Not a fan of Mariella's (The Guardian) advice today.

[Bovneydazzlers]

https://www.theguardian.com/lifeandstyle/2019/jun/02/dear-mariella-frostrup-my-friends-husbands-keep-hitting-on-me?CMP=ShareiOSAppp_Other

Her column today- a lady is having unwanted advances from her friends' husbands.

Mariella's advice includes such nuggets of wisdom as...
Nice problem to have!
Are you guilty of enjoying the lure of your own allure?

I've disagreed with her advice before (the teenage girl bullied by her trans friend was advised to think about what her bully is going through), but think this advice is off the mark this time too.

I no longer read the Observer regularly but I never rated her advice much. I don’t understand why she got the advice column.

‘Nice problem to have’ is such a stupid thing to say. Bloody hell.

(I read the letter where the woman describes herself as being unable to fill a double-AA cup and I thought, she needs a Mumsnet bra intervention 😄 - that advice would be more useful!)

She writes stuff as well? I thought she was only annoying on the radio, with her self-satisfied complacent “sexy” voice.

Mariella's advice is rarely helpful IMO although I doubt she writes it herself, maybe it's written by a man? Nice problem to have, please. It's never comfortable when a friend gets herself a gropey husband and I don't know how best to solve it. Have to ditch friend eventually though when they start over-hugging your teen daughter. Blecch.

“one of these husbands had his hands all over me”

That’s sexual assault.

Terrible advice. I would have told her to tell everyone involved and never to see him again. She’s not doing her friend a favour by not telling her. No friendship is worth enduring sexual assault for.

I read it this morning and wondered if there would be a MN thread about it.

Call me fussy, but I don't personally view being groped as a "nice problem to have". There's also a veil of victim blaming through the advice, with the dig about some women encouraging the behaviour. I can't help but wonder how Mariella herself would feel if one of her friend's husbands decided to goose her under the table at a dinner party.

I find it quite sad that an otherwise articulate, well-educated and privileged woman would subscribe to the view of the male gaze being the be-all and end-all of whether someone is attractive or not. Why is it a good thing that her friends' husbands find her attractive? Why does that have to be held up as some kind of achievement?

Yeah it's utter twaddle. No actual advice given whatsoever.

Ugh just saw it. Absolutely grim. Not sure why she thinks being groped by acquaintances is a good thing, presumably having men fancy you is the one true validation of your worth as a woman at any age. I thought it was just naive virgins who felt that way. I was certainly over it by 30.

Thank you!

FFS letter writer describes being sexually assaulted and she is told 1. Be grateful and 1. She brought it on herself.

Ground-breaking stuff.

I just read that and thought WTF? Utterly bizarre advice - I appreciate sometimes you can benefit from another perspective rather than the expected one, but I didn’t think anything she said would be helpful. Count yourself lucky you get hit on? So weird.

And how about the creepy assumption that the me-too stuff doesn't apply to the oldies.

I was on holiday in my twenties and got followed and perved over on a beach by an objectively very handsome guy ( looked like Brad Pitt). It was still awful he was abit odd and I didn’t want to have lunch with him, sit with him and when I went for a swim he came too and groped me. Pisses me off when misogynists say of harassment “bet she wouldn’t have complained if he was good looking” totally misses the point.

She clearly doesn't realise the over 50's have biggest increases in STI's amongst any age group

And unfairly put me right off brad Pitt though not his fault the guy was swiss

I saw the column and was absolutely disgusted with it. But was so glad to see this post and fund I wasn't the only one who'd reacted that way! The advice says a lot about Mariella and nine of it very pleasant. Imagine in this day and age blaming the victim of sexual assualt and thinking it a nice problem to have! Disgusting in anyone let alone in a woman with an advice column in a major newspaper. I wouldn't even expect this kind of attitude in the Daily Mail nowadays, let alone the Observer.

Fuckwit.

Can't believe she still has a platform when there is MN which gives actual sensible advice. I never rated her column and now can't listen to her on the radio because I just think 'but you clearly don't understand anything about real life'

I can't stand Mariella but she is trying to explain why this is suddenly happening in the woman's life. What is going on?

What a terribly condescending reply she's given this woman. And the underhanded agism is transparent. Nice one. She totally goes way off topic and uses this woman's problem as an opening to criticise the media's archetype of beauty (which just has ZERO to do with the woman's dilemma). I don't actually see the answer to the actual question.

And she really lost me with the misogynist's old chestnut: The "Are you asking for it? Did you lure him in and are you secretly quite pleased with yourself?" blame game.
It's in the same class as "Did your short skirt and pretty smile get you raped?"
Maybe, the guy hitting on this woman is just a dick, Mariella.

Gotta love the token, "I'm a feminist tho innit, cuz I'd have sex with Germaine Greer over KK." How does ANY of that pertain to what the woman wrote?

And WTF is this tripe? "First, to work out why anyone would find little old you in any way attractive and, second, what the strange siren-like signals are that you’re sending, luring your friends’ husbands to shipwreck themselves on your AA bosom."

Her use of language is dreadful. What a depressing response. I hope the woman who asked for her advice doesn't read Mariella's terrible advice. When did she become the Post-Menopausal Guru???

I'm afraid that Mariella, like many in the public eye is over-rated.

I never read her column as I find her quite cold and arrogant and lacking in empathy or understanding. The only column of this type I like is Tanya Byron in the Times, who is actually a qualified psychologist.

It was a dreadful column. Almost as if she didn't believe the woman, so dismissive and jeering was her tone.

Does she have a cheating husband/partner of her own perhaps, and gets by through blaming the other women?

Is MF trying to be clever and 'alternative' with this response? That's the only way I can account for such a baffling response to someone being groped. At least the comments underneath are recognising this. Hope the lady in question pays more attention to those than MF's ignorant tripe.