Was I the only person who felt a flash of disappointment when a source said of the imminent Girls Aloud re-union that ‘No one wants it to be a catfight’? Obvs I don’t just want a catfight – they’re the best girl group ever, so they are artists and women of substance. But just a bit of a catfight, maybe?
I’ve had a soft spot for catfights since I was a child; I saw loads at the rough comprehensive school I attended between the older girls – they’d always take their earrings out first and hand them to their best friend to hold, which I found unspeakably glamorous. One of the few disappointments of having been so upwardly mobile during one’s long and lush life is that one never got to see such scraps at one’s watering holes of choice. The idea that me and Dawn French (we loathe each other) might have thrown our dirty martinis in each other’s faces before embarking on a quick but thorough bout of hair-pulling and wrist-twisting during the halcyon days of the Groucho Club is an unlikely (if rather appealing) one.
All that gasping and groaning and rolling around on the floor – it was a Sapphic sex substitute for the saddos
It’s been decades since I saw a real life cat-spat, but the big and small screens alike have given us a good selection, from George Cukor’s The Women (1939), which saw Paulette Goddard and Rosalind Russell having a right royal dust-up, to Joan Collins and Linda Evans involuntary dip in the Dynasty duck-pond. During the glitzy soap’s run from 1981 to 1989, catfights became a regular occurrence, often fully clothed in water for extra sleaze appeal, though Collins and Evans also performed them dressed as Elizabeth I and Henry VIII, in an artist’s studio, at a couture house and while rolling down a ravine. When Collins had finally had enough, Evans was made to fight with her very own identical twin, which was oddly sexy if somewhat surreal.
All that gasping and groaning and rolling around on the floor – it was a Sapphic sex substitute for the saddos, sure, but it was entertaining too. I’d give honourable mentions to Neve Campbell and Denise Richards in Wild Things, Bette Davis and Joan Crawford in Whatever Happened To Baby Jane? – decades of genuine loathing between the pair coming to the boil – and, unexpectedly Beyonce and Ali Larter in Obsessed; if some hot temp trying to take one’s lawfully wedded Idris Elba isn’t ‘motivation’ then I don’t know what is. Some feminists of the po-faced kind say women shouldn’t scrap because men like it, but if you choose to do or not do a thing because men might or might not like it, you’re a lost cause. Besides, girl-on-girl ding-dongs aren’t always about men – sometimes they’re about clothes, All Saints reputedly splitting up over a jacket which two members of the band wanted to wear.
But these are dog days for catfights; a shame, as Rebekah and Coleen could have saved themselves an awful lot of money. I had high hopes for the recent WAG scandal over Kyle Walker, but it appears to have faded away in a blur of weasel words and you-go-girl gurning. Similarly on Love Island – where you’d think that at least a little bit of extension-ripping might occur – the potential scraps over men generally end in crypto-feminist accusations of the other ‘not being a Girl’s Girl.’ As an unrepentant Man’s Woman myself – who would in my hunting days have happily shoved a best mate under a bus if she came between me and my male target – I find this ineffably wet. There’s nothing wrong with a bit of healthy competition, even if it does occasionally necessitate a quick trip to A&E.
I love words, so because of that – and because violence is never the answer, apparently – a good old verbal catfight is good enough for me. I’ve had quite a few with other ladies of letters in my time – the Camille Paglia fax-war comes especially to mind. I can’t understand the desire of some women to have our sex present a united front on issues; feminism is a broad church which should be free to disagree about all sorts. If you agitate for a consensus, you’re getting into the good-girl equivalent of the bad-guy scoldings handed out to, say, the great Douglas Murray by the gender goblins for his commonsensical views on ‘queerness’ or the excruciatingly embarrassing example of Joe Biden informing African Americans that ‘You ain’t black’ if they were considering voting for Donald Trump. Beware the person – man or woman – who sighs primly over the problem of ‘divisiveness’ because in their daydreams, they’re often a dictator. A nice one of course, just one willing to do whatever has to be done in the name of ‘unity’ to stop all that silly ‘squabbling’ which people with brains call free speech and voting.
For the same reason, I won’t be told that appreciating a catfight means I can’t be a feminist. I don’t want to stifle or pervert my own character. I’m a combative, resilient, somewhat spiteful and bitchy broad – and I’m not a bit sorry to be so; it’s a good (or bad) part of what has made me an excellent writer, a successful escapee from a potentially rather dull life and an extremely amusing companion. Obviously I’m not going to be brawling in the street at 64 – but I’ll always believe that a woman who doesn’t have at least the potential to indulge in a catfight is as bland as a bloody mary without Tabasco. So to any #BeKind drips out there, and to nearly quote Margaret Thatcher (a hand-bagger who preferred to de-bag powerful men rather than slap fellow women) ‘You be kind if you want to – this lady’s not for kindling.’ If anyone wants me burned as a witch – or shamed, or silenced, which they’ve tried before to no avail – I’m certainly going to have a damn good scrap with them first. Someone hold my earrings.
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