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Carla Bruni-Sarkozy is under fire for declaring to a magazine that she has no use for feminism. "We don't need to be feminists in my generation," she told French Vogue. So, not just her, but her entire generation – that's quite a few who don't need feminism!
Later, after much uproar and a Twitter campaign detailing why feminism might still be necessary, B-S "clarified" her remarks by saying that "pioneers" had already done the work. She added: "I am a feminist if being a feminist is demanding freedom." Well, yeees, but only in the context of feminism as a vague, multipurpose rock lyric ("I'm free, woo-woo!"). Love that "if", too, hinting that, for Carla, any other definition would be a deal-breaker.
If we wanted to be nasty, we could just call B-S a spoilt, blinkered moo, who clearly doesn't know her La Perla-clad derriere from her Chanel–adorned elbow. More charitably, it could be that she appears to have conflated her own gilded life (model, singer, wife of a former French president) with that of Everywoman. She's so dazzled by her ivory tower that she cannot see beyond to the real world, where not everyone is married to a former head of state, with all attendant socioeconomic privileges.
In short, Carla has exposed herself as being what I would term a bespoke feminist. Which is someone for whom feminism has no true core: no root or ideology, certainly nothing as tedious as facts or stats. These types seek to customise feminism to fit in with their own life experiences and worldview. Ergo, if they're not suffering discrimination and stuff (poverty, lack of autonomy, insufficient childcare, lower pay, exemption from boardrooms, government and other male-dominated echelons, not to mention domestic violence, sexual assault and murder), then it isn't happening to any other woman either. Well, how could it be when it's not happening to them?
This is where the likes of Carla spend their days – in a fluffy, moneyed space, suspended somewhere between myopia and solipsism. Carla doesn't subscribe to feminism, rather Carla-ism, or "It's all about me-ism". But then, can't we all get a bit bespoke at times? (I'm a practising Barbara-ist. How do you do?) It's only human to be drawn to some issues over others, even to succumb to the odd empathy disconnect. (The single mother, drowning in childcare costs, may find it difficult to sympathise with the hotshot businesswoman being denied her rightful promotion and vice versa.)
In a way, all feminists are bespoke feminists, just as they are bespoke humans. However, what irks about Ms Bruni-Sarkozy is that she is all bespoke and no feminist, not to mention obstinately delighted by her cosseted worldview. Where women's issues are concerned, she comes across like a one-woman three unwise monkeys: see no evil, hear no evil, speak a lot of ill-informed claptrap.
Is La Bruni-Sarkozy even aware that France has never had a female president? Likewise, while it was sweet of her to give a curt nod to those "pioneers", it would have been even better not to discredit feminism as "no longer necessary, merci beaucoup!" How does this cast other women still fighting – as outmoded hysterics and man-haters? Women so dumb they didn't even have the good sense to marry a world leader, like Carla did?
This kind of attitude goes beyond any concept of bespoke feminism – it makes such women resemble over-indulged idiots with no interest in, or empathy with, others. It also emphasises that the real threat to feminism is not to end up as a dirty word, but as a forgotten word – thrown out by the likes of Carla, with other dated "fads" (popping candy, the hula hoop, female suffrage). Come to think of it, perhaps it's fine that Bruni-Sarkozy doesn't feel she needs feminism. Feminism is going to do fine without her.
Oh no, Ono! Leave Britain's blokes alone
Who else is thrilled by Yoko Ono's range of menswear? There's something for everyone, just in time for Christmas. Man bras with lights on. Jockstraps that resemble S&M origami. Trousers with black hands over the crotch and the arse panel (couture term) cut-out. And a must-have for the guy about town: nipple bells. Leastways, I think the collection is for men – it could be for drug-raddled Smurfs. And I say that in a fashion-tastic way.
Ono reveals that she first drew the designs in 1969 for John Lennon as a wedding present. Hmm, revealing. At first glance, this collection appears to be aimed at the avant-garde gay market, but I smell "hetero". In her conceptual artistic way, Yoko was only doing what women have done since time immemorial – restyling her man. Another woman might have chosen a nice H&M jumper that brings out his eyes; Ono goes for an anorak with a bum painted on it. Different route, same ultimate goal, which is lady control over what your man wears. Yeah, sister!
All of which explains why Lennon was so happy to get naked for the bed-in. Now we've seen the alternatives, it was the vanilla option.
Butling certainly doesn't ring my bell
Even if I were famous, or in any way interesting, I could never go on Who Do You Think You Are?. It would depress everybody. My family wasn't doing that well when I was born, so it wouldn't be five minutes before we'd be getting on to workhouses, infant mortality and sexual molestation by the local squire.
For people like me, fetishising the past isn't an option. We know we'd have been in the scullery, blacking the hearth and sleeping on hay. However, other people have big ideas about themselves. Downton Abbey has sparked a surge of interest in the services of butlers, some of whom can earn £150,000 a year. They are hired by people keen to show off their wealth and replicate a bygone age. How pathetic. Not the butlers, mind. If some nouveau riche goon is willing to pay £150k for a shoddy impersonation of John Gielgud, fill your boots. It's the employers, pompously ringing their butler bells. What kind of deep self-loathing would have to set in before having a butler is the only way you could feel good about yourself? There must be a limit to how bullied anyone could have been at school. Poor lost fools.
However, at least they can afford to live out their strange fantasies of barely disguised western slave culture. What about those who could never have a butler, but yearn for one anyway? People who watch Downton and relate to those upstairs, thus encapsulating the relentless shabby chic-ifying of the past that is both hilarious and nauseating. When are people going to realise that in eras such as Downton, the odds are that they wouldn't have been ringing for their butler? At best, they'd have been the butler – and not on 150k either.
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