By Sandra Parsons
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By any reckoning, TV historian Lucy Worsley has done pretty well for herself. In addition to her day job as chief curator of Historic Royal Palaces, the 38-year-old has written three books, made umpteen TV programmes - and has also found love, sharing a London riverside flat with her architect boyfriend.
Just about the only thing she hasnât done is bear a child.
In an interview this week to publicise her latest programme, Antiques Uncovered, she explained that this was her deliberate choice. âI have become the poster girl for opting out of reproduction. I am happy to stand up and be counted,â she declares.
Happy: Lucy Worsley says she is content to be 'the poster girl for opting out of reproduction'
All well and good, you might think. Women who decide not to have children are often made to feel somehow lacking, so three cheers to Lucy for standing up for them.
Until, that is, you read what she said next: âI have been educated out of the natural reproductive function. I get to spend my time doing things I enjoy.â
No doubt this was intended as a rather flip, humorous comment. Itâs backfired for two reasons.
First, itâs astonishingly patronising. Does Dr Worsley really believe that because she has a history degree from Oxford, sheâs somehow too intelligent for the act of child-rearing? Or is she merely saying that those of us whose brains (or upbringing) did not propel us to the dreaming spires should accept motherhood as the summit of our intellectual ambition?
Second, for someone who calls herself a feminist historian, she appears to be hopelessly confused about what equality really means. Because while itâs difficult to be a working woman as well as a wife and mother, at least being the first of these no longer precludes also being the other two.
Indeed, anyone who assumes that women with an Oxford degree have allowed themselves to be âeducated out of the natural reproductive functionâ is entering very dangerous - and regressive - territory indeed. What next? A sort of sliding scale for women to keep handy during their childbearing years? No degree at all? Excellent! Have as many children as you like. A degree from Manchester or Bristol? Fine - have two! A first from Oxford? Sorry, but it would be a waste of your brain to reproduce.
In reality, of course, there are many women just as well educated as Lucy Worsley whoâve managed to have both children and a fulfilling career. Her fellow historian and Oxford graduate Amanda Foreman has five offspring, Shadow Home Secretary Yvette Cooper has three and BBC Economics Editor Stephanie Flanders two.
There are countless more whoâve made sacrifices big and small for the sake of their families, including turning down promotions, changing careers and giving up work altogether.
What I find particularly distasteful is Dr Worsleyâs tone, which implies sheâs too superior for the messy business of raising children. Your ability to be a mother has nothing to do with your educational attainment and everything to do with the universal qualities of selflessness, generosity, compassion and patience.
Lucy Worsleyâs ambition is to make history as popular as The X Factor, and Iâm all for it. But before she goes any further, can I suggest that she looks at the history of her own sex? Not so long ago, the choice was quite simple: you could be a nun, a bluestocking or a mother. You could also be burned at the stake.
So give us more history, by all means, Dr Worsley. But please make it clear that women are lucky enough today to live in more enlightened times â" and whether we have children or not has nothing to do with how clever we may (or may not) think we are.
Croydon's gift to gastronomy
Lifting the lid: TV cook Rachel Khoo has revealed why the French still have a low obesity rate
Rachel Khoo (right), the art student from Croydon who went to Paris as an au pair and is now a hugely popular cook both in France and Britain (her programme The Little Paris Kitchen is one of the current highlights on BBC2), has revealed the reason why the French still have a low obesity rate.
Itâs precisely because they love their food so much, she says, that they treat it with the respect it deserves. They make proper time for meals and rarely eat in between. âThere are even adverts on television that tell you to avoid snacks,â says Khoo.
Meanwhile, the book French Children Donât Throw Food has become a British bestseller, thanks to its advice on getting children to eat sensibly.
Despite Jamie Oliverâs valiant efforts we still have serious issues with food. Itâs time we staged a French revolution.
