Giles Coren on Weinstein and what a terrible shame it is that women have to power to ruin a sex pest's career

What an utter prat. I saw on twitter “I can’t believe Victoria Coren Mitchell and Giles Coren are siblings, I can barely believe they’re the same species.”

To reiterate AF, Giles Coren described holidaying with his three year old daughter as the sexiest experience of his life. I’m fairly sure he takes a shit on his keyboard and then just presses submit.

Any man who thinks he cannot do anything now without fearing sexual assault should re evaluate how he speaks to women.

Why do men do this though? Why are they so obtuse when it comes to sexual harassment?

Surely they know the difference? Surely they know when they are being just friendly and when they’re being creepy and harrassery.

HW sure as hell knows the difference because on that tape of him harassing the actress he specifically points out his high status and accuses her of embarrassing him at the hotel where everyone knows him.

He knows full well that he’s manipulating her and that she doesn’t want to. So how can men not see that as coercion?

Are they really that stupid?

One misfired flirt and I could be out of a job, publicly shunned, end up in prison. The women are out there who could make it happen. The historical crimes, real or imagined, are waiting to tumble upon one wrong move

Fucks sake, like this is even slightly true. A French musician beat his girlfriend to death and is now on the font cover of a rock magazine. Men get away with murder, literally. Cosby, Polanski and all the ones whose crimes didn't come out until the were old or dead - Grenville Janner, Saville, Cyril Smith.

It is loathsome and self serving to pretend women now have a power they don't and have never had. I can't believe anyone could defend that vile opinion piece.

At least he can take some comfort from the strong support on twitter from people going on about "rape myths". He's found his constituency.

Oh no! Men can’t smile at women anymore.

Yes, Giles and all the other obtuse twuntfaces littering the internet with their “woe is man” responses to HWgate.

Smiling at women. That is exactly what this is all about.

Talk about a fucking strawman.

He writes guff like this every week, not surprising. I don't get why that nice Robshawe family hang with him.

I think this should be pushed heavily. With luck it'll cause Coren to flounce off and we'll no longer be exposed to his rubbish writing.

He doesn't seem to have spotted that the Alan Coren mini-me shtick wore off many years ago.

(I always skip his articles. Years ago I read one because it was recommended by a mate. It was shit. Years later I read another because I thought "he must write decent stuff sometimes". That was also shit.)

They’ve always been a bit too keen to admit the well connected moron at Oxford, ‘tis true.

Karlos of course Toby also had a distinguished famous dad so got in despite academic mediocrity. See also Polly "one A level" Toynbee!

*gritting

Sorry for typos. Caffeine hasn’t hit yet.

If he’s worried at allegations of sexual assault about Harvey Weinstein are stopping him flirting, he’s having trouble seeing the line between flirting and assault.

Women are finely tuned as to what constitutes misogyny when it’s being papered over. Tells everywhere.

For instance:

’m not counting anyone who might have shagged me just to be polite. We’ve surely all done that: got to the point where stopping now would simply look rude and just gritted our teeth and pushed on through.)

If you’re shagging a woman who is getting her teeth, it’s unsurprising that you can’t tell the difference between flirting and assault.

And no, trying grade assault on a sliding scale, where good looks or otherwise are the decider, is also a tell.

His grip on the basics of English law seems rather tenuous, for a supposedly educated man.
If what you were doing involved risk if imprisonment, twat face, it was a bit more than flirting.

One misfired flirt and I could be out of a job, publicly shunned, end up in prison. The women are out there who could make it happen. The historical crimes, real or imagined, are waiting to tumble upon one wrong move

Funny enough Giles, I've managed for my whole professional career, which is 32 years long right now, to not inappropriately touch a colleague nor have I ever sent kisses in a work email. If you have overstepped the mark, don't blame the women for the mark that YOU overstepped, and if you don't know the difference between how to behave with women and men, just treat women the same way you would treat men.

It is not hard, is it?

i tend to find Coren’s writing thought provoking. The main thought they provoke is this; what the hell was going on with Oxford’s admissions policy 25 years ago? I hope they’ve fixed it.
Reading anything by Toby young has a similar effect.

I'm not on twitter, so I don't know how it's going down over there, but the issue absolutely isn't the phrase "just touching". The thrust of the whole article is that the problem about women complaining about sexual assault is that it makes men feel icky. Take that premise away and there's no article. The "just touching" is neither here nor there and it changes nothing - rephrase that to something less idiotically clueless, and you still have Giles complaining that women highlighting sexual assault isn't fair to men. Which is a dick move, Giles.

I've seen male colleagues in a towel before - away for a number of days on work, staying in a house with one bathroom, scuttling past each other in the corridor. No-one feels sexually harrassed or intimidated, it's just people getting on with their lives.

