A teacher who persuaded WHSmith to stop displaying books "for women" said today she is part of a new wave of feminism in the capital.And what does this ‘I am woman, hear me roar!’ social activist do?
Julia Gillick, 29, wrote to the retailer after seeing a fluffy display of light, romantic books - many written by men - with pastel-coloured covers and titles such as Meet Me At the Cupcake Café.You go, Grrrl! Fight the man by insisting that all women who fancy a light, entertaining read now have to scrabble around in the Tom Clancys and Bernard Cornwells for it.
Her letter said she was "deeply offended by this unnecessary and condescending practice". She now plans to write to Tesco, which also has a "women's fiction" section.
That’ll show ‘em!
Ms Gillick, of Shepherd's Bush, today urged women not to put up with sexist slights.Instead, they should put up with Ms Gillick deciding for them what they should get annoyed about. That’s only right, surely?
She said: "The words that we use matter There is a sense in some circles that we have let things slide a bit after the work we thought had been done in the Seventies and Eighties."Those circles being the increasingly insane feminist circles inhabited by people like yourself, I suppose? While the rest of us get on with our lives, not worrying much about where bookstores keep their displays.
After all, most of us now use Kindle anyway. With money we went out and earned to pay for it doing jobs that would have been the preserve of men 30 or 40 years ago...
But I’m not paying for the mad old harridan to tell me what I should read and think. And WH Smith should have told her to run along and not bother her pretty little head about it.
The English teacher at an all girls' private school has also set up a feminist bookgroup. Caitlin Moran's How To Be A Woman was the first text they studied.Hey, if parents want to send their daughters to be educated by this moron, that’s entirely up to them. They’re paying for it.
But I’m not paying for the mad old harridan to tell me what I should read and think. And WH Smith should have told her to run along and not bother her pretty little head about it.
@ mZ Gillick
ReplyDeleteYou have a vagina.
Get over it.
That is all.
This is a essentially the Automatic Gain Control kicking in on a zero signal. It's picking up hum and line noise and blowing it up. All the significant battles have been won, so the professionally aggrieved have to find something to bitch about, no matter how inconsequential. In some respects it's a good thing: if this is the most dreadful breach of feminist rights this awful harridan can muster then the battle of the sexes is over. But I thought the bargain was that when they'd won they'd shut the fuck up.
ReplyDelete"When they'd won they'd shut the fuck up".
ReplyDeleteReminds me of the line in Josie Wales of "Doing right ain't got no end". Same kind of attitude too.
I fail to see what her problem is personally, I had a mate who wrote Romance novels for "Mills and Boon" under a female pen name. A right money spinner I'm told.
Her problem seems to be more of it's books written by men than the subject matter.
Actually, I think she has a point; the problem is that she is conflating two problems.
ReplyDeleteI suspect she objects to the very existence of pink and fluffy fiction more than she dislikes the implication it is what all women read - hence her emotive expressions of offence.
As you vividly illustrate, lumping all fiction together pleases nobody but the alphabetically minded - I can't imagine fans of Bernard Cornwell being happy rummaging around in piles of chick-lit either.
I'd be more impressed, frankly, if she directed her energies to removing the 'Tragic Lives' display signs that remind passing shoppers that there is enough demand for 'misery memoirs' to guarantee a dedicated display area in the shop.
Meanwhile, there's a far bigger problem out there in the form of books on the evils of climate change, the fast food industry, sweatshop labour and the feminist struggle, to name but a few; these are usually found scattered among a variety of categories according to the vagaries of staff, and it's different in every shop.
The Urchin has solved this at a stroke; every book of the sort that comes into our household invariably finds its way to a bookshelf clearly labelled 'Mummy's Moral High Ground'.
w/v mslit - really!
"after the work we thought had been done in the Seventies and Eighties"
ReplyDeleteNo, dear lady, the work of the outraged is never done. Like painting the Forth Bridge, there is always another cause to be championed, another angle of correct thinking to be re-examined.
Social angst can never lie still; it needs to be poked and kicked and prodded to life lest we ordinary mortals forget.
I can sum up this feminazi in two words: silly bitch.
ReplyDeleteThere is a reason bookshops stock soppy romances by the truckload, and it's the same reason I wish I could write those instead of (or preferably as well as) the nightmares that come out of my keyboard.
ReplyDeleteThey sell. Women, and some men, just can't get enough of those books.
WH Smith isn't 'patronising women' because if women found that sort of book offensive, they wouldn't buy so many of them and Harlequin wouldn't be churning them out to keep up with the demand.
This feminist might like to persuade all those romance readers to try some horror stories instead. I wouldn't mind at all...
I am thinking that she was aggrieved because the story lines did not feature enough 'girl on girl' action.
ReplyDeleteI suppose we should welcome anything freeing up space for something enlightening. I shall continue to get my feminism here AP.
ReplyDeleteO/T sorry but you should see this Julia. At the risk of invoking Godwin's Law... the Fourth Reich has a new kind of eugenics program it would like to implement...
ReplyDeletehttp://www.telegraph.co.uk/health/healthnews/8754811/Parents-could-be-barred-from-knowing-the-sex-of-their-unborn-baby-by-European-ruling.html
Legally preventing an expectant mother from knowing the sex of her own unborn child...claiming precedence over a new citizen before it is even born...before it is even registered as state property at the town hall, even.
Tattyfalarr, it's debatable whether a ban would be effective at all.
ReplyDeleteI've heard that in places where it is illegal to tell the parents, medical staff routinely hand the mother a sweet wrapped in either blue or pink paper as an indication.
Meanwhile, back on books; since the pink and fluffy stuff doesn't do any harm per se - though I'd prefer a Bernard Cornwell any day - we really need a new designation for the shelf.
They could call it 'Featherweight Fiction' - unless, of course, that would mean WHSmith being bombarded with complaints from offended boxers.
"This is a essentially the Automatic Gain Control kicking in on a zero signal."
ReplyDeleteSpot on!
"Reminds me of the line in Josie Wales of "Doing right ain't got no end". Same kind of attitude too."
Oh, indeed!
"The Urchin has solved this at a stroke; every book of the sort that comes into our household invariably finds its way to a bookshelf clearly labelled 'Mummy's Moral High Ground'."
:D
"This feminist might like to persuade all those romance readers to try some horror stories instead. I wouldn't mind at all..."
I don't think there's much chance of that, sadly...
"Legally preventing an expectant mother from knowing the sex of her own unborn child...claiming precedence over a new citizen before it is even born...before it is even registered as state property at the town hall, even."
ReplyDeletePresumably there'll be an exemption for screening for sex-related disorders, though?
"I've heard that in places where it is illegal to tell the parents, medical staff routinely hand the mother a sweet wrapped in either blue or pink paper as an indication."
There's no system that can't be subverted, if people want to.
She's 29? She's a kid. Sounds like she needs to get laid. A lot. The really shrieking, top-of-your-head-coming-off, neighbours-banging-on-the-ceiling-with-brooms kind.
ReplyDeleteMr Gillies: "Sounds like she needs to get laid. A lot. The really shrieking, top-of-your-head-coming-off, neighbours-banging-on-the-ceiling-with-brooms kind."
ReplyDeleteRather you than me. Either up close or on broom duty.
Julia Gillick, a silly little girl, whined in her high-pitched widdle voice about yet another perceived injustice.
ReplyDeleteIf I'd run the bookstore, I'd have obliged, and created a new section, "Julia Gillick recommends" and crammed it full of big hairy cock jazz mags.
Gillick?
ReplyDeleteShe's not related to Victoria Gillick, who advocated birth control, despite pumping out loads herself???