One of many reasons I don’t do Twitter: in a follow-up to my post on the abuse of Marion Bartoli at Wimbledon, here is a neat selection of the kind words she received on Twitter. Thanks to Nesrin for the link.

www.123rf.com

My previous discussion of sportswomen wearing makeup barely scratched the surface of the problem – as the folk on Twitter demonstrate, it takes more than lip gloss to conform to their idea of a woman, and Bartoli received a ridiculous number of tweets saying that she must be a man (because she doesn’t look like Lisicki).

As we have seen in the past couple of weeks, Twitter has become the platform of choice for displays of misogyny, most recently rape and bomb threats to Hadley Freeman, Mary Beard, Laurie Penny and other female writers and journalists, for no apparent reason. Is it the thrill of a public audience? The 140-character limit that is so suited to insults? These are some of the theories put forward by Claire Hardaker in the Guardian. Is it that these thoughts (if they can be called that) would have been expressed anyway, somehow?

Or is it, even worse, just a trend? One of those things that seems isolated and weird at first, but gets picked up by bored people and snowballs, like printed leggings?

OK, maybe not just a trend. The misogyny is clearly there. But the sudden enthusiasm first for rape threats and then bomb threats has the hallmarks of a fad, getting picked up and proliferated like the word ‘awesome’ in its current, irritating UK usage.

The question then is whether to publicise these tweets and talk about them, or deny them the attention.

Should I perhaps have refrained from posting the Marion Bartoli tweets?

(telegraph.co.uk)

Since her appointment as the new panel member of BBC Radio 4’s Today Programme, Mishal Husain has already been salivated over by virtually every newspaper reporting on the story. By the male journalists, that is, who felt called upon to discuss this important event.

Astonishingly, this is the first time the Today Programme has had two female presenters on its panel, and one of an ‘ethnic minority’ (unpleasant phrase, implying as it does that white is the universal norm). Yet despite the er, groundbreaking nature of her selection, Husain is still discussed almost entirely in terms of her looks.

Peter Hoggart at the Guardian felt it necessary to note that Husain is “captivatingly intelligent and beautiful” (hey, at least he said she’s intelligent, right?), while his colleague Peter Preston chose the same combination, describing her as “the most luminous of BBC presenters, combining beauty and a keen intelligence”.

The Telegraph helpfully recounted a 2009 clash between Husain and her new Today co-host John Humphrys, when on Celebrity Mastermind he asked her whether she was only employed for her looks, and implied that in 10 years’ time she would be getting the sack.

However, Quentin Letts at (where else?) the Daily Mail trumps them all with his assessment of “Dishy Mishy”: “her gaze is as steamy as a pan of slimmer’s spinach”.

The thing is, you would think that she could escape this kind of appearance judgement on radio. Where no one will see her.

Nope, apparently not.

I confess that I haven’t watched the new series of The Apprentice – partly because I simply can’t stomach yet another round of shouting and incompetence, and partly because this year it seems that the criteria by which the candidates are chosen have changed.

http://www.bbc.co.uk – I wonder how much these were retouched?

They’re all gorgeous.

I know it’s TV and eye candy is a requirement, but there has been a clear shift in the participants of this series, so that any big noses, fatties and spotties have been scrupulously filtered out. Have a look here.

Admittedly this is more true of the women, but that is no great surprise, and the overall youth, slimness and attractiveness of all the candidates cannot be ignored. This is the culmination of a beautifying process that has increasingly pervaded The Apprentice, and this series is the first in which they all, ALL, fit the profile. The problem is that on a programme like this, which is emphatically (or so Lord Sugar claims) about business skill, the profile of a candidate no longer seems to prioritise the vaunted business acumen: now, you can only make it if you are beautiful.

Of course no-one should be considered incapable or unintelligent if they happen to be good-looking and groomed – an assumption often seen in previous series – but this is the other side of the coin, and we’ll never make any progress with one of these predicaments if we do not also address the other.

Beauty needs to be irrelevant.

Presentation, no; if you work with people it inevitably helps to appear polished and smart. But you should not need to look like a pop star just to be in with a chance. In fact, I quite resent having to say something so obvious.

So I won’t be watching The Apprentice – once a programme like that has become indistinguishable from The Only Way is Essex it’s probably time to turn to a good book.