To think allisons pearsons rant about Angela Rayner is full of nasty stereotypes about girls who are 16 and pregnant?

[Helhigh]

Well I’m not a fan of Angela Rayner and have never voted labour but Pearsons rant in the telegraph yesterday was half assumptions that Rayner must have been a bully who thumped classmates for doing their homework and distracted the class by talking about how many boys she shagged.
And of course reading books and having a child at 16 is mutually exclusive.
I don’t think Rayner has ever said she was like this Pearson has just made a load of assumptions because she was 16 and pregnant.

Anyway it’s behind a pay wall so I had to copy and paste the nasty part:

“I have noticed a tendency among politicians and commentators, particularly the posh ones, to praise Rayner’s flame-haired “authenticity”. That’s because they didn’t go to school with an Angela. Those of us who did know the harm that the Angelas do to kids from poorer homes who want to work hard and do well but whose lessons are permanently disrupted by those who don’t. The Angelas sit in the back row of the class putting on make-up, doing their nails and chatting loudly, throughout readings from the set book, about who they’ve sh---ed. They disdain the teachers who are rather scared of them.
Angelas have sex by the age of 13 (they mock those of us who are saving our virginity for later). Pregnant at 16, they leave school without any qualifications and work behind the till in Mac Fisheries before embarking on a romantic life which features at least two injunctions and a restraining order. By the age of 37, they are grandmothers (as Rayner was).
Believe me, all the kids who want to get on in life breathe an almighty sigh of relief that the Angelas have left school because now they can hand in their homework and try to pass their exams without being ridiculed or thumped by an Angela.
So you’ll have to forgive me if I don’t join in the applause for Angela Rayner’s vibrant “back story” and her ascent to the top of government through militant trade unionism. The working-class kids I admire often came from difficult council-house homes, as Rayner did, but they clung on to education like a life raft. Or they saw a job opportunity and grasped it with both hands. They did that old-fashioned thing called bettering themselves”

Your evidence for this?

If it was well-known. Please give us these facts and a link.

You have clearly not been to one of these posh schools, or encountered any of these posh girls.

I have, and I can report that they were some of the nastiest, most spiteful girls I have ever had to deal with. However, I have never sat and thought to clump them all together as one homogenous mass.

AP is a toxic dump of a human. How she could pen this about another woman based on stereotypes, with no evidence on AR whatsoever, sums her up really really well.

That's the difference. With the" nice" middle class girls they would be at the clinic having a termination ASAP so they could " get on with life"

Yet if you get pregnant and shock horror keep the baby then you are obviously the " type" that bring described above

Crazy.

Very good point! And it shows up how Pearson deftly pivots between two opposing stereotypes of the working class, so as to reinforce them both at the same time:

A) the chavvy underclass, who are loud and annoying, have sex too young and rely on benefits, thus proving Socialism Is Bad;

B) the deserving poor, who get on their bikes and hunt for jobs, live a life of strict moral rectitude (unlike the ruling class) and vote Tory, thus proving that Conservatism Is Good

Rayner, in being both a teen mum and a high-ranking public official, explodes these stereotypes - which is why the Pearsons of this world feel they must drag her down.

What evidence do we have that Angela was one of them? Horrible right wing snobbery.

I agree it’s unfair to link this to an individual.

Obviously not all teenage mothers are like that.

But I’m not going to apologise for criticising the type of girl Allison describes no. You try being a bookish studious type in the early 90s in an ahem mixed school. Not a barrel of laughs.

I'm not a follower of all things AR but would be interested in knowing if this is true - how well known?

If former classmates have spoken, fair enough, but it's news to me

Criticism is fine. Slating someone based on a ground less assumption of what they were like as a young person because of pure prejudice is not. Criticise AR on matters of substance, not spite.

If AR had been a disruptive trouble maker, ruining classes for others and then makig her way to the top while the people she disrupted were disadvantaged and couldnt make it, she might have a point, just about

But I dont know that she has evidence this was the case?

She can make a point about disruptive anti education culture, (theres a thread running right now about that about white WC boys) and about how it damages our children and that would be a very good point to make, but I dont know why she is focusing on someone who she has no evidence fits into this category

She described herself as a "wild child" at school.

How many "wild childs" are not disruptive?

I love mumsnet, women who wouldn’t tolerate their teenage daughters getting pregnant accuse other people of being snobs.

I have no time for Rayner (don’t like her politics and think she’s an utter hypocrite) but rate her for getting herself where she has. I think it’s fine to point out that getting pregnant at 16 is a shit outcome and reflects poorly on your parents more than anything else (I don’t judge kids, but I do judge their families). Having said that Pearson is talking about a stereotype and it’s unfair to use that to bash an individual. Also don’t care if she’s working class, one way to improve your circumstances as a working class person is to not get pregnant as a teenager, anyone who tells you otherwise is happy to make your life worse so they can feel good about being open minded.

Ok yeah she sounds like she was a pain in the ass.

@likelysuspect I dont know why she is focusing on someone who she has no evidence fits into this category

That is what this Daily Telegraph journalist does. She has been investigated for racial hatred because of pretending people were pro-Palestinian in London. The fact was that they were holding a flag of Pakistan in Manchester.

Pearson doesn't trouble about facts - like some of the posters on here.

I'm Alison Pearson's age.

She isn't like she is because of when she was born.
She is like she is because she's a cunt.

But not every girl like that was 16 and pregnant some of the worst people from my school still haven’t had any kids and we are well in our 20s now.
It’s all just assumptions because she had a kid young

I only know of Pearson through I Don’t Know How She Does It which I thought was hilarious at the time. I’m not up on my female journalists atm.

Meaning what though?

She sits in parliament doing her nails and boasting about shagging?

?
I name change to protect my privacy. And I am criticising Allison Pearson

One of the best ways to improve your circumstances as a working class person is to not get pregnant ever.

But people do and many people do very well regardless.

Life happens. It's what you do with it after you have a child that matters and Angela Rayner has done better than most.

So we can’t talk about anything we find abhorrent because it’s giving those views oxygen?

A lot of journalists are like this. They lower themselves to slinging out insults.

Allison herself has been quite open about working her way through the rowing squad at Cambridge, or was it the rugby team ? Or both..

Its a trash piece of lazy mysogynist stereotypes about working class girls, and right wing rhetoric that divides the WC into the good ones who work to get away from their roots, and the bad ones who spoil it for everyone by not being quiet and humble enough.
It would be disingenuous having been to school in a deprived area if I were to deny none of the described behaviours resonated. But to cobble them all together to create a monster and label it an Angela is a way to discourage WC women from speaking, in much the same way Karen has been misappropriated to silence and discredit MC middle aged women.
As for the language used by an adult woman to describe children, it's very concerning as it puts me in mind of the attitudes towards the WC children shown by the apologists in the grooming scandals. Anyone perpetuating stereotypes of bad WC sexually precocious girl children is highly dangerous.