A regiment of women monsterers

disenfranchised

well i, for one, think there are few journalists, male or female, to beat melanie phillips.
all other considerations apart, she's honest to a fault.....

SJH

Bit odd condemning "vicious denunciations" and then calling critics "hollow-eyed masturbators".

Laurie Penny is ludicrous; Polly Toynbee is pompous, pretends to a mastery of matters she does not have, and is a hypocrite. This would matter little if one were not the grand dame of the Left, the other her breathless heir apparent. They get off lightly.

Mad Mel runs at her opposition like a rugby forward. Small wonder her opponents think that full frontal confrontation is her preferred currency.

There are lots of female commentators from the Left and Right who hold positions their opponents don't like but avoid the forms of attention you decry. But these three get particular attention. I think that's because of the nature of the unholy trinity you seek to defend.

Jeremy

Laurie Penny:

"Those who are wealthy enough to afford decent healthcare have their needs met in relative luxury, while those who are poor live in fear of getting ill, worrying that one misadventure might leave you with yet more debts to pay off...Which is why children and pensioners are still standing in Manhattan's financial district with placards telling the world they cannot afford healthcare, as police patrol the perimeter."

Overall, it may not be an exceptional article, but she does have a point, and she does make it.

JasonR

Knowles's article is tame stuff; nothing nasty about it. Face it, men and women are different and will be treated accordingly.

Erica Blair

So Nick thinks that Melanie Phillips hasn't done anything as bad as Johann Hari.

Could someone tell him why Meleamie doesn't post here any more.

Matthew Blott

Thanks for this Nick, a long overdue post on this subject.

I know she isn't too popular on Coffee House but I've always thought the level of vitriol Toynbee receives was way out of line. She's on the left but she is an outspoken critic of Islamism and has criticised European governments for not spending enough on defence and leaving it to the Americans. She does have a forceful tone but if some of her critics bothered to listen they might see she isn't the wishy washy liberal they try and portray her as. But it's much more fun to paint her as "menopausal" (Richard Littlejohn).

Ditto Laurie Penny - friends and indeed family members who otherwise have nice inclusive liberal views have come out with some appalling sexist language when describing her to me.

And although her generally bigoted views are anathema to my liberal sensibilities I agree that Melanie Phillips seems to come in for extra special treatment. Her opinions aren't too different from Simon Heffer's yet he doesn't have to put up with the nickname "Mad Simon" in the blogosphere.

Tammie Lee Gibbs

I am a first year Journalism student and this is almost exactly the kind of story I am required to discuss and interview with a respected journalist for my next assignment... the world works in mysterious ways!
Would it be possible to speak with you for an assignment regarding this piece? If so, please contact me via my email (provided to the website) when you are able to.
Very much looking forward to hearing from you in the near future.

Ian Wright

So why didnt she buy travel insurance?

never leave home without it.......

joe

The fact remains however that the USA spends more per person on the uninsured than the NHS spends on us.
The uninsured have to go to hospital for healthcare, and don't have home visits, they have to share wards, and they have to wait for diagnostics and elective surgery. But then so do we.

It's just that in America, this is seen as barbaric.

Old Slaughter

But Nick, it's not because she's a woman, it's because she is a self-regarding, over-rated ego who scans a thesaurus as she writes ill-considered toss.

To examine the misogyny angle, imagine if any male writer started his article with an opening paragraph that basically reads: 'I'm so super cool, I awoke after getting laid with a girl I barely knew after a day sticking-it-to-the-man just like the true descendant of Che." He would not get very far.

She poeticises totally safe cliche student nonsense like she is standing before tanks in Peking. Then when one reduces her arguments to their core, they are illogical leftie clap-trap. Most have been sleeping with people casually for decades now, listening to Bob Dylan and painting placards, all with the knowledge that it is safe and unoriginal. No Big Deal. Only someone this worthy of abuse and ridicule writes such nonsense from the position of thinking this is special. That it is risque.

For this she is lauded, paid and published often. Anyone engaged in the war on cliche should want her to stop... immediately.

