I was delighted to see Claire Foy win an Emmy award for her portrayal of the Queen in the fine Netflix series The Crown. It may have helped assuage her annoyance at initially being paid £200,000 less than her co-star, Matt Smith, who did a fairly good impersonation of a young, brooding Duke of Edinburgh. Foy had more lines than Smith, is as capable an actor as Smith, was the leading role and, importantly, is at least as fit as Smith. This last point is vital because television often casts people on account of their attractiveness, because viewers like looking at attractive people rather than at hideous fat munters.
Whatever, there is still sexism around and Foy’s treatment seems to be a good example of it. I can think of no other reason she was paid less, other than sexism. There is probably no industry where sexism is so entrenched as television and it is good that this might at last be changing, having been exposed to the light. It may well mean that in future television companies will be forced to retain women once employed solely on account of their looks, but possessing the IQ and communicative skills of a small shrubbery, because otherwise they will be caught on the twin pincers of sexism and ageism. And so we will see haggard imbeciles presenting stuff and the ratings will drop. Serves us all right, I suppose.
The persistence of such blatant sexism persuades some of the more stupid feminists to subscribe to the patently absurd thesis that there is effectively no meaningful difference between men and women and that disparities in pay and employment are simply the consequence of the vile patriarchy. It does not matter how many scientific studies, or indeed the march of history, disprove this ludicrous misapprehension: they will not engage.
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