takes time off to give birth and finds herself replaced when she gets back. It's a woman's fault if she is sexually harrassed - she shouldn't have worn a miniskirt (god forbid we should have the freedom to choose what we wear, and if a miniskirt is acceptable within a company's dress code, then why on earth should a woman be penalised for wearing one?)

Then she lets loose with this gem:

very few women are actually comfortable working 12-hour days while their children are very small. Most of us go for a softer option - but that's not because we face male oppression, it's because we want to be home for bathtime.

Mhm. This is where Vincenzi stumbles over the straggly tail of her own logic. She hasn't asked the key question - where are the men in this scenario? Why aren't the men bathing the kids? Why aren't the men taking time off work to look after the babies they had a 50% stake in creating? Why are women singly shouldering the burden of childcare, and, more to the point, why are we being blamed for doing so when we are doing it out of sheer necessity?

This article is essentially a poorly veiled variation of the Fail's standard 'working women vs mothers', in which women are once again levelled the ultimatum: be childless and miserable, fly high in the boardroom (but ultimately remain unfulfilled) or be a good little woman, stay at home and don't strain your feeble woman's mind about matters that don't concern your gender.

And on that note, back to work, where I can work at being as good at my job as I can be (but still, not quite as good as a man)

The One With The Killer Heels

If you have the time, take a look at these links:

http://www.dailymail.co.uk/tvshowbiz/article-1179068/Kim-Kardashian-puts-best-foot-forward-pair-snake-print-killer-heels.html

http://www.dailymail.co.uk/tvshowbiz/article-1078991/Sarah-Jessica-Parker-puts-best-foot-forward-killer-gold-heels.html

http://www.dailymail.co.uk/tvshowbiz/article-1056632/Lily-Allen-turns-heads-ANOTHER-pair-killer-heels.html

http://www.dailymail.co.uk/tvshowbiz/article-1061507/Tiny-Kylie-steps-killer-heels-indulges-spot-retail-therapy-Paris-style.html

http://www.dailymail.co.uk/tvshowbiz/article-1054360/Girls-Aloud-star-Nadine-Coyle-puts-best-foot-forward-steepling-inch-heels.html

http://www.dailymail.co.uk/tvshowbiz/article-1158886/Statuesque-Charlize-Theron-stalks-red-carpet--inch-spiked-heels.html

http://www.dailymail.co.uk/tvshowbiz/article-558033/Well-heeled-Gwyneth-Paltrow-steps-kinky-stilettos.html

http://www.dailymail.co.uk/femail/article-1016541/Gwyneth-puts-best-foot-forward.html

http://www.dailymail.co.uk/tvshowbiz/article-565110/Gwyneth-Paltrow-test-drives-ANOTHER-pair-super-high-heels--cobblestone-street.html

http://www.dailymail.co.uk/tvshowbiz/article-1016564/Ah--thats-better-At-Gwyneth-finally-puts-flat-shoes.html

The Gwyneth Paltrow ones are especially riveting. They did a whole series on her, Gwyneth's footwear every day for a fortnight.

I could make the point that the Fail obviously has a vested interest in keeping women in footwear that is painful, dangerous and limits movement and capability.

I could mention how they can't seem to keep to one editorial stance, veering as they do between glamourisation of heels (even when the tone is sarcastic, like in Paltrow's later articles), condemnation of "ugly" or "orthapaedic" flats and scary scary articles in the health section about how high heels ruined some poor woman's back and/or life.

If I were more of a wag I'd explore the possibility that someone at the Male has one hell of a foot fetish (Look at the number of close-ups! They're feet, for crying out loud! Clad in shoes! It's not unusual!).

As it is, out of all these observations and more, I wanted to make this one simple point: if anyone passing by here is any doubt as to why feminism is relevant in the 21st Century, it's because women are still being judged, every day, on the smallest, most inconsequential decisions in a way that men never have and never will be.

The Evolution of The Ministry of Truth

Evolution! Black people! The horror!

Actually, to be fair to the DM, the article on the recreation of an early human skull from assorted fragments is not bad. It's basically lifted from the Radio Times, and the programme itself seems rather interesting. The fun starts in the comments. An individual from Amsterdam is currently top-rated* with this gem:

"It seems to me that this result was not modelled on actual human remains. But rather on the image the Ministry of Truth has on what a modern European OUGHT to look like"

That's right. You're being brainwashed by the Ministry of Truth, undoubtedly a nu-LIARbore device into making you think like one of those lentil-eating feminist anti-racist types. And if you don't think you're being brainwashed, then it just goes to show how well the brainwashing has worked!

Anyway. Right. Layscience has more commentary on the sheer faily failness of the fail in the comments, but I have sumarised them as follows;

• Evolution is a lie. Everybody knows that finches just change the shape of their beaks or something.
• The Aryan Race can't be decended from someone who is (oh the horror) not white.
• The Bible!!1!eleventy

However, and feel free to disagree, the Prize for Shoe-Horning goes to a David Harrison from Sunderland, with this gem (thanks go to Fingerless Gloves for the Prize, which I believe is this here... well, I don't know what it was, but the cat found it).

"Talk about keping a low profile!!! After seeing what Nu labour and the P.C brigade has done I bet he wishes he never came back!


*Have we at Feminazery mentioned that we love the Fail's new ratings system? We do. Just so you know.