Morning:
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Rather like women's football, the "female Davos" women's economic forum in Deauville has gone widely unnoticed.
There have been no enormous, bustling teams of journalists from the BBC and the Daily Telegraph, no twittering and blogging about who has bagged which hotel, no helicopter sightings, no Bono. Perhaps the beach landscape looks too "soft power" compared with the bracing muscularity of snow. And frankly, a gathering of women does not appear as powerful as a meeting of men.
Davos men confidently offer solutions, Deauville women ask questions. According to the slender accounts of the event, the female face of the recession is subtle and interesting. Women have both benefited and suffered.
Because women are more flexible and lower paid, they have not been hit as directly as men. I do not know whether "Lehman Sisters" would have prevented the crisis, but I am sure women would not be handing out bonuses to each other in such a self-congratulatory way.
One only has to look at relative salaries to realise that women do not brim with a masculine sense of self- worth, nor are they encouraged to. The other day, a women on a prestigious mixed judging panel for the arts mentioned wryly to me that each year the male judges got a case of champagne for their trouble, the women a single bottle. In small matters as in large, there is an unspoken calculation that women require less.
So years of injustice become an employment advantage. Furthermore, the recession favours an entrepreneurial spirit over bureaucracies. Women have done brilliantly running their own businesses and show a chutzpah often lacking in traditional organisations.
Look how Mumsnet brought the Prime Minister to account this weekend over his slippery refusal to name his favourite biscuit. His belated attempts to ingratiate himself to the women also turned to Semtex: "Please engage with a little depth," was one crushing reply. Brown should have learned from Tony Blair's attempt to win over the Women's Institute. Politicians patronise women at their peril.
Yet if women have unexpectedly prospered in the rich countries, they have been correspondingly punished in continents such as Africa where vital small loans are under threat from the West.
The other threat, it turns out, is momentum. Fadela Amara, minister for urban affairs in France, laments that "young girls are more interested in fashion brands than a societal project".
It is true that more young women were watching Cheryl Cole on Sunday night than following Fadela Amara in Deauville and I am afraid that is understandable. But it is not a cause for despair. The individual nature of female attainment, the absence of a Davos-style herd mentality, demands a correspondingly personal sense of individual responsibility. Mother to daughter, female boss to female employee, teacher to pupil. Men advance through the block vote, women through personal mentoring.
Sam's an expert at the image game
The grey polka-dotted Marks & Spencer dress that Samantha Cameron wore to the Conservative Party conference turns out not to be strictly off the peg. The shop had sold out and so the in-house pattern cutter ran up one especially.
In the same way, I would not be fooled by the artless ensemble our role model wore to the Lion King musical on Sunday. Knee-high (rather than V-high) boots, a simple jacket and a splash of colour in a deep pink scarf. It is actually more complicated to wrap a scarf successfully than it is to tie a ship's knot. I have never managed it. Sam Cam's seeming effortlessness is the mark of a professional.
My best mate has a microchip
An unemployed graduate (forgive the tautology) who is staying with me spent Saturday afternoon sitting in Starbucks surfing on her laptop before going on to an X Factor party. She liked the background company, even though she was absorbed by her computer, through which she was holding many simultaneous conversations. The young are quite at home with voices in their heads.
Meanwhile, I settled down to watch a DVD of Vicky Cristina Barcelona, which I had rented from the local video store. It was scratched and froze. I called up a Sky Box Office film, The International, which seized up after five minutes. Finally I opened my laptop to watch the BBC's stunning wildlife series, Life, for free. Haven't computers become our best friends?
Debate will defeat the BNP
Last night, I watched an Intelligence Squared debate whose motion was: "The Catholic Church is a force for good in the world". You might have thought this was a serene subject, unless you noticed that Christopher Hitchens was speaking against it.
The previous Intelligence Squared debate, sponsored by the Evening Standard, questioned whether Winston Churchill had been more "a liability than an asset" to the free world. A protester expressed noisy disgust that the debate was taking place at all. The panel, including historians Antony Beevor and Andrew Roberts, regarded the protester with amazement. The legacy of Churchill was freedom. Why would you wish to prevent free speech?
Naturally, the champions of Churchill hammered the opposition, but through argument rather than untested sentiment. In the same way, I expect to see reason prevail on Question Time this Thursday. We must never take our values for granted.
Reader views (1)
"Look how mums net...brought the PM to account on his refusal to name his favourite biscuit".........
Crikey, big issue - wot about his views on means tested child allowance?
"....women do not brim with a masculine sense of self worth...."
Cripes, so the cosmetics ads are wrong, you’re NOT all worth it, then?
"The individual nature of female attainment......../personal sense of self responsibility..."
Bloomin` eck, steady on, wot about Haringay social services?
See, you can’t put ALL the people under one heading, can you toots?
- Darius, London UK, 20/10/2009 13:12
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