That is why so many dislike her and rip her stuff. Not because she doesn't own a penis.

As for Polly, its because she sticks up for the workers in equally ill-considered terms from a villa in Tuscany.

For Melanie, wow... imagine if a man wrote what she wrote, he'd never get as far as Question Time in our climate. She gets away with more as a woman.

So in short... your post is bollocks.

fergus pickering

So what you are saying, Joe, is that the poor in America get treatment that is just as good as NHS treatment to everybody. That IS what you are saying, isn't it Joe. So a poor uninsured person in the USA who had to have heart surgery would get treatment as good as that which I got at St Thomas's Hospital, being operated on by the best surgeons that we have, and hardly having to wait at all. That IS what yu are saying, Joe. Could I suggest that perhaps you are talking out of your arse.

Old Slaughter

Furthermore... There is a strange attitude that seems to suggest that there are two health systems in the world, UK & US and one takes one or the other.

Steven Turner

Polly Toynbee is wrong most of the time but I can stomach her lefty beliefs as she still argues well.

Describing Laurie Penny as 'beyond parody' is perfect. She is what a Hollywood writer would create if asked to come up with a clueless, vacant, boring lefty feminist who is ideologically addicted. You get the sense that she asks "what do we believe in?" before commenting on anything. And the fact she has gone to NY to Occupy Wall Street... what does she think about Americans occupying Iraq then? She cannot be real, it has to be performance art surely.

Anthony

"No male writer gets the kind of going overs Polly Toynbee, Laurie Penny and Melanie Phillips receive as a matter of routine."

While I'd accept that some for the abuse thrown at the above is misogynistic drivel, not all of it is. Phillips, for example, has written utter drivel on science in society, as well as ludicrous hype over Eurabia.

As for male writers who get goings over: Simon Jenkins, Peter Hitchens, Rod Liddle, Jeremy Clarkson, Robert Fisk, are examples surely?

Complainathon

I decided sexism was behind this bizarre loathing of women columnists when I read the comments under Janet Daley columns in the Telegraph. Her writing is reasonable and moderate, her approach is not inflammatory. But you'd have thought she was suggesting setting light to the Union Jack with a candle stuck up the Queen's bum from the comments underneath each column. Patronising and foam-flecked, they make me doubt the sanity of man -- and I do mean 'man', given that most of the writers identified themselves as male.

Many commenters here have insisted that Melanie Phillips is somehow different enough from other columnists to merit the obsessive opprobrium she receives from, basically, everyone. Is she really? Name one male columnist people hate as much as her. Peter Hitchens? No, people like his educated curmudgeonly style. Daniel Hannan? Nah, mainstream conservatives adore him and leftists dismiss him. She, on the other hand, is hated. Viscerally. I've read her columns. Yes, she's conservative. But she's not a monster. She's just a conservative intelligent woman. Kind of like Margaret Thatcher. Who is more reviled than any other prime minister in the long history of this nation. And who is also the only woman on that list, which also contains so many un-hated male scoundrels.

Kennybhoy

"No male writer gets the kind of going overs Polly Toynbee, Laurie Penny and Melanie Phillips receive as a matter of routine."

Johann Hari

Robert Fisk

David Aaronovitch

Nick Cohen

Chris Birney

I think Cohen is right on this one. Most people resent her for her early success and the expression of that resent is often ugly. I don't find her that insightful, a rather large part of her work is cheap populism that provides no insights on anything. I can see the potential though.

However I do wonder if she suffers from the same condition as Hari.

"Glass is being thrown; I fling myself behind a barrier and scramble on to a ledge for safety. A nonplussed school pupil from south London has had the same idea. He grins, gives me a hand up and offers me a cigarette of which he is at least two years too young to be in possession. I find that my teeth are chattering and not just from cold. "It's scary, isn't it?" I ask. The boy shrugs. "Yeah," he says, "I suppose it is scary. But frankly..." He lights up, cradling the contraband fag, "frankly, it's not half as scary as what's happening to our future.""

