Boy oh boy do I feel sorry for Laurie Penny. I hope that’s not a sexist thing to say. There she is, doing what she does, churning out perfectly harmless po-mo guff for the New Statesman about ‘why the patriarchy fears scissors‘ because ‘short hair is a political statement’ — and people seem to hate her for it, as if she were saying something dangerously wrong.
‘If you’ve a ladyboner for sexist schmuckweasels,’ says Penny, ‘short hair isn’t going to help, although they might let you administer a disappointing hand-job.’ Top drawer prose, that — witty, rude, could be a quote from Lena Dunham’s Girls, everything a good New Statesman or Guardian article should be. It’s not my bag, but then I don’t have a ladyboner for schmuckweasels, sexist or not. I can see, however, that it serves a purpose journalistically and far be it from me to stand in the way of women talking about hair.
But poor Penny really got it in the neck from the sisters of social media.
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