I much enjoyed Mary Beardâs spirited riposte to the television critic AA Gill, whoâd claimed she is too ugly for television. Whatâs sad is that heâs not alone in his prejudice. The BBC, I fear, allows Mary the odd series only because sheâs a Classics professor whose unkempt appearance fits the clichéd mould of Great British Eccentric. Others in this category include Lucinda Lambton and Clarissa Dickson Wright. So enjoy Mary Beard while you can, because I donât imagine for a moment that her triumph means weâll be seeing more fiftysomething women on screen.
For £234 you can buy the SteamRail, a new device that claims to do away with the need for ironing by pumping hanging garments with steam.
My own ironing strategy is cheaper and simpler: buy non-iron shirts (MS do very good ones) and make it a policy never to press bedding, jeans or childrenâs clothes (except school uniforms). Fold everything else very flat and pop it neatly into the ironing basket with the instruction that anyone who wants an item ironed needs to do it themselves.
You will find that, miraculously, they decide none of it needs ironing at all...
Total eclipse of the hair
Cherâs enormous Afro wig dominated all the photographs of her and her transgender son Chaz - who was born female and named Chastity - when he collected two awards at a gay and lesbian community ceremony in Los Angeles.
Surely it wouldnât have killed her, just for once, to have looked smart and unassuming in order to let him enjoy his brief moment of glory?
Apart from Raquel Welch, who upstaged her son Damonâs bride by turning up to the wedding in a black dress cut so low all eyes were on her cleavage, itâs hard to think of a more selfish way to steal the limelight.
Who's the star of this show? Cher, 65, presented her son Chaz Bono with two gongs at the GLAAD (Gay and Lesbian Alliance Against Defamation) Media Awards in Los Angeles
The footage of 81-year-old Alzheimerâs sufferer Maria Worroll being slapped and beaten in her care home, shown on Panorama and described in heart-wrenching detail by her daughter in Mondayâs Mail, was obtained after Jane Worroll bought a high-resolution spy camera that looked like a digital alarm clock and left it by her motherâs bed.
It cost her £20 on eBay, but there are other cameras you can buy concealed in anything from smoke alarms to air fresheners. If everyone with an elderly relative in a care home or in hospital bought one, we might finally bring to an end this countryâs shocking treatment of our old.
Blaming parents for porn is so cynical
According to Google executive Naomi Gummer, itâs up to parents to protect their children from online porn - the effect of which has, in any case, been exaggerated, she says.
She claims that only 14 per cent of children have seen sexual images online, and just 4 pe r cent have been upset by them.
This is naive rubbish, as anyone with children will know. As Ms Gummer, whoâs 28, is childless, itâs unlikely sheâs seen children stumble across images of women in stilettos crushing baby animals - yes, some men really do find that sexually arousing, apparently.
She probably wonât have been asked, as a friend of mine recently was by her nine-year-old son, what âthose boysâ were doing to each other in a video clip heâd stumbled across online. Her son, you see, had typed in âboys actionâ in the hope of finding action movies suitable for his age.
Itâs not just children who shouldnât be seeing this revolting material; none of us should ever have to see it.
Removing access to such content so that it can be seen only by âopting inâ and proving youâre over 18 would not be an attack on civil liberties, but the mark of a civilised society.
And Iâm sick of tho se, from silly Naomi Gummer to cynical politicians to greedy internet providers, who persist in allowing it into our homes.
Feminist writer Germaine Greer has confessed to a crush on Vladimir Putin
Just two weeks after Germaine Greer revealed that she has a crush on Vladimir Putin - she likes his âmean, pale eyesâ.â.â.âhe is terrifying, and terrifying is kind of sexyâ - his wife has disappeared from public view and is thought to have gone into a nunnery.
However, as Lyudmila once revealed that her husbandâs two golden rules for marriage are âA woman must do everything at homeâ and âNever praise a woman or you will spoil herâ, I think itâs more likely that she is simply leaving the way clear for Germaine in a long-overdue act of revenge.
Today programme presenter Justin Webb says that in this modern world of mobile phones and email, we have an âirrationalâ love of the postal service and associate it too closely with a fondly remembered past.
I couldnât disagree more. Texts and emails are fast and incredibly convenient. Theyâre wonderful for passing on essential information. But