A bit Hariesque no?

mark hunter

Clarkson, Littlejohn, Monbiot all get their fair share of vitriol. It's to do with tone rather than gender or content.

Michael Smith

Penny started getting serious criticism after she wished Margaret Thatcher dead. Sadly these hate-writers tend to find out how hurtful this stuff is the hard way.

Dubs

Nick,

thanks for this post. I must confess that Penny had managed to pass under my radar but after checking he links in your piece I now know her to be a hypocrite, fraud and poser. I shall keep an eye on her.

Victoria Freeman

HatE to throw a spanner in your works, Nick, but what about the vitriolic reaction Richard Murphy receives for espousing the same views as Laurie & Polly. It is utterly false to suggest that the criticism they receive is the product of misogyny. They are criticised because they are wrong.

Jennie Kermode

With respect, how ought one to express concern about habitually poor journalism if the person responsible for it happens to be female?

Laura Marcus

I think the dirty little secret is that an awful lot of men think an awful lot of women shouldn't be writing anything at all. This is especially so online. Many men think this is their space and how dare the girlies be there.

I quite like Penny's pieces, have some sympathy with where Phillips is coming from and have long admired Ms Toynbee. I especially admire Toynbee for putting up with all the vitriol and hate-filled posts and emails she receives.

That said, I think Monbiot gets it too.

For another dirty little secret is that the right is much much nastier than the left. The former has a sense of entitlement. The right owns. The left only rents.

Signed, a woman of the left and of a certain age. There! That should fill a few right wing bingo cards for you.

joe

Actually, Fergus, what I say is that more money is spent on the uninsured in the USA than the NHS spends on us pro rata. This is simply a fact.

Whilst you may have had first class treatment on the NHS, there are thousands of horror stories too. That of course is only anecdotal evidence.

The FACT that they spend more pro rata on the uninsured is incontrovertible.

Michael Sweeney

Interesting, but not sure of it works. All of them seem a bit deluded to me. George Moonbat Monbiot, the ArchBish of Canterbury, indeed Mr Fisk himself all get a good mauling from time to time. Usually deserved too. there are plent of respected women columnists/journalists to choose from.

Mr Grumpy

Misogynists are indeed legion in the comment threads, but where's the misogyny here? Penny takes good care to avail herself of the privileges of the insured, then writes about the insight she has gained into the plight of the uninsured by, er, not experiencing it. In the face of such sanctimony Knowles was pretty restrained.

fergus pickering

That is just playing with figures, Joe. In America I presume most people are insured. Only the poor are not. Over here nobody is insured because treatment is free for everybody. Ergo... What on earth is barbaric about sharing a ward. Gives you something to look at and someone to talk to. But then I am a democrat and you are not.

Banquosghost

What Old Slaughter said, in fact what Old Slaughter said with knobs on.

Ridcully

Laura Marcus: Wait until Margaret Thatcher dies; then we will see which side of the political spectrum has the real ownership of nastiness.

Maddy1

Well this is all grist to the mill for Penny, she has become one of the BBC chosen 'golden', ones and will have not worry about pensions or any other of life's basics.

AlexW

A silly comment about a silly comment about a silly comment. And I'd describe it as more of a squint than looking hollow-eyed - still its done wonders for my one-handed typing.

Henry

"hollow-eyed masturbators"

That is a stunningly, EMBARRASSINGLY ironic remark.

I've criticised Penny online, does that mean I am a "woman monstnerer" (ridiculous written English, by the way, well done!), or one of Cohen's "hollow-eyed masturbators"? Charming fellow.

I suspect the comparison between the treatment male/female writers receive, is misleading, and unresearched. Nevertheless, another example is Jan Moir, after her insensitive article on Steven Gateley. All these writers are provocative, slightly extreme (left or right) journalists.

Think about Penny for a moment. She has said and written a lot about "revolution", spoken with glee (it's on YouTube) about the "breakdown between the citizen and the state".

