Sex and the New Feminists

A recent minor illness confined me to the sofa and more TV than my doctor might have prescribed (everything from the calming liquid geometry of snooker to the grubby Sophie Raworth lookalike, Saga, traversing the excellent Bridge). Don’t try this at home, might be the sound medical advice for avoiding depression; however, although the experience is disablingly passive (if you’re not a TV critic) it can be enlightening, particularly for students of female body language. If Cameron is really committed to shutting down free porn, forcing the ‘working class’ to purchase their pleasure with tax credits, mainstream TV, it seems, is doing its bit to compensate. From the extraordinary daytime 1,000 Heartbeats in which (I kid you not) contestants confronting tasks of mental dexterity have to control the rate of their heartbeat while distracted by a female string quartet who seem to be wearing nothing below the waist but six inch heels, to the competitive soft porn leg show of the Emilys and Allegras in the low lit, post-watershed Newsnight studio, sex, it seems, has its hand up the short, tight skirt of ratings. 


Nice...but how do they get away with it? You might well ask (if you’re not too distracted). Where is the usual Feminist fuss?  Well, surprisingly alive and transforming into something far more confident and assertive (and pleasing on the eye) in the guise of the ‘New Women.’


New Women are Feminists comfortable with their sexuality. Old (style) Feminists (we can’t call them ‘Old Women’), having discarded their 70s boiler suits, were for a while content to ‘power dress’ in sober masculine (even trouser) suits (imitating the men they hoped to usurp); now those suits, seen occasionally in old footage, look distinctly Old Skool.  Female anchors, seated behind the false modesty of low level coffee tables, have been scene stealing from their male counterparts for years with the flirtatious crossed-leg, ‘unconscious’ knee reveal. Now the table has been whipped away and the whole operation has moved to another level. 


Invigorating as this may be to a sick man confined to his sofa, it does suggest something more socially significant (maybe even sinister) about the language of the body. While the coronary-inducing quartet of Heartbeats are in the business of light entertainment, the ‘serious journalists’ are among the growing percentage of those women who demand rather than expect to be taken seriously. Yet, clearly they see nothing inappropriate in their choice of presentation (we assume the choice is theirs, although the, presumably male, producer is always ready to provide ever more accommodating viewing angles). So the question arises: What is their motivation? The release of a long suppressed desire to be the popular bad girl at the back of the class? Overcompensation for years spent in the late night library of the Head Girl syndrome? Maybe some visual empathy with the plight of prostitution? (Real prostitutes, ironically, invited on to TV, invariably dress as if in court, like Amish-smart conservatives.) Could it be we are witnessing a new confidence in the new Feminist, whose real business is intimidation and control?


The answer might lie in the even more intriguing lack of any visible reaction in the studio, where everyone behaves as if it is entirely natural to see an intelligent, Oxbridge-educated Milf presenter discuss the false dawn of an economic upturn or grill a politician on his part in the demise of the NHS, dressed as if she’s in the endgame of a hot date, skirt riding several inches up her crossed thighs, daring the interviewee (and viewer) to notice anything incongruous in the situation. Did she dress like this for her job interview, you wonder. Far from failing to take her seriously (like Old Skool males), however, the men on camera unanimously ignore the goods in front of them, keeping their eyes determinedly straight ahead, cowed perhaps (they can’t all be homosexual) by the vision of Twitter storms, crashing careers and lost lives risked on a raised eyebrow, an innocent glance or a spontaneous smile; which makes bedroom attire, I suppose, a usefully unsettling tactic in some political arenas. 


As a sofa bound patient, I’m hardly complaining (although I’m not the father of teenage girls) but I’m looking forward to the interview one of these half-dressed Emilys conducts (in basque, stockings and heels?) with the author of a report on rape culture.

​DG