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It’s the assumption that’s so amusing

So, if we were to construct a vilely male, masculine, ideal of journalism it would be x did y to z and abc should follow. Or, if it were a column, that here are objective standards by which we should judge this. Something in the outside work by which the thing could be measured.

If we were to construct an equally vilely female, feminine, ideal of journalism it would be this happened to me and therefore the world must be judged by my feelings about it.

Terrible, terrible, mansplainin’ but there we are:

Mr Gove and Ms Vine have been married since October 2001, having first met two years earlier.

His separation from his wife later appeared inevitable after she failed to testify to the strength of their partnership when writing about Mr Hancock.

Obviously I’ve given a vile caricature. But caricature’s must always have that element of truth in them otherwise how can we know who is being made fun of?

Ms. Vine didn’t write that her marriage was solid as a rock when the subject of political marriages came up. Therefore, given that female journos always write about their own lives her marriage was not as solid as a rock. QED.

QED to both theses. The entire logic is so embedded that folk aren’t even seeing their assumptions about female journos. That the female columnist is always writing about self and so from columns we can divine that self.

It’s impossible to divine even the sexuality of Simon Jenkins – say – from his columns, let alone whether he’s getting any.

Or, as Granny really did know, mens and wimmins is different, see?

6 thoughts on “It’s the assumption that’s so amusing”

  1. “My ulterior motive throughout my entire life was to stop my husband being Prime Minister ”

    I.e. to stop him doing what he most wanted to do. Not the best foundation for a relationship.

  2. But caricature’s must always have that element of truth in them otherwise how can we know who is being made fun of?

    Are we making fun of the use of punctuation in the vegetable retailing sector here?

  3. “My ulterior motive throughout my entire life was to stop my husband being Prime Minister because I can’t think of anything worse,”

    There’s still a danger. She should have stayed and kept at it.

  4. “It’s impossible to divine even the sexuality of Simon Jenkins – say – from his columns, let alone whether he’s getting any”.

    Simon, himself, got divorced in 2008 so had a little scroll through his G columns as a petit test of Tim’s theory. No mention of the divorce itself that i could divine. He mentions he is looking for a house and had his hand bitten off at the estate agents- pretty relevant for that year’s market.

    And then this article. Its on subject of Carla Bruni and Nick Sarkozy. Simon is pretty scathing of Carla so could be its a vicarious pop at the ex (a showbiz actress). Actually I don’t think so because he’s just as, or even more so, scathing of Sarkozy.

    “Can a man so inconstant in his pledges to the French electorate be constant in his love for Bruni? Can a woman so brazenly inconstant to her lovers be constant to the president of the republic? ”

    https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2008/feb/01/france.world

  5. Would anyone describe Ms Vine as a ‘journalist’ rather than a writer of click-bait opinion pieces? I’m not sure she’s any more self-obsessed than, say, Giles Coren or Matthew Parris, to take some other non-journalists.

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