Haven't caught up with all the pages I've missed, but slug has reminded me of something.
Slug: "It is interesting though, that when black people are airbrushed out of company advertisements, a large hue and cry ensues in the media. However, when women are airbrushed out of the language there is a significant minority who seem to think it does not really matter."
Do you remember a few weeks ago when David Starkey was complaining that female historians were not dedicating enough energy to writing about men in history, that they were frittering their time away writing nonsense about this that and the other woman who really was a secondary character to the life on Henry VIII, for example? (The Today programme covered it)
It's a classic David and Goliath thing. When Goliath is in power, he doesn't see anything wrong with the way he's abusing his power for his own ends. But once David gets a leg up and starts righting the balance, all of a sudden Goliath gets in a stink about how things should be balanced more in his favour.
Women have always been written out of history. Is David Starkey seriously going to suggest that the elements of human life which he clearly does not understand (such as deeply personal relationships between men and women and the way that strong - and not-so-strong women can influence a man) have no bearing on the direction that man's life takes?
Pity he wasn't on the Today programme to respond. Did he perhaps appear later in the week to exonerate show himself up?
It's like Dickens - great writer, absolutely no knowledge about women whatsoever. Madonna/ whore complex. Does that mean that women in Victorian society were all sluts and saints? Or just that his viewpoint on life, like Starkey's was so pinpoint narrow as to seriously limit his work?