Not satisfied with the response to a complaint that I had made at the beginning of April regarding two sexist comments that Ken Bruce had made at the beginning of his BBC Radio 2 show on 2 April, I have written back to the BBC and am sharing this story with you. What we say DOES matter, and we need to speak out against what we think is wrong. As a Druid, I take speech quite seriously (when I'm not being The Fool, but there is method in my madness there as well - indeed, a good friend of mine this weekend said that I am one of the most intelligent people she knows, and also the silliest - but I digress...)
What happened was that I wrote in to BBC Radio 2 because Ken Bruce had called Lynne Bowles a "whale" (in jest) and in the next breath said something about her putting on a French maid's uniform. Many people would say that taking this out of context is making it appear worse than it actually is. What I am saying is that the context of sexism doesn't matter - it's still sexism. Ways to undermine women's power in our society is becoming more and insidious where it cannot be achieved through brute force. Here is the correspondence that I have received back from my complaint, and my further response.
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Dear Madam/Sir at the BBC Editorial Complaints Unit, I began this complaint with regards to remarks made by Ken Bruce. What I wou -
Dear Mr Martin, Would I be endearing myself to you if I called you a whale? I'm not trying to be deliberately sexist, but how abo
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UPDATE: Endearing? And deliberate or not, it isn't right! Dear Ms van der Hoeven Thanks for contacting us again regarding Ken Br
