Some women are cunts too: the sequel.
Did you know, women can get a bit gropey? That's something you might have encountered at your work's Christmas party.
Women are out of control. SOME women are actually worse than men. Both men—and women report this. (Well, they don’t report it, they talk about it a lot on social media, especially in response to men sexually harassing women. That appears to be the standard knee-jerk response anyway.) A handful of people seem fed up with our collective ignorance: why don’t we realise SOME women are awful?
These people have a point.
Yes, women are cunts too. And when a bird has had one too many, she’s a fucking nightmare. She’ll pinch a bottom. But because she’s a woman, she’ll get away with it. A fella can’t wear a kilt without a gaggle of tarts ‘checking’ he’s sans underpants. It happens a lot in Scotland (obviously) and at English toff weddings (landed gentry steals acres centuries ago—now claims Scottish ancestry). Still, if a man chooses to wear a skirt with no knickers, he’s kinda asking for it.
Women say the creepiest things.
SOME women make blokes uncomfortable. Unsolicited phrases such as, “get ya dick out for the girls” are unacceptable. But like Paul said on LinkedIn, “You don’t see me moaning to management!” What’s stopping you, Paul? You’d be within your rights to because SOME women are fucking horrid. Non-consensual sexual contact/verbal harassment is abhorrent—no matter who’s doing it.
What’s brought all this on, you ask?
Folks in the UK know. They’ve seen endless tawdry news reports about Master Chef host, Gregg Wallace. It’s official, he’s a raging sex pest. However, that moniker rather trivialises the more sinister accusations. The barrow boy, cheeky chappy, I’m-so-cockney-it-hurts Wallace has been accused of sexual misconduct in the workplace (the BBC). According to several women, the filthy bastard has been doing it for years. Poor chap received the malicious onslaught just before Christmas. Who else can co-host the festive telly stalwart, Inside The Factory: How Our Christmas Foods Are Made?
Why didn’t the silly cows say something—at the time? Ahem, this is awkward but Emma Kennedy and Melanie Sykes complained about Gregg—at the time—when it happened—or when it just happened—maybe a few minutes after it happened—potentially up to an hour after it happened. I wasn’t there, but allegedly, both incidents were reported to the production team ON THE DAY OR AROUND THE DAY.
Ah.
Nothing happened.
The Beeb has a thing for protecting the talent—AKA the golden goose (see also Jimmy Savile and Rolf Harris). No matter how many Panorama specials are made about the BBC, modern-day predators keep coming out of the woodwork, and I suspect it’s going to get much, much worse before it gets better.
Confession time: I’m a rather prurient individual. Gregg and I have that in common but unlike Gregg, I know how to behave—especially at work. Sure, SOME people aren’t fazed when a colleague shares details about the morning shag with the wife but can we all agree, aside from personal tolerance levels, such behaviour is fucking gross. As far as we know, Gregg did all this stone-cold sober. His ability to control himself wasn’t impaired so at this point, it feels like the guy gets off on it.
When Gregg Wallace touched the thigh of Shannon Kyle, the ghostwriter of his 2012 memoir (A Lovable Cockney Pervert), he didn’t give a shit how it made her feel, and, most likely, he enjoyed her discomfort. We don’t know for sure and I doubt we’d get the truth if we asked Mr Wallace, nonetheless, Kyle was uncomfortable. I’m going to make a further assumption and suggest she was probably pretty scared. They were alone in a car at the time and Wallace was driving. She had no idea what he was going to do next. This was one of several incidents. Once, at a work meeting, he wore a towel covering his nethers. He dropped that towel exposing his penis: “I felt quite vulnerable because I'm on my own in a flat with a man. He's naked.” Kyle had to sign an NDA (it’s almost as if Gregg preempted such a situation). The author also declined other work for this writing gig: “I was worried about losing the job because I'd given up all the work for this job. So I thought to myself... I'm just going to try and navigate this, [I’ll] just try and push on through.”