It's unquestionably immature stuff, and yet the BBC/Guardian/New Statesman insist on giving her time and space. Why? I think frustration with the coverage she mysteriously gets is to blame for some of the vitriol.

Gita Sahgal

Nice piece, Nick.Absolutely true.Misogyny is rife across parties and political writing

David L

Not in any way seeking to justify the abuse handed out to Laurie Penny, but I suspect some of it results from her own appearances on radio & tv, where she usually ends up trying to shout down and talk over anyone who disagrees with her views. I have sometimes switched off the radio to shut her up, not because of her views, but because her manner is so grating. But as I say, that doesn't justify vile ad hominem abuse.

Henry

Also, I do think anyone who reads this article should read the story of Neil Lyndon

http://www.guardian.co.uk/books/2000/dec/15/society

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Neil_Lyndon

Lyndon wrote a piece in the Sunday Times mildly criticising feminism. Efforts were apparently made to block publication of his piece. The response in the next week's paper was revealing:

"Looking back at the cuttings, there was not much discussion of the content of his writings, rather it was the size of penis, his ability to attract women and the fragrance of his breath that were called into question. One adjective was so routinely applied to him, you began to wonder if it was part of his name: the Inadequate Neil Lyndon"

The abuse didn't stop there, including physical attacks, further insults and work drying up for him, when he wrote a book on the subject.

Please, if you have read this piece, read the links too...

Bob Low

I have to disagree with Nick on this one. Penny and Toynbee are both ridiculous figures,but I suspect the real reason that they attract such vitriol is because much of what they write is pretty vitriolic itself. Beneath the reasonable facade of ''progressive '' political writing, Toynbee frequently stoops to personal attacks on opponents, and writes from the point of view that anyone disagreeing with her is either stupid , evil or both.Penny's piece following the prison sentence meted out to Charlie Gilmour-ostensibly critical of the sentence, but using the occasion as an opportunity to indulge in a spot of character assasination-is one of the nastiest things I've ever read in a professional publication.As the old cliche has it, if you dish it out, you should be prepared to take it.

Archibald

Was this whole article just a badly disguised excuse to have yet another pop at the hapless Hari?

Frankly, I don't understand how the criticism on a blog by someone who appears to be working at the Telegraph on his gap year could have caused you to write this.

I don't think personal attacks on journalists are reserved only for women, that is a ludicrous suggestion. Indeed, Rod Liddle recently blogged on a column about him in the Guardian that was one in a long line of personal attacks he has (some may say rightly) suffered.

Truth is, sometimes views expressed by Melanie Phillips and Poly Toynbee can see so ludicrous to those on the opposite side of the political divide, attack is inevitable, and we're blessed with enough poor journalists and unstable bloggers that personal attack is bound to occur now and again in lieu of any reasoned argument, whether the attacker be male or female.

I recall Julie Birchill writing on this topic a while back, pointing out that the really horrible attacks on female journalists were from female journalists, she had some rather unenlightened views on the matter if I recall, but then she's a right bitch that one. I'm joking of course, I have no idea if she is a bitch, well that's not true as I read her regularly but I like her anyway.

I haven't actually seen personal attacks on Laurie before, but I don't read her anyway, however a quick look at her stuff to get a feel shows she sets herself up as radical feminist, as apparently at the New Statesman branding of your views is everything, just writing isn't good enough. She also writes the Penny Red blog, sells herself as a lipstick lesbian and the blog has the line "every human heart is a revolutionary cell" as the strap. I wouldn't attack someone for doing this, but one wonders if in making herself into a brand of sorts rather than just writing as a journalist, while giving her some success may also have exposed her to more direct attack, if such attacks have indeed happened. It must be hard for people like her, so I'm sure she's had to market herself to be heard above the web noise, perhaps this fact is lost on some tired old hacks, as well as the odd Telegraph web blogger on his gap year. Of course, perhaps the young lad just isn't getting any, and so is a bit anti-lesbian right now. We were all young once, you shouldn't rub his nose in it.

jonnyjackhammer

Fergus. I usually like your comments and find them amusing - but are you losing the plot? Joe has made a serious point. You’ve merely slagged him off. If you can’t do a better job I’ll be most disappointed. Ad hominem attacks and invective without logic, argument and evidence is feeble - even for a chap.

