*flail*

Firstly: If you do not want to read a rant, or at any point disagree with my opinion, please consider the following image.

Anybody left? No? Good.

This has been an interesting week for teh internets. First, there was the amusing (and suspicious) Trafigura gagging order. Then there was some other stuff that I probably missed because I was at work but I love the tricolon auctum so I’m putting this sentence in pending some last-minute remembered story. And today, Jan Moir. I’ve been surfing the waves of outrage (twitrage?) since lunchtime, and I’ve run the gamut of emotions, from horror, to rage, to disappointment, with a sprinkling of loathing popped on for good measure.

Here is the article – but be warned that it is in the Daily Mail, so please do not blame any subsequent vomit stains or murderous urges on myself. I had to make it through a whole afternoon at work after reading it, and I managed not to kill or maim anyone.

All of the rage so far centres on her appallingly insensitive comments about Stephen Gately. Many people have done excellent hatchet jobs on that side of things, and they are absolutely bang on. But it’s not just that that makes me so angry. On its own, if I’d read her bit about Gately, I’d have chalked it up to the usual shitty attitudes condoned and endorsed by the Daily Mail, and not been moved to do anything. That’s sad enough in itself, that I expect this sort of thing for a paper with such a large circulation.

But it, she, and this specific article perfectly encapsulate everything I loathe and despise about the DM. After calling into question the character and lifestyle of someone she doesn’t know, complete with homophobic undertones fairly explicit homophobia she then tells T P-T that at 38 she is too old to show off her fabulous body. She pauses for a quick swipe at transvestites, then moves on to mock the 40+ year old Nolan sisters for being a little bit tubby. Then, after a quick diversion whining about the British summer and scones, she calls Harriet Harman a Sir and suggests that any woman of childbearing age should not be surprised – in fact, should expect and accept discrimination in the workplace. WHAT THE FUCK.

The only way this article could possibly have been worse is if she had said this Louisiana judge had a point.

The fact that this is written by a woman, with a career (and of indeterminate age and size, so I’m pretty cross at the twitragers for their unnecessarily personal insults too), is moot. Her hypocrisy spills forth like a geyser. She thinks 38 year old female flesh is old and disgusting, but just last week wrote an article leering over and featuring a picture of a largely naked Daniel Craig. He is three years older than T P-T. To mock a grandfather shows ‘deliberate, gratuitous disrespect’, but to insult a dead man is just her offering her ‘honest opinion’. She and all DM reporters can do, look like, and say whatever they want but any woman, man or child that does not live up to their exceedingly specific and contradictory ideals is open to censure.

I am aware that she has ‘apologised‘, but in anticipation of the further ‘omg free speech don’t you oppress me’ responses, I offer her last year’s quote on free speech:

“Increasingly, the cloak of freedom of speech is used as a defence for the kind of deliberate, gratuitous disrespect that Ross and Brand displayed…

How on earth could highly paid and experienced performers such as Ross and Brand think it amusing to pick on a 78-year-old man and laugh at his granddaughter?”

Mmm, quite. Cos for an experienced, highly paid writer to pick on a dead man and his bereaved husband, while also exhibiting ageist, sizeist and transphobic behaviour is classy.

It all makes me seethe. Yes, that gets bold, caps, AND underline. People (including myself in the past) have questioned the need for feminism or gay rights movements because we’ve moved on from that. You’re preaching to the choir. The only people who are interested in gay rights are gay. And aren’t feminists all lesbians in boiler suits shouting at men for still existing?

This brings me back to the original point of this post. Someone is sending me a message. Earlier in the week, I learned of the existence of an entire movement of dickless wonders men who actually, truly believe that women are amoral and fundamentally inferior to men. Today I read and saw people agreeing with someone suggesting that teh gays are inferior to teh strates, women over 30 should not show any flesh, women over 40 should not show themselves at all, and women that want a career should admit to not being female full stop. And you’re trying to tell me that feminism isn’t relevant any more?

Fuck that. I’m a newly-declared feminist. Give me my badge.