If this week has shown us anything it is that the polarising dynamics of men (entitlement) against women (the putative new order) are alive and kicking. In the age of the witchcraft trials - proof in themselves that fake news really is nothing new - crowds turned out to enjoy the sight of the condemned women; the outcome of death was pretty much a foregone conclusion, it was just the question of how that remained to be settled.
A confession that I always skip to the end of a novel before reading the rest, and an observation that I couldn’t handle suspense, sparked a train of thought about how this was a metaphor for the way I have lived my life. Since writing this on my recent writers retreat, I have noticed that the subject comes up for a lot of people who have suffered death and loss (Brigitte Macron in a recent Economist article and Esther Rantzen on a Radio 4 interview are just two examples). So I’m sharing it with you: let me know if it resonates (or not)…
If you look out for it, judgement (normally negative) of women based on lots of stereotypical ideas, is commonplace. And there’s been a lot of it about this week in the cases of both Serena Williams and Ariana Grande. Two high-achieving women with talent and careers that most of us would die for, who happen to have behaved in ways that contravene stereotypes of how women should be.
