Sarah Vine and online attacks on Gordon Ramsay’s ‘promiscuous’ daughters
For two days the Daily Mail has published this photograph of TV chef Gordon Ramsay’s four children: Jack, 16, Matilda, 14, Holly, 16, and Megan, 17. It was twins Jack and Holly’s joint 16th birthday party, and the family were gussied up for a party.
The Mail’s Sam Creighton said the children had been the victims of “online attacks”. And the paper had more to say. Cop a load of “14-year-old Matilda, wearing a black-and-white crop top with matching short skirt”, wrote Sam (age on application).
One day on and Sarah Vine, aka Mrs Michael Gove MP, is offering her opinion on the outfits. As you can see, Jack has been cropped from the family photo. Sarah opines:
Poor Gordon Ramsay – now there’s three words I never thought I’d write. The 49-year-old chef posted what he thought was an innocent picture of his children on a night out – and was hit by a tsunami of online criticism about his parenting skills. The problem was the girls’ outfits. Matilda, 14, in a stripy crop top and skater skirt; Holly, 16, in a slip of a sequin dress; and Megan, 17, also in a crop top and spangly mini-skirt.
A pox on that online criticism. Why can’t these people stop shining a light on children.
She continues:
‘Way too much skin,’ observed one critic; ‘keep their innocence a little longer’ suggested another; ‘those are some short skirts,’ said a third. I can certainly see what they mean…
The online comments which will have cut Ramsay most deeply, the ones that prey on every protective dad’s (and mother’s) darkest fears, are the ones that said his daughters looked like ‘hoochies’ — slang for promiscuous young girls.
Having repeated the words of those online attackers, Vine concedes:
…today it’s different in a way I’m only beginning to understand. The pressure to look a certain way is so much more intense. When I was a teenager, you hardly ever saw a photo of yourself. But in the age of photo-sharing apps such as Instagram, girls are constantly reviewing and analysing their appearance.
To say nothing of the horror of being commented on by middle-aged writers in the Daily Mail.
Posted: 2nd, December 2015 | In: Celebrities, Key Posts, Reviews, Tabloids Comment | TrackBack | Permalink
