The Delicious Irony of Liz Jones

If one can be almost loathe to do something, I'm almost loathe to write this post because the woman lives and dies by publicity. For those outside the UK or who get their news via reliable news sources, Liz Jones is a veteran columnist for the Daily Mail.

Anyway, On Saturday my Twitter feed was aglow with comments from attendees at the Mumsnet Blogging conference in London. (I'm not a member of Mumsnet and so am not remotely familiar with their activities, purpose etc. but many of my bloggy friends are.) Liz Jones was on a panel to discuss writing about your real life, or something like that. Since all Liz ever does is write about herself, I'd say she was a no-brainer for that session.

After attending the conference, she promptly went back to her lair and wrote this charming piece about the women attending -  entitled "Free? You blogging mums may as well wear burkas.". The purpose of the piece is as usual, unclear and rambling, except that she's at it again - pitching women against each other, or in this case, pitching herself against the rest of her gender. At one point she writes - "These women post pictures of bars of chocolate. Seriously. One even posts pictures of cakes that she will bake for you on demand."

Does no one else get the irony of Liz? She wastes no time in belittling the writing choices of other women, yet spent a good two years boring us to tears chronicling her divorce (writing about a man, almost exclusively), went on to get herself a face lift (and wrote about it ad nauseam) and fills most of her pieces with vicious celeb gossip, photos of herself and other such non-essential tripe. If anyone is entitled to say "Seriously" it's everyone else on the planet.

But the best part is that she closes with this patronizing little gem - "I had no idea blogging could be so lucrative. I wonder, too, what their husbands think of them and their rantings. I imagine it makes them feel like proper men, with little women who instead  of tapping away at the glass ceiling swap recipes and tips for getting a child off to sleep......They might just as well don a burka, and shuffle, so narrow is their vision."

I just had to laugh. If anyone is sending women hurtling back into the 1950's and beyond, it's Liz Jones. Every time she puts trotter to keyboard she slags off a female. Writing about having to move out of her fairytale country house (because she's pissed off so many locals no one will sell her a pint of milk) she can't resist a swipe at the local mothers' "porridge-textured tummies". 

Any need Liz? I assume you have lots of baggage which all the therapy in the world can't fix, but this constant one-woman bitchfest is getting old. And if anyone's turning back the clock on women's rights it's you - but so narrow is your vision that you can't see that can you?