Colin

Bob Low @ 12:06pm Has it right.

What goes around, comes around.

Penny and Toynbee swing from downright nasty to plainly ridiculous, with little if nothing in between. When you throw in a healthy dose of factual inaccuracy, combined with frequent, high profile platforms from which to mouth off, is it any wonder some people react the way they do?

Rob

Why is Lauirie Penny of interest to anyone -- from what I have heard from her she offes very little of interest

Patricia Shaw

Disenfranchised - Love the twisted humour re Phillips.

Yes - honesty and Phillips are not exactly bedmates. Regulars will remember Panorama s editor exposing her vulgar little lies on these very pages earlier this year.

fergus pickering

johnny jackhammer, I'm glad I generally give satisfaction. I thought my last post was hardly abusive at all. Anyone who demands a single room in a hospital doesn't care for his fellow man, as far as I can see. And there were some people in single rooms, presumably the ones who asked. I found the portuguese man opposite who didn't speak a single word of English though his visiting family, including his children, all did, most interesting and instructive. How had this come about? We communicated through international signs from time to time as I was on my way to the loo. And his condition definitely improved. Hospital drama and social commentary all before my very eyes. And my ward was four people not a long dormitory. Perhaps joe hasn't been to hospital lately, and perhaps things are better in London than the North and all that. But there are surely shitty hospitals in the USA, as there are anywhere. However, if Joe feels roughly used then I apologise. And I freely admit I may be wrong. My daughters tell me I am always wrong, increasing age and resultant approaching idiocy, don't you know.

fergus pickering

Good Heavens, is she a lesbian? You've quite spoiled my daydreams. I thought it was just a bad haircut.

LMS

I don't know Nick, think about the grief that James Delingpole, and more especially, Toby Young get... Laurie Penny gets it so much because she comes across as a 6th form student who is a little too pleased with herself.

Matt

You've missed the distinction between Polly and Penny.

Polly is an opinionator who can be extremely offensive, but who can be taken or left. I don't normally bother reading her stuff, because it becomes an exercise in fact-checking before I even get to the conclusions she's drawn from data which is often reimagined.

Penny passes herself off as a reporter, but has not learnt the basics of news reporting, or to distinguish between the news and her own imagination.

Add that to a Leamington Spa Revolutionary teenage politics, and the use of alleged misogyny as a shield, while publshing personal insults day by day, and you can see why some find her both funny and offensive.

Witness LP's reporting of the riots, starting from "I'm huddled in my front room" (there not able to report anything) to "Police stations are being set alight all over the country" as news 4 paras later (they weren't).
pennyred.blogspot.com/2011/08/panic-on-streets-of-london.html

She's still at it. Last month it was a scoop that Water Cannon were planned for the London Demo. None appeared.

someone

Absolutely true.. There is special relish in picking on a woman, particularly one who doesn't tow the line. For that matter, a black man in America who is a conservative will also find himself facing racist uncle-tom comments.

Andy Carpark

A chicken is not a bird. A woman is not a human being.

- Russian proverb

jez Sullivan

She s a toff like everyone who writes for newspapers, she has no student loan to pay, no worrying meetings on the red sofa at her local HSBC, the media and political elite in this country is so narrow and so based in the South East, the rest of us are laughing at all of you.

Halcyondaze

Melanie Phillips cogently articulates the views of the majority of people in this country who have been bullied and smeared into silence by the contemptuous leftie elite who govern the BBC, the universities and newspapers like the Guardian. You know the types - people who define reality by what they think it should be rather than by what it actually is - and heaven protect you from the fury they'll unleash if you disagree with them.

That's why she attracts such vitriol - because she stands up for herself and for us - and she has an intellect that dwarfs the likes of that pompous old hypocrite Toynbee.

And that is why she will always have our support.