AA Gill has writtena really charming piece about British Womens appearence

[CybilLiberty]

When I fly back to England, I know that I will notice two things: the old place will look surprisingly and miraculously green, and the girls will look like recycling bin bags full of windfalls, with a relentless, stroppy, obstinate and defiant plainness.

When everything is wet and cold, English girls glower beneath their frizzy split ends, with their baggy pink eyes, defensively regarding the world over broken veins and puce, dripping noses, pursing their thin lips over badly shuffled teeth.

The summer is when those bodies, long held in supine, chip-rich darkness of shapeless unisex comfort clobber, are set free like blind, hairless, albino moles; the grey adipose flesh slops over waistbands and shoulder straps; bunioned and varicosed feet shimmy in shower slippers; arses are sliced by cheese-wire thongs; wobbling, pocked thighs flap and chafe like drunken mates.

But nothing could be worse than English girls when they make an effort, dressed up for a night out: it?s then that they reach the heights of precipitous frightfulness. The clacking cankles. The tortured hair. The evil clown?s make-up. Predatory breasts, like pink water bombs. Flapping arms and glistening chins, and second-division mouths. The farmyard aggression and the zoo sex.

It?s not just a class thing; it?s not only chavvy ladettes in the provinces. Look at the state of the totty tumbling out of Boujis, or waving chipped-nailed fingers at Glastonbury.

Go to any £1,000-a-head charity ball and see the English memsahib, 3st above her fighting weight, swagged in a gypsy?s shower curtain, with a barnet that might have been spun in a sugary centrifuge. The granny jewellery and the blue eye shadow, the unhumpable hell of them all.
.... and so it goes on.

He does later say beauty is not the be all and end all...but did he have to be quite SOO full of vitriol?

Agree glasjam - everyone is tittering at his vileness. Oh he's sooo funny cos he is rude. I wish I dared to be as offensive

And yes, I know plenty of women who dress badly, according to what's fashionable instead of what suits or fits them . Hell I've only got to walk my DC to school to see hundreds of them! But that isn't every woman in the UK and even if it was, who is AA Gill (or anyone) to be so fucking offensive over such a petty matter. Presumably they think the look good so who gives a toss what a colunmnist thinks?

I have lived in other countries, most recently in a semi rural part of the states. I have always thought that British women were very fashionable and lovely. Most of them anyway. The part of the states I grew up in was full of overweight younger women with elasticated trousers and mickey mouse sweatshirts.

I don't think he has Rod Liddell's misogyny by any means. AA Gill is fascinated by women and has that public school 'women are an alien species' kind of slightly in awe, attitude towards them. I didn't feel the article was savage or vile. I did think it was a good, if generalised and deliberately provocative, observation. And rather beautiful descriptions of ugly things. Rod Liddell is just hateful and bitter [and Platell, IIRC]

He wrote something in the Times a while back about eating sushi off the naked body of an East European woman. This was apparently in some restaurant where, what larks, women are used as furniture. How delightful Of course he is a mysogonistic old git. Yes, some British women do dress really badly ..... and so do a lot British men. We are not known for our sartorial style in this country. So what? We are a bit trashy and have been since the days of Harold - the Normans wrote about it

Anyone who is twunty enough to use initials instead of a name is beneath contempt anyway.

I am not like a french "girl" stereotype as i shave my pits and don't smoke. But I don't wear thongs either. And I happen to be a person rather than a lump of clothed and painted flesh which is all aa gill seems to be able to see.

MrsS -does that include kd lang and JK Rowling ?

What a nasty, hate-filled little piece of writing that was. Just goes to show that misoginy is alive and well.

Anyhoo, what does he think gives him the right to comment, even if it may be a little true.

Its true that some countries have more stylish women than others...
Its also true that this guy is a good writer in the sense that he writes interestingly...
But the vitriol and, dare I say, hatred dripping from his words makes me think he`s got some sort of problem.

Ive lived in Russia, France and now Japan and what I will say about British girls/women is that although they dont seem to care as much about appearance and spend less time on doing themselves up everyday, the ones that are beautiful are truly, jaw-droppingly beautiful. Whereas here in Japan, and in Russia, the girls make a bigger effort on a daily basis, but, honestly, after living in Russia and Japan for a while you realise its "land of 8s". No-one looks bad, but no-one takes your breath away either. Everyone starts to look the same: same short skirt, same dyed blonde hair etc.
In the UK if you see a beautiful girl on the street she is world-class standard.

brone..no.

he's a twat. what kind of person uses AA as his name?
never NEVER read his columns in the papers, is complete and utter waste of my time

Because he's called Adrian and apparently that's not posh/hip/intellectual enough for him or something.

