...and embodied in Alex Salmond in Scotland.
Domestic violence against women in the UK has gone up in recent years and very dramatically. According to The Centre for Women's Justice there was a 49% rise in calls for help related to domestic abuse last year.
Equally worryingly, misogyny seems to be alive and kicking
in the new right wing, authoritarian political landscape.
One only has to look at Alex Salmond’s vengeful, vindictive
move and get a whiff of the same oozing misogyny we’ve seen personified in
Boris Johnson south of the border. Clearly unable to stand the fact that a
young woman has done what he could not, Salmond even teamed up with the Tory
attack dog in game-show-host’s clothing, Ruth Davidson, to harangue the Frist
Minister during a pandemic. I see no one – even the media and opposition parties
– doing anything similar to the truly atrocious Boris Johnson.
I do not think it’s any accident that with the rise of
authoritarianism and right wing politics in the UK, violence against women and
their denigration in all walks of life has increased. Was it coincidence that
at the violence in Derry in 2019, it was young female journalist Lyra McKee who
was shot dead? Ditto during the heightened jingoistic and febrile nonsense leading
up to the EU referendum in 2016 it was female MP Jo Cox who was slaughtered?
At times of stress – economic, social, political it seems
that women get hit hardest – literally.
But then – should we be surprised - in an increasingly
aggressive patriarchy where men seem to get away with so much – that violence
and abuse of women grows? Of course there are those women near the top of the
pile – who seem to have taken on very traditionally male traits and
incorporated bullying into their ‘management’ style – I would site Priti Patel
– officially a bully and protected by her male leader for doing his dirty work and
Ruth Davidson – competing for the title.
And – up here in Scotland – a sight for very sore eyes –
Alex Salmond – showing that often it is the men who can be the real bitches.
I listened with grim horror as Nicola Sturgeon faced days
and days of grilling over the government’s mishandling of the Salmond inquiry
into sexual assault. No one, and especially not me – is saying there should not
be an inquiry if things appear to have gone tits up. BUT. When Johnson sycophant
Patel was found guilty of breaching the same code Ms Sturgeon was accused and
acquitted of breaching – Westminster’s response was – ‘nothing to see here’.
When calls go out as they still are – albeit wearily – for there to be an inquiry into the
thousands of unnecessary deaths caused by the government - Boris Johnson’s -
mishandling of the pandemic –we are told – just like the gun lobbyist of America
after the latest mass shooting ‘now is not the time’.
Nothing to see here was the response to Cummings’ breaking
the rules the Tory government had so belatedly put in place. A pet Eugenicist
was taken into the heart of government. Yes, after an outcry he was let go – nothing
more was said.
Alex Salmond’s egotistical posturing and horrendous timing,
his attention seeking and all-round vileness has been called many things. Most
often it is called ‘sour grapes’ as if he is some kid in a playground who
didn’t get picked for the team and so aids the other side. Well – it is sour
grapes if by sour grapes you mean the shrivelled old testicles of metastasizing
misogyny.
I cannot think of any comparable situation in modern
politics where a man on the brink of success has been so undermined by his
‘own’ side. Even the Hilary Clinton situation does not quite compare.
In 2016 many US liberals stayed at home when they could have
held their noses and voted for the ‘not-perfect’ candidate. One who at least
did not think grabbing women’s genitals was ok – who was not a racist liar
eventually putting small children in cages. They stayed at home and allowed in
a man who fuelled white supremacy and ended his horrific, thankfully single
term, with a deadly insurrection. But then – those lolling liberals could stop
at home eating their avocados and dreaming of a Utopia where their leader did
EVERYTHING right rather than broadly did what was sensible, right and
achievable.
Salmond – through the prism of his out of control male ego -
presents himself as someone who is on the side of Scotland and yet makes it
clear with every breath and action that he is – and possibly always has been –
only ever on the side of Alex Salmond.
I’m not psychic (though I’ve been right about many things
that those supposedly in the political know
have got wrong – including my post concerning why Ed Miliband would never be PM
- when all pundits thought it was a shoe-in) but I did not see this coming. It
is so far left field it feels unreal.
One thing I do see is the misogyny. Somehow – while it never
really went away – like racism and the whole anti-working class rhetoric of the
right wing media – misogyny has returned with a vengeance into Brexit Britain.
It is working its fists on individual women behind the closed doors of the
pandemic and it is working itself out in full view in the political arena.
Here in Scotland it is personified in the vulgar, vile and
vengeful Alex Salmond.
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