I know what you’re thinking. A work meeting at a man’s flat is a come-on. Any man, in his right mind, might assume a woman’s practically gagging to get laid when she meets him at his flat—for a work meeting, especially when she’s shown no prior sexual interest. Makes total sense. Is it any wonder no one takes such accusations seriously?
(Just in case you didn’t get it, that was some hard-core satire just then.)
Rather depressingly, female victims are scrutinised more than the male perpetrators. What was she wearing? What did she say? Was she drunk? Was she too friendly—was she not friendly enough? Where did she meet him? When we ask male public figures to be called to account, their accusers are set upon, as if they’re the ones asking work colleagues to lick their arseholes.*
*Gregg Wallace asked Shannon Kyle if she’d oblige.
“It’s a bit of fun.”
“Why didn’t you say something at the time?”
“You just want money.”
“You’re a fucking whore.”
“You should be raped.”
“Kill yourself.”
What’s also depressing is SOME of the decent men seem to think these are isolated happenings. “Normal men don’t do this stuff” apparently. Ask Gisèle Pelicot how normal she thought her husband was. Before realising he repeatedly raped her when she was drugged unconscious. And if that wasn’t horrific enough, he invited 50 other normal men to do the same. (Those were the 50 men the French judicial system was able to charge.) Family members offered glowing appraisals of their characters so I think we need to quash the idea we’re dealing with a few rotten apples, the entire tree is rotten.
When I hear about the Gregg Wallaces of the world, I think back to the time I was groomed by a normal, seemingly fun-loving ‘harmless chap’. Or, when at 16, I was trapped in a bedroom as a thirty-something creep blocked the only exit. He leered and said inappropriate things as I tried to carry on with the first job I ever had—a chambermaid at a local hotel. Not to mention the middle-aged music teacher who made regular comments about his students’ breast development. These are just my experiences so allow me to burst the isolated incident’s bubble.
“Men are afraid that women will laugh at them. Women are afraid that men will kill them.” - Margaret Atwood.
And that’s the difference.
When we say SOME women are “just as bad” or “even worse” it’s rarely comparable to male sexual harassment because women aren’t, in general, sexually threatening. Unless a man consents to my dominating him (fnarr fnarr), I cannot dominate him because he’s almost always taller and stronger. So while a fella can play at being submissive, I know that if he wanted, he could overpower me. Yes, SOME women physically harm/intimidate/overpower/sexually assault men but it’s not commonplace—it’s not the norm. The potential threat isn’t part of everyday life for men as it is for women.
“It’s not a competition, Sarah!”
No, it isn’t but if it were, women would win because, I repeat, it happens to women more. Instead of figuring out WHY that is and how we fix it, a lot of us are more concerned with diverting attention to the outliers—the few female rotten apples. Yes, those women are bad—yes, they should be dealt with accordingly but such behaviour isn’t culturally ingrained so forgive me for banging on but I simply must address the fact women are treated like the world’s public toilet.
I've known men like this throughout my adult life (a very long time!), and it is depressing how many of them there were...and will probably continue to be for the rest of my life.
I just don't even begin to understand them, their behaviour, and how, by and large, they've gotten away with it so easily in the past.
I think they're mentally ill, but that's not to absolve society's cultural relative free-pass for these types of men to behave as they do. And that is, thankfully, changing now. Whether it's changing quickly enough is debatable, but it's certainly a lot better than it was in the late 1970s, when it seemed any bloke had licence to leer and make obscene comments to any women that caught their eye. But of course, most of us didn't act like that; whether we did enough to stop other men from carrying on like that is also debatable, but I think, probably not.
Boys will be boys, will be boys, will be boy-oy-oys, as Bryan Ferry said, and I would add to that that cunts will be cunts, will be cu-unts!
Keep stickin' it up 'em where they don't like it, Sarah...and where have you been? Too busy over there trading double entendres with Stephen and Dave?