10 Comments
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Ros Barber's avatar

Truly awful. Most of us have done menial jobs at some time in past. You can bet no male politician would have been written up this way.

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Harriet Waley-Cohen's avatar

That's the whole point, only women are demeaned like this.

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Ros Barber's avatar

Yes, I am aware!

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Michelle Minnikin's avatar

Bloody hell. This headline is shocking.

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Harriet Waley-Cohen's avatar

It would be terrible no matter who'd written it, but from the BBC it's even more awful.

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Michelle Minnikin's avatar

I wonder if we can write to ofcom?

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Michelle Minnikin's avatar

This is so true. You’d expect this kind of rubbish from the DM!!

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Harriet Waley-Cohen's avatar

Right?! The BBC has shown itself in many ways recently to not be worth taking seriously or to be impartial.

Wonder how it would feel to be a senior or ambitious woman working at the Beeb right now, and seeing this is how they write publicly about women. Makes a mockery of their alleged valued.

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Caroline Pankhurst's avatar

I’m very much looking forward to your piece about you ‘think’ might be behind and brave and courageous comments.

This theme (cancer /physical disability / illness) comes up in research and only last week we were discussing this very point in the context of a book we are exploring.

The person seen to be brave versus the experience of the actor themselves….I will definitely be reading it

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Harriet Waley-Cohen's avatar

There's so much fear out there about what it might be like to be disabled, become permanently injured or have a potentially terminal diagnosis - some of it justified, some of it stigma or misinformation - that when others go through it seems to be the norm to call people brave. I've pretty much never seen public comments like 'they're not handling it well' or similar, although people tell me privately they have seen some people suffer through these things terribly from a mindset or emotional perspective. Will try to write my piece over the weekend and really look forward to your thougts too.

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