DON’T you just love it when a pot calls the kettle black?
Noel Gallagher says he’s sworn off dating now because every woman he’s met after his 20-year relationship with Sara MacDonald ended earlier this year, has been — and I quote — “f***ing insane”.
No suggestion from Noel himself that he might be a bit bonkers.
Oh no. He’s perfectly normal.
But on a serious, more profound and infuriating note, wouldn’t it be nice if men could stop this ongoing, persistent narrative they continue to fall back on when it comes to women: That we’re all nuts.
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Women are bats**t crazy.
We’re insane, cuckoo, wacky; psycho and, best of all, hysterical.
I’m so painfully bored with this relentless characterisation of women and girls.
Men use it as a reason to extricate themselves from any association with us.
Grossly unfair
It’s a lazy and easy way to explain us out of their lives.
It’s their shorthand for us being “hard work” or even “too much work”.
It’s a dogged and unremitting description of a woman who pesters and makes mountains out of molehills.
It’s the portrayal of a woman who won’t leave a man alone and won’t take no for an answer. And it’s grossly unfair.
But then, as women, we can’t do right for doing wrong.
In the dating world, men don’t want women who chase them or are too keen.
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They don’t like women who show persistence, consistency or — God forbid — insist on boundaries.
Men definitely don’t like women who call them out when their behaviour is unacceptable.
So what they do is stick a label on her and call her “insane”.
It fits this male depiction of us being over-emotional and needy.
We’re dramatic and in constant pursuit of attention and fuss, we love causing a scene and a lot of drama.
That’s how we’re viewed.
I’ve lost count of the number of young guys who’ve told me that they find women so “needy”.
They say it with utter disdain and in such a dismissive way, as if this is worst kind of person you could ever come across.
They make out it’s singularly the most catastrophic characteristic a person — but especially a woman — could possibly possess.
It paints a picture of a woman dragging behind a man, holding on to his coat tails, refusing to let go.
A needy woman weighs him down and he’s incapable of shaking her off.
It suggests a weakness, that she’s faulty and broken and, presumably, that she’s desperate for a man to make her whole again.
But the reality is that women are not the overly “complicated” creatures we are made out to be.
We actually prefer to keep things very simple.
We like boundaries.
We like clarity, certainty, and we definitely like to know where we stand.
It is, more often than not, men who muddy the waters with their ambiguous and vague ways.
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They are the ones who are scared of defining a situation, for fear of giving a woman the wrong impression.
He doesn’t want to give too much away, if he gives her his hand, she might rip his whole arm off.
So, instead of being straight and honest, direct and clear, men dance around the truth of what it is they actually want.
They communicate in code.
They throw us little crumbs of information but just enough to keep us interested but absolutely not a grain more.
They often say one thing and do another.
And I suspect it is this that might send us women a bit doolally.
This cryptic form of communication that so often leaves us hanging causes confusion and bewilderment.
Contrary to male opinion, women are very straight up and down, we prefer directness and honesty because we don’t like to be left guessing.
Why? Because we just don’t have time for anything else.
We’re so busy multi-tasking and getting everything done in life while men sit around frowning, navel-gazing and weighing up their options.
It begs the question of what Noel was specifically referring to, but I’d imagine the women he has dated might be trying to make an impression on this surly, northern rock star.
Maybe they’re trying too hard and he doesn’t like that.
Or maybe he just gives them no idea of where they stand, and when they ask the question, he concludes they’re “f***ing insane”.
It could just be that Noel himself isn’t all that “normal” and he might be the bonkers one.
But let’s stop this never-ending depiction of women being mad and hysterical.
The first guy who told me that he found women to be so “needy” ended up bailing on our date.
Why? Well, as I am not a needy person, I didn’t pursue him.
He told me afterwards that because I wasn’t giving him enough attention, he didn’t think I was interested. Poor lamb.
So, ladies, whatever you do, don’t show too much interest but just enough.
Don’t, for God’s sake, chase a man, but for heaven’s sake make sure he knows you’re running behind him.
Don’t, for Pete’s sake, ask where you stand but for your own self-preservation make sure you have boundaries.
For pity’s sake make sure you massage his ego but not so much he takes you for granted.
Don’t, for Noel’s sake, show too much emotion that could be mistaken for madness but just enough to let him know you’ve caught his eye.