Tosser.

hahaha - Adrian?

Oh, Adrian you've really hurt my feelings

Why are the British always supposed to self-flagellate for our imperfections? And why British women in particular? If you've travelled beyond the four corners of the UK you soon realise that we're actually alright looking; the french aren't a hundredth as chic as British journalists would have us believe, and the yanks by and large have worse problems with 'grey adipose flesh flopping over waistbands' than we do

AA Gill has written a follow up article talking more about how men think about fashion compared to how women think about fashion.

"Can you tell the difference between clothes and fashion? If you can?t, you?re a man. Men don?t do fashion; the closest they get is a sort of embarrassed style. They don?t do it for themselves, and they don?t recognise it on women."

"Women think that clothes have a life of their own, that their dresses talk to each other in the cupboard, that their underwear could blackmail them. Clothes, for them, are a thing like a dog or goldfish, or a secret friend. Women are fonder of a pair of shoes than some men they?ve slept with. "

Had to at this:

"Mind you, some men have ?result? underpants, which is the most ridiculous superstition in the history of irrational beliefs (or maybe briefs). What woman has ever said, ?And I didn?t actually fancy you, until I got a whiff of your holey boxers with the teddy bears, and then it was as if forces beyond my control were pushing me into your lap?? "

I have never got the shoes thing. I find that more patronising than anything else, tbh, that women are all drooling over countless pairs of shoes in their cupboard.

Agree pofacedandproud. I absolutely hate it when I am talked to like I am a pre-programmed archetype. Oh yes you women and your shoes! Oh you women and your shopping - you love your shopping don't you? ABetaDad, that excerpt you've just quoted just reinforces the vacuousness of AA Gill and the type of "filly" he probably hangs round with - although he'd probably come up with some additional stereotype of them being New York women who would also outballs any man and sit on the subway doing the New York Times crossword whilst applying their lipstick.

BTW to counter the argument further, I have a pair of lucky pants - they are Elle McPherson ones that I treated myself to after losing loads of weight. I wore them once and got pregnant with my first child. They haven't fitted me since

That has just reminded me, I was wearing a pair of pants emblazoned with the marvellously naff logo 'Yummy Mummy' [given to my by dh] on the day an eminent obstetrician came to observe my c section stitches.

"Women are fonder of a pair of shoes than some men they?ve slept with."

What a fantastic line. I love the tone of outraged surprise. Has he only just discovered that?

I wonder if that's his personal experience there

he's ime a really kind and generous chap. and i often think that we do look shit in this country, compared to italians and other forriners. plus, he does appear to like to poke people with a stick.

and you know... if you read the DM femail bit (which as i believe we have established all newspapers currently strive to ape) you would htink that all women are botoxed tragic cases happier with their louboutins than their lovers and desperately trying to stave off the aging process. (naming no names). i do imagine this to be the rarified atmos that informs these types of pieces. so the general woman on the street, viewed through the window of a cab, will look faintly like another species entirely.

The original article is a lot less misogynist than some of the stuff in the Mail written by women.

Agree UQD

Agree with UQD. I also agree on some level with AA Gill - there are some HIDEOUSLY dressed women in the UK, and men as well. You just need the sun to come out for five minutes and you get all the topless beer-bellied men with their tatts hanging out, parading around like they're Adonis. The UK has a very different attitude to appearance in contrast to the Continent. I remember the first time I was in Italy, and was astounded that even the bus driver had sleekly styled hair, crisp white shirt and a Rolex. There's also the assumption (like in this stupid article that makes me want to slap her) that you cannot be good looking/stylish and intelligent. Surely if you dress well you must be vain/shallow/an idiot (you see this all the time on threads on S&B).

Another interesting thing is differing attitudes to women - I think the UK is less mysoginistic than other countries, to the extent that it affects language. I put this down to it being rather central to the feminist movement. What I mean is - in France it is acceptable to refer to women as girls, the same in Russian speaking countries (I was really appalled, and also ready to punch some people, when they repeatedly referred to me as "Devushka" (girl). It's completely normal, whereas you would never get away to referring to women in the workplace, or a stranger, as a "girl". In Russian speaking countries, they routinely refer to women, even in a work setting as "girl" (as in "that girl is the one who needs to sign the document"). Really weird.

bleh - that article made me laugh. It made much more sense than Gill's sheer pointless nastiness.