The Ocelot 122 - Oxford and Newbury edition | Page 6

For Starters

Doing Life
A column by Jamie Hill
It’s been a bit of a weird time for the feminist movement
of late.
On the one hand you’ve got the misogynistic backlash
against Ghostbusters because, urm, they dared to cast
women instead of men.
And on the other hand the two most powerful figures
in our society are now women thanks to Theresa May’s
bloodless coup and Nicola Sturgeon just generally being
pretty great.
Let’s just say that Ghostbusters was bloody funny and
was well-reviewed. But those sad, lonely men sitting
at their keyboards getting angrier and angrier at the
thought of some make believe ghosts being busted by
people without a willy will never admit it as that would
be admitting that they might be sexist rather than hiding
behind some nostalgic ‘it’s sacriligious’ bullshit.
Okay, our new PM Theresa May is pretty right wing.
In fact she makes David Cameron look like an airy
environmentalist campaigning against a bypass by living
up a tree in comparison. But that doesn’t stop her, just
by her very existence, once again proving that men and
women can be equal.
And soon, we might even have a woman in the White

House. Well, we’re all hoping so. As the alternative makes
us wake up screaming as we all get flung headlong into
nuclear armageddon (and we thought Brexit was bad...)
Hilary Clinton will be the most powerful woman in the
world if she wins. How’s that for Girl Power?
The fact that she’s even the Democrat nominee is pretty
damn good in itself.
So, on the face of it, feminism seems to be winning.
But that’s only on the surface as there’s a torrent of
hate and misogyny just bubbling underneath and it mostly
seems to be online.
One of the actors from the aforementioned
Ghostbusters - Lesley Jones publicly quit Twitter in tears
after receiving a torrent of not only sexist, but racist,
abuse. That’s awful.
And talk to any woman who’s used a dating app and
you will hear the horror stories of casual sexism and
even unwanted genitalia pictures they’ve got sent by
men. ‘Oh good, another willy’, these women don’t think to
themselves.
Sexism seems to thrive online where men can hide
behind their keyboards busily spewing out their cowardly
hateful misogyny. It’s horrible stuff and it really shouldn’t
be happening. So if you’re a man doing this type of thing
- get a grip (and not on your willy).

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Ocelot 122 Ox.indd 6

25/07/2016 21:35