Get Your Act Together, Girlies

Suzanne Moore’s column in the Mail on Sunday was very interesting, taking the trouble to castigate lap-dancing as “a form of prostitution”, and showing no more mercy towards the wannabe WAGs rounded up for the Manchester United Christmas party, only one of whom is even alleged to have been coerced into anything, and even then only once she was already in attendance at this event most easily distinguishable from a tea dance.

We mere males seldom witness the means by which middle-aged and older women exercise authority over younger women. But when we do, it scares the life out of us, not because of the raised voices or the physical violence (whether actual, or explicitly or implicitly threatened), but rather precisely because of the exact nature of their absence. I am convinced that it is this, more than anything else, which has historically made most women far better behaved than men – fear of other women.

Our society is now crying out for this on a larger scale. Where are the middle-aged and older women who will draft and sign some sort of “Get your act together, girlies” document for publication over their names, having circulated it to every female member of either House of Parliament, to every woman who writes regularly for Fleet Street, to the presenters of Woman’s Hour, and to everyone who appeared on Grumpy Old Women, just for a start?