Vicious circle
Bidisha
Who would dare to tangle with the celebrated author, Felix Whitman? From his crest of firmly sprayed hair to his fiery eye, bashed corduroy jacket and pawn shop signet ring, everything about him screams greatness, if only to itself. He specializes in vignettes about city life, stained mattresses, the evocative odour of evaporated alcohol mixture with swilled-back spit at the neck of a gin bottle, etc., etc. Despite the stutter, the limp, the shaking and the leer of Felix, many women who're deeply committed in their servitude do still flock to be his cultural geishas.
One recent night Felix was on excellent form. The venue was a gallery famous for its terrible art and great parties, the event late-night "salon" billing itself, with a charming mixture of coyness and pretension, as a place for people to "debate, critique, theorize and socialize'. In short, it was hell with great haircuts. Why not be honest and call these "salons" singles bars, pick-up joints or meat markets? There's no shame in it – even literates need to get laid. Otherwise what would they write their next novel about?
A woman who works in publishing approached Felix just as he'd finished his performance and was on his way to join his band of chums and enablers. The woman said politely,
"Excuse me? Felix? Could I just ask..."
"Fuck off!" shouted Felix at the top of his voice, then drew back slowly with an expression of delight – the delight which comes from abusing a woman. Her reaction was one of stunned surprise, changing slowly to blinking puzzlement as she frowned and went silently elsewhere as the alpha baboons in Felix's group guffawed heartily in support, united in their hatred. Their helpmeets obediently did nothing.
That night Felix went home, still glowing with his triumph. He must have wished to relive the moment and share it with others of his type, because he sat down immediately and wrote up the whole episode for his column, which was published two days thence. To extend the offence one step further, a friend of his cut out the column and sent it anonymously to the woman he'd shouted at, classily completing what social workers call "the cycle of abuse".
Still, Felix Whitman is nothing compared to the famous campaigning documentary maker, Hubert Ardieff, who is so busy righting other people's wrongs that he has neglected his own. Hubert is to journalism what Martin Parr is to photography. But his big hobby, when not investigating criminal surveillance networks, UFO cover-ups, quirky Seinfeld-type lifestyle difficulties and all the unthrilling minutiae of daily life, is cheating on his wife. Admittedly, anyone who has seen Hubert Ardieff would consider this highly unlikely. He resembles the inside of a tumble drier, mid-cycle. His clothes are little more than faded multi-purpose flaps with holes for the arms and legs. He talks in a fey drawl, rubbing his hands over his face and through his hair as he speaks, as if grooming himself for fleas. But I know he cheats on his wife because
I walked in on him doing so in a private members' club in central London. Later, in candid conversation, he said that his wife was away researching a guidebook to New York, "but if she happened to want to take a lover too, that would be fine." How magnanimous is that? What a big heart Hubert has – and what a giving spirit. How could one not marry a man who's so generous?
I know what would have sorted Ardieff out: a right hook from a towering ladyboy named Tina. Why oh why is it those chaps who're least likely to be mistaken for women who insist upon dressing like them? A recent party to celebrate the launch of an award-winning new novel was a style-aneurysm of multiple fabulousness: great book, great lesbians (I took my clichés a tad too far, turned up in cowboy boots and a muscle vest – and was a single butch stereotype adrift in a sea of beautiful dresses), great authors like Sarah Waters, Karen Macleod and Ali Smith – and a drag queen sailing through the crowd like the QE2. Glitter make-up, ash-blonde wig, sequinned shift dress, natural-colour tights, huge hands, it was all there. But what's the gain? All that labour merely to look like a housewife from the Midlands.
Finally, proving that misogyny has many faces and half of them are female, here's an anecdote from the vicious world of children's publishing, age groups 7 to 9. It comes courtesy of my own "career" (trans: tepid fumblings) in that field. An agent – let's call her Celestina Tuff – called up a famous editor and asked what the ingredients of an ideal fantasy bestseller might be. First off, the protagonist should be slightly older than the readers, so as to provide a guide and inspiration for later in life and give the poor sods something to look forward to. Second – get this – the protagonist has to be male. He must be a vagina-free zone. There can only be one female character per five male characters. Word on the street is that nobody likes females, not even females. The editor, possessed of two X-chromosomes herself, said this with not a flicker of face or conscience – an impressive feat when betraying the single biggest group in the entire human race. No doubt she will go proudly on to fly the banner for womanhatred worldwide and young fans of Trudi Canavan, Tamora Pierce and Marion Zimmer Bradley will have to do their reading in cowed self-hating secrecy.
I'm just hoping that there'll be time for me to get a sex-change operation and write an Aryan über-hero epic before the world ends. Sigh: the things a lady has to do to get some respect.