A small rant...

[sildil]

...and although it's a facebook matter, I do it here as if I do it 'over there' I know I will upset a lot of work colleagues (though actually I am considering a cull of most of them anyway).

My rant is actually about ill-informed, jumping on the bandwagon, 'I get all my inormation I need from the tabloids' type comments.  Someone posted something along the lines of 'having just seen a photo of Hilary Mantel, I think that her comments about Kate..' (beloved and saintly wife of Prince William) '...are a touch of green eyed jealousy...'

I couldn't ignore that.  I really hate people making judgements, however witty and flippant, about people's appearance like that.  I left a comment pointing out that Hilary Mantel looks the way she does because of severe, undiagnosed endometriosis and often refers to it herself.  Said colleague then asked me 'what that had to do with her being a bitch about Kate?'

And that's the whole point, she WASN'T being a bitch about Saint Kate, she was actually complaining about the prurient interest that the public and the press have in the bodies of royal women, and have had ever since the time of Henry the Eighth.  'Is she too thin, too fat, pregnant yet, not pregnant, going to have a son, a daughter and if so will it be in line to the throne?' and so on and so forth.  She referred to a comment made about Diana, "when it was announced that Diana was to join the royal family, the Duke of Edinburgh is said to have given her his approval because she would ‘breed in some height’..."

She ended her talk with the following plea; "We don’t cut off the heads of royal ladies these days, but we do sacrifice them, and we did memorably drive one to destruction a scant generation ago. History makes fools of us, makes puppets of us, often enough. But it doesn’t have to repeat itself. In the current case, much lies within our control. I’m not asking for censorship. I’m not asking for pious humbug and smarmy reverence. I’m asking us to back off and not be brutes."

But of course, it's not in the tabloids' interest to report THAT bit.

Comments

[karadin.livejournal.com]

I don't think it's ever a good idea to have facebook friends from work, even if you do like them. Better to keep opinons and stuff to a personal journal, which is semi-anon, it won't come back to bite you in the ass. People who you work with really mind when you unfriend them, and it might hurt you in other ways at work, so just gradually stop using the facebook account, then create a new one.

[sildil]

See the thing is, my Facebook was originally just for work colleagues, and it's not me that ever posts personal opinions there, ever. It's more a matter of having to read other people's half-baked crap. I'm never bothered about unfriending, never have been either way round. If they get cross over it, then it's their problem. Plenty of people have deleted me in the past and most of the time it takes months for me to notice!

The main point of my rant is to do with ill-informed jumping in because of what the gutter press say.

[karadin.livejournal.com]

I read that article you mentioned, and it seemed the press took out excerpts, if people read the whole thing they wouldn't take it to heart, but you know, people love controversy. *sigh* I'd just advise people read the whole article, then decide what you think.

[sphinxofthenile.livejournal.com]

Reminds me of that one time our then PM said to his party congress "We have lied to our voters, and don't want to be a part of it, so we need to get our shit together and start fixing the state." Obviously, the papers never got past the first half sentence.

[sildil]

Yes exactly the same. I also read an interesting comment today which pointed out that if Hilary Mantel had been a male write or historian, no one would have referred to HIS weight or infertility! There is no such thing as sisterly loyalty. Sighs.

[sphinxofthenile.livejournal.com]

Actually, it seems like women just have absolutely no privacy when it comes to their bodies. Not even in matters such as this. And we are all socialized to think it is a valid point of judgement. Isn't that lovely.

[sildil]

Yes, quite! It''s why I got so mad, there is probably nothing that gets me more annoyed!