Liberal intelligentsia: bad for your health
The TUC is to consider a motion that denounces the use of high heels as part of a dress code, as a result of the effect it can have on women’s feet. This has resulted in one Jenni Russell denouncing the Society of Chiropodists and Podiatrists, proposers of the motion, as joyless utilitarians who give the Left a bad name. One would be forgiven for thinking that this is the sort of thing which might come straight from the pages of the Daily Mail. Well guess what? It does.
As one expects, Daily Mail article is laden with distortion, such as claiming that the TUC want to see heels banned because they are demeaning to women, and because they are sexist. As the above linked-to press release from the Society of Chiropodists and Podiatrists (y’know, the people we pay to look after our feet) outlines, they simply want the TUC to demand that employers look into the health effects of high heels as part of a mandatory dress code. Hardly militant feminism.
The liberal intelligentsia seem to have bought this distortion hook-line and sinker. The real kicker, of course, is that this is exactly the same nonsense that was trotted out last year, when the TUC released guidelines on safe footwear as a result of studies into the health effects of high heels and other stylish but painful footwear. Irony of ironies, though, the Daily Mail itself led the charge for safer footwear last year, with an article entitled “High heeled horrors”.
Presumably last year there was less capital to be made from denouncing the TUC as a PC, loony Left group of men intent on diluting life of all fun.
I would now like to take the opportunity to issue my own health warning. Being a part of the liberal intelligentsia is bad for your health. As has been demonstrated by Jenni Russell on Comment is Free, and will no doubt be repeated throughout the interwebz by everyone who thinks the Left really do idolize unisex grey jumpsuits and universal buzzcuts, the liberal intelligentsia has no credibility, originality or even basic research skills. This is bad for their health because, if they keep publishing such guff, and I meet them, I’m going to kill them.
Good fucking work.
I read that Jenni Russell piece earlier today and thought “this can’t be right, the TUC are just not that daft”, and there we have it, they aren’t.
Write an email to Jenni Russel via letters@guardian.co.uk, just to pass on the link to this post and let her know that you caught her out.
As per your advice, Paul, I sent the following (not including address etc as I didn’t wish it to be considered for publication):
Dear Jenni,
Having cast about to find the motion going before the TUC at this year’s conference, I must confess I find your article ‘TUC heal thyself’ most absurd. The motion does not mention sexism, and certainly not in the terms which you and the Daily Mail seem to delight in drawing from it. The issue is one of health, and, as men do not often wear high heels, one of women’s health. If you have a problem with this, rather than joining with the Daily Mail in denouncing a (make-believe) ‘joyless utilitarian’ Left conspiracy to suck the fun out of life, can I suggest you take it up with the Society of Chiropodists and Podiatrists. The professionals in whose charge we place our feet.
Feel free to have a pop right back at me if you like; emailing you via the letters’ email address was suggested to me by a reader.
I took the easy option (quiet day at work) and rinsed her in the comments box underneath the article instead of writing a proper email.
“August, bit busy, see if I can just reword this Mail article for the Guardian and hope they don’t notice, few hundred words should do it, cheque please!”
Hey! Not everyone is that stupid. It’s just fucking journalists who can’t be arsed to pick up a phone these days (though admittedly, not all).
I should have just cross-posted this piece, but didn’t see it and wrote my own tirade.
Good piece, Dave. Like Sunny, I was tipped over the edge into my own tirade by this – but specifically by the sight of the normally saintly Konnie Huq fronting the Sun’s petition against the TUC’s draconian heel ban. Nadine Dorries I can understand gobbing off without looking into a story, but some people you’d think (well, I would have done earlier) would be more sensible. http://www.johninnit.co.uk/2009/08/07/et-tu-konnie-the-stilettos-go-in/