Today, Charlotte Cooper tweeted (god I hate saying "tweeted") about a story in The Guardian called "Why Life's A Bitch For Female Columnists".
It's an interesting article by Emine Saner about the bitching culture over at The Daily Mail, and why some female columnists feel the need to tear down and body snark about female celebrities and public figures.
Between Liz Jones, Amanda Platell and Allison Pearson, the Mail have plenty of bitch-tastic columns. Whether they'll calling female politicians fat or nick-naming Lily Allen "thunder thighs", Jones and P-Squared can get just plain nasty.
For some reason Saner took the time to try and understand why Jones is...well, the way she is, to which Jones responded:
"I mainly try to be funny and that might come across as bitchy. But is
it only bitchy if you're mean about women? I think I'm far meaner about
men - I've been meanest about my ex-husband."
Oh you're just being funny? You're such a kidder, Lizzie-poo!
But while The Guardian may want to scoff at The Daily Mail and roll their eyes at how bitchy their columnists are, perhaps they should take a look at their own columnists.
There was that whole ridiculous "omg can women wear lip gloss" debate they wasted our time with, along with that whole "omg can feminists have a white wedding" crap.
And now we have women using their columns to bitch at each other about wedding lists.
Yes, wedding lists.
Tanya Gold wrote a seething column last week about how she was invited (and then uninvited) to her friend's wedding, whom she describes as being a "John Lewis-icking monster".
"Wedding lists were designed to help a young married couple build a
home, in the days when everyone got married aged 12 and a half, and
were totally spoonless. But today, you are not buying your friends a
new life. They are 30 years old and rotting. They have wrinkles and
Botox and they sag, like dying balloons. You are buying them an
upgrade."
Ouch.
So, we get it, Tanya really doesn't like wedding lists. Like, at all.
Apparently Tanya received over 300 responses about how hateful she is - those poor wedding lists! - and therefore Anne Shooter was left with no choice other than to write a column defending wedding lists.
"Had Tanya Gold, writing in G2 last week,
realised the reaction her rant against wedding lists would provoke,
perhaps she would have expressed herself less vehemently. She has been
publicly disinvited from her chum's wedding, and is the subject of
around 300 heated readers' responses online, many of whom feel she
should remember that guests like buying the happy couple a useful gift
from a list and she'd better buy in or, well, shut up."
Granted, at least Gold and Shooter are bitching about wedding lists rather than each other's cellulite or bad skin, but Jesus Christ.
Maybe next week someone can write about something exhilarating like proper correspondence etiquette and then a few days later someone can write a cutthroat rebuttal!