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Helen Lewis's "First Thoughts" column.
By Helen Lewis [1] Published 03 January 2013 6:17Helen Lewis's "First Thoughts" column.
On Christmas Day, a two-and-a-half-year-old girl died in Vadodara, a city in the Indian prov - ince of Gujarat. She was found in a “thorny bush”, the Hindustan Times reported, where she had allegedly been left by her maternal uncle. He is accused of throwing her away, like rubbish, after he had raped her.
The man is now in custody, awaiting trial on murder charges.
It is unlikely we will ever know the name of that little girl, just as we don’t know the name of “Damini”, who was raped by six men on a Delhi bus and assaulted with an iron bar that tore her intestines. What they have in common is that they lived in a society where rape is accepted and excused, and where the victims are given the responsibility for its prevention. There are “ladies’ special” trains in India because of endemic groping. A woman who was stripped and pawed in the street by a gang of 18 men for 45 minutes in July – as passers-by filmed on phones but did nothing to help –was repeatedly decried as “drunk” and possibly a prostitute, according to the media reports that followed.
Every time I read about a woman who was raped “because” she was intoxicated, or wearing a short skirt, or led him on, I think about victims like that two-and-a-half-year-old girl. What did she do that caused her to be raped?
It’s a testament to the power of Mail Online that when I saw a headline about “Michael Gove” and “curves”, I immediately assumed that he had been “flaunting his bikini body” or “posing up a storm” somewhere sunny over Christmas.
But no. It was instead the news that a rebellion is brewing over the Education Secretary’s plan to cut budgets by making school buildings 15 per cent smaller, banning curves and glass walls and insisting ceilings be kept bare. This is despite a Salford University study showing that a better-designed school can improve test results, while the Royal Institute of British Architects has noted that “the designs for secondary schools include narrow corridors and concealed stairs that are difficult to supervise”.
On an unrelated note, Portcullis House – the building where many MPs spend much of their parliamentary time – has bronze cladding worth £30m and has long rented 12 decorative fig trees for £32,500 a year.
Attention, all you downtrodden men! There is now a party just for you, to offset the terrible, all-encompassing female dominance of the ruling coalition (subs please check). Quentin Letts wrote about it in his Daily Mail column on 28 December, naming its leader as Mike Buchanan, a 55-year-old who plans to stand against Harriet Harman at the next election.
Buchanan, Letts solemnly informs us, “is not some fruitcake of the Monster Raving Loony Party ilk. A bookish fellow from Bath, full of statistics, he has recently given evidence to a parliamentary select committee.”
A quick visit to Google shows Buchanan to be the author of Feminism: the Ugly Truth, the first chapter of which is available to read for free on Amazon’s website. It contains unimprovable statements such as “it would be dishonest to deny the evidence before us – that feminists are generally less attractive than normal women” and “my theory is that many feminists are profoundly stupid as well as hateful, a theory which could readily be tested by arresting a number of them and forcing them – with the threat of denying them access to chocolate – to undertake IQ tests”.
Nope, definitely not a fruitcake. Still, ten points to the commenter who wrote underneath the article: “I was shocked to learn that over 50 per cent of people in Britain are now WOMEN. No doubt BRUSSELS is behind all this!!!!!”
This is the year I turn 30, and it’s clear that crotchety middle age is already upon me. As I watched the New Year’s Eve fireworks in front of the London Eye on TV, the following thoughts went through my mind. 1) Wow! These are impressive. 2) [At 11 minutes in] Getting a bit bored now. Turns out there’s not much you can do with fireworks except make them go “bang”. 3) Hang on, how much did these cost? (Answer: at least £250,000.)
Bah humbug to you all.
Steven Spielberg’s DreamWorks has bought the rights to two books about the WikiLeaks saga, and pre-production has started on the resulting film. It will star Benedict Cumberbatch as Julian Assange (I assume he will be wearing Javier Bardem’s wig from Skyfall) and reports suggest that Dan “Downton” Stevens has been cast as the Guardian deputy editor Ian Katz.
I hear on the grapevine that a “big name” has been secured to play the reporter Nick Davies (Russell Crowe? Or – heaven forbid – Tom Cruise?) but I think we’re all holding out for Alan Rusbridger to be played by Daniel Radcliffe in age make-up.
A final festive thought: my life has been improved immeasurably by learning that the Liberal Democrats’ director of communications is called Tim Snowball. Happy New Year.