Like what Kirsty Wark doesn’t have.
“There are more women driving in Saudi Arabia than you will ever see on Top Gear. In fact, you actually have more chance of hosting a driving show in Saudi Arabia than you have of hosting Top Gear,” said the presenter. “Five out of 38 guest panellists in the last series of Mock the Week were women,” she added.
Yeah, ’cos the regime on women driving in an Islamic Theocracy where they can be beaten for daring to drive is exactly like not having female presenters on Top Gear. Jesus! Someone needs to get a sense of proportion here.
I have read some of Kirsty Wark’s article (I had to stop before regurgitating my dinner) and then I began to wonder.
What is it about being equipped with a vagina rather than a pair of testicles that requires the world to bestow special treatment upon the possessor of such an orifice?
Why should genital differences be considered superior to the ability to perform the tasks set for the individual chosen to perform a particular function? When I choose a person to employ I choose the best qualifed. I don’t care what gender that person ascribes to themself; all I want is the best person for the job. And that is just what every business concern does.
Please don’t expect to receive special treatment just because you sit to pee, because, you see, it really doesn’t matter.
Vicky Butler Henderson presented Top Gear a few years ago. I make that one more female presenter of that than male presenters of Women’ s Hour.
Doesn’t Vicky Butler-Henderson still present “Fifth Gear”, on Channel 5? There were at least two female presenters on that, back when I was still living in the UK. I don’t see that format selling particularly well to other countries. Odd, that.
“Fifth Gear” is a car show. “Top Gear” is an entertainment show. The first is a show about cars. The second is a show about three _people_ who muck about in cars. The cars are scenery, not the point. You’d think someone who pretends to be intelligent on the telly would have worked this out by now. I did, and it certainly didn’t take me 12 years to do so.
Ms. Wark might as well demand that Jerome K. Jerome’s “Three Men In A Boat” be retitled as “Two Men And A Woman In A Boat” – except you’d have to rewrite the story too, as the original story requires the original characters in order to work at all.
The Gadget Show also has two female presenters.
And it’s just as dross with two female presenters as it was when it had one female presenter and, Brains from Thunderbirds and Sam the Eagle from the Muppets babbling on condescendingly.
Their desperation to be Top Gear for gadgets makes me want to scoop my eyes out with a spoon.
The thing is, Kirsty Wark is so obsessed with trotting out some metaphor for he rman-hate cause that she fails to ask the important question – do people want* women presenting Top Gear?
Last weekend the BBC did the right-on thing and had a woman pundit on MOTD. I’m sure it ticked the diversity boxes but frankly it was also shit.