Had they come into my room in their towel, or insisted that I go to their room to speak to them rather than waiting until we were all in a communal area, stood against the door, asked me to touch them, exposed themselves to me, been in a position of power over me at work, it would all have been very different. Context is everything. But Coren is deliberately and disingenuously ignoring that so that the experiences of these women can be minimised, silenced, so that we can focus on what really matters here: the rights of men not to feel uncomfortable at work.

It's a badly written article which expresses what appears to be his fundamental misogyny perfectly although I doubt that was the look he was going for; he's getting a lot of flak for it on Twitter, fortunately, from men as well as women. Victoria has spoken out in his defence, though...

He does acknowledge that the "just touching" was clumsily expressed - given he makes a living out of writing, you might have thought he woukd have spotted that before sending it to print but there we go. But then he whinges that everyone has taken the quoted paragraphs out of context, cutting them off after saying that accusations of sexual assault finish a man's career but before he says "And rightly." But what he actually says is "And rightly, I suppose." How grudging does that sound?! Really resentful that a man's career might be finished over something so trivial! What a twat.

damn - computer submitted before I'd finished.

I mean - that no, smiling back at a woman who's smiled at you is normal, polite, human behaviour.

Demanding that that woman smiles at you, or going over to that woman and touching her un-invited, or refusing to take no as an answer when she tries to get out of the conversation - that's the bad stuff.

Exchanging a bad joke with a waitress - they've heard it before, but pleasant customers aren't a problem.

and that 'I suppose' - as though this is something academic, to be debated, as though perhaps women could just shut up and let men flash women without complaining - as if things were better when we didn't point out it wasn't acceptable to do that.

I've seen an ex-boss in a bathrobe - but then there were a number of us staying at his house, and it was early in the morning. He wasn't trying to flash us (and didn't - he was in pjs underneath). That is fine and normal. I think we all know what is meant when we hear that Weinstein opened the door in a bathrobe.

He's got it confused
It’s time for me to stop smiling back at young women in the street
And when one female accuser comes out, more come. Inevitable as the rain. Sometimes it is hundreds, as with Weinstein. And then without any cross-examination of the stories, the man is finished. No trials or second chances. Even if nobody said “rape”. Even if it was just touching, or saying things, or simply standing there in a bathrobe being an ugly fat old slob, looking as if you would quite like to have sex (a crime of which I myself am frequently guilty), the man is finished.

And rightly, I suppose. Women have suffered sexual microaggressions (and macro ones) at the hands of men for thousands of years. All of them, from what I can make out, by all of us. And I don’t want to run the slightest risk of being seen to have any part in any of it any more.

www.the-pool.com/news-views/opinion/2017/42/mel-mcgrath-on-naming-the-man-who-sexually-harassed-her

Look at this old creep, got away with it too.

I know older men in a professional setting who in a pre-feminist era might have enjoyed being able to behave however they wanted towards women. Possibly, they do complain among themselves about that. But unlike Giles, they're able to master basic stuff like: signing off with a xx is a bit weird and unprofessional. And so is getting off with much younger colleagues. It's just basic manners and self-restraint. He comes across as really spoiled and entitled in general (which he doubtless is; that name meant he didn't have to struggle very hard)

It’s not one bit better “in context”! It’s self pitying bilge about how the nasty women make such a fuss about perfectly harmless interactions that all the lecherous old fuckers who’ve never done anything “worse” than a bit of mild sexual assault and harassment don’t get to have any “fun” any more. What.The.Fuck?? No.

XXs on texts from men make me uncomfortable. I am not a texter/whatsapper etc anyway. I will text only when I am unable to speak. I have only ever been text kisses twice from men that I am not married to (and my DH uses them as sparingly I do). Once was a friend and I immediately text back "Don't X me!". The other was a senior work collegue. I don't know him that well but from all accounts and my experience with him he is a truly lovely guy and not one for any kind of flirting. Still I didn't like it but was unable to say anything because of course then I would be making it awkward.... although... would he send a X to a male colleague? Maybe it was just a brain fart on his part but correcting it, again, would make it more awkward.

I wonder if its because I have been with my DH so long, mobile phones were not quite ubiquitous when we got together. I have never done text flirting or anything.

To be fair I find them a bit cringe worthy from women too especially when it's somebody you barely know sending something like "I'll be there at 12 X" . My friend tells me she feels like she is being aggressive if she doesn't put an X on a text. So maybe this (x's on text communication) isn't a feminist thing for me as much as it is that I am basically a curmudgeon.

I never had a strong opinion on him before now, I have to say. Beyond the superficial, like that he has a very weedy voice.

I've briefly met Victoria, and found her friendly and likeable. But this is about her brother, not her.

I've always hated Giles, he comes across as such a nasty, bitter man. And one who'll say anything for attention. He's only had any success cos of his dad! Bloody nepotism gets you places.