When a public figure is in danger of annoying me so much that it risks impinging on my quality of life, there’s an easy trick I play on myself in order to put the irritant back into their box and into perspective. Rather than take them seriously, I simply reframe them as a comic creation in the style of David Brent of The Office fame. This strategy worked a treat with Meghan Markle when I had to watch the Netflix mockumentary for work.
With the latest mis-step in Mayor Sadiq Khan’s anti-sexist #HaveAWord campaign, the time has come to view him too through the prism of Ricky Gervais’ supreme buffoon. The campaign is peak Brent; faced with an epidemic of murderous misogyny, what could be a better use of public money that the the new Transport for London (TfL) ‘SAY MAAATE TO A MATE’ posters which will apparently stop sexism in its tracks if men give their friends a stern look and a short bleat of ‘MAAATE’ on hearing any dodgy banter?
Is this an attempt to outsource women’s public safety to the man in the street/pub/club now that many women in London do not trust the Metropolitan Police? The Met are, of course, merely the rotting head of a national police force which often not only fails to protect women but counts among its number the actual shock troops of misogyny.
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