It’s a tightrope, ladies, and we’re the ones walking it.
Now I’ll doubtless go down in history as an insane, hysterical woman.
A badge I intend to wear with pride.
Pain was so hard to hear
I WAS deeply moved by the fathers of Barnaby Webber and Grace O’Malley-Kumar, the two students brutally and senselessly murdered in Nottingham, having the strength and courage through their unfathomable grief to address the vigil held on Wednesday evening in front of thousands of mourners.
It’s rare for us to see and hear men express grief and emotion in this way, and hopefully their actions will encourage other men not to fear articulating their feelings, especially this next generation of men who will have been friends of both students.
The killings shocked and haunted me.
Perhaps it hit doubly hard because my daughter is also 19 and a student in Nottingham, but fortunately she had come home two days before the attacks happened.
As a mother, I can only imagine the pain Barnaby and Grace’s parents, family and friends are being forced to endure.
The disbelief. The fragility of life hitting a nerve with all of us.
You don’t need to be a parent to have been stunned by their deaths but as in most cases, as a bystander, I found that tenuous connection of age and location too much to bear.
But I also wept for the third victim, Ian Coates, the 65-year old caretaker whose life was also so ruthlessly taken.
He also has family and friends. And he also had more years of life to live.
My thoughts are with all their families and friends.
Carla deserves compassion
LET’S be clear. When it comes to abortion, I’m a pro-lifer.
I’m pro the MOTHER’S life.
I always have been and I always will be and I’d be a hypocrite to claim anything else.
I accessed a surgical abortion at around eight weeks some 26 years ago when I found myself pregnant in the early stages of a new relationship and when I was not ready for a second child.
The pregnancy was a mistake.
A failure of contraception and I had no intention of altering my whole life by bringing another child into the world at that time.
I saw it as my right and, for me, it was quite simply the responsible thing to do.
I also felt fortunate that accessing an abortion in those early stages of pregnancy was uncomplicated.
But it’s not always straightforward.
It certainly wasn’t for Carla Foster, the 44-year old mother of three who found herself forced to move back in with her estranged partner while pregnant with another man’s child.
It was lockdown and doctors’ appointments and scans were impossible.
At the time, the British Pregnancy Advice Service set up an abortion “pills by post” scheme.
It will have been a lifeline for many women.
And yes, there may be questions to be asked about how a woman who was between 32 and 34 weeks pregnant was able to lie to this “telemedical abortion service”.
But what do we know of her suffering?
Who are we to judge her for her desperation and the state of her mental health at that point in her life?
Presumably, as a mother of three – one of whom has special needs – she had a full understanding of what lay ahead if she had continued with her pregnancy.
No doubt there are questions.
Maybe there should have been a video call in order that healthcare professionals were in a better position to make a decision.
But what kind of barbaric treatment are we meting out to a mother whose desperation forced her to take such a frenzied decision by throwing her in jail for 28 months?
What on earth do we hope to achieve by this? What about her dependents? Her state of mind?
Abortion should be about healthcare, not about criminality, as MP Stella Creasy says.
What possible good can come of incarcerating a mother whose desperation must have been incomprehensible?
Carla Foster should be treated with care and leniency.
She needs help and support at a time like this – not punishment.
Where is our compassion? Where is our mercy?
I’m ashamed to be part of a society that feels it’s appropriate to give a desperate woman a jail sentence for something no mother would ever want to endure.
A salute for Samuel after he miffed out on award
CAN we all just take a moment to appreciate this expression on Samuel L Jackson’s face at the Tony Awards last week when he missed out on a gong.
It said it all – miffed, disappointed, irritated, resentful.
It was the honesty of it all that I loved.
He didn’t make any effort to hide his true emotion.
How many times are we forced to endure long award ceremonies populated by stars and ’slebs with egos bigger than the venue itself making every effort to hide what they are really feeling when they miss out on awards?
They put on their best acting face and smile with fake admiration for the winner and hide their defeat beneath an expression of adoration, appreciation and happiness, despite missing out.
It’s all pretence.
Inside they’re fuming – furious that the award has, in fact, gone to the wrong person.
Instead, Jackson let it all hang out.
He didn’t care who knew it and, in the phony, pretentious and disingenuous world of showbizzy-b*****ks, it was truly refreshing to see someone not prepared to toe the line of politeness and manners.
He threw caution to the wind and showed his true self.
