The pole vaulter and the journalist
Simon Barnes has defended his eulogy to the beautiful pole vaulter, over at The Times blog. The comments section is getting quite heated, but I think there are two sides to this...
On the one hand, Simon seems to be right. It's not a crime to be heterosexual, and Yelena Isinbayeva is indeed a beautiful and physically impressive young woman. Why ignore the facts?
On the other hand, can anyone stop those alarm bells ringing? They're giving me ear-ache. He name-checks feminism quite deliberately - and as a movement from the 60s and 70s rather than a current, relevant attitude that we should all have. And he says that before feminism was fully developed ("in the primordial days") men weren't allowed to comment on the appearance of women. The implication being, "Thank God women saw sense and you can do that again." But still he insists he was a feminist from the start. Bit confusing.
So is he trivialising women, here? Or feminism? Himself? All three? Maybe in the end what suffers most from all this is modern-day feminism, which has been bludgeoned to make way for his argument. And the tragedy is, it may not even have been standing in his way.
Why not check out the article and tell me, what do you think?
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