That Liz Jones, eh?
In today’s column, she calls herself a feminist because she frowns on “mumsy” types, yet didn’t want to get pregnant because she wanted to “keep her figure” and assumes the reason her friend went off the pill is because the husband had an issue with her looks. (Perhaps the issue in question was the friend’s self-esteem and well-being.) Looks are all important if you’re a woman, right?
Liz Jones; a figurehead for fem
inism that all young women can look up to.
To be as crass as Ms Jones herself; her sweeping statement advising men to be wary of women in their 30s and 40s for their capacity to steal their sperm and deceive them about wanting babies could be akin to a sweeping statement advising women to be wary of all men for their capacity to rape.
Obviously, Liz Jones’ personal history is unique – a marriage and a later relationship where the two parties want different things certainly pushes back the decision to get pregnant. As a successful career woman, surely the options weren’t limited to subterfuge? I wonder if she considered adoption, paying for IVF, or foster care and then raising the child independently. A daunting concept, of course, but not unprecedented or unachievable – particularly if her assumption was (as it appears to be in the article) that the father of her child wasn’t going to be around anyway.
What is interesting is that her article seems to be underpinned with a belief that the options available to careerist women are black and white: either focus on a career and forgo having a baby, or have a baby and forgo the career. I’m not certain this is the absolute case in today’s working environment, but that’s a whole separate can of worms to debate!
Suffice to say, why oh why did I read the article? All I’ve done, apart from be frustrated by the content itself, is to increase the traffic to the Daily Mail website (the irony of blogging about it is not lost on me, fear not). The newspaper’s editorial decision to encourage its writers to expose their darkest secrets and opinions to the public certainly guarantees high readership. I’d like to think it’s brave editorial guidance, but I suspect it’s just a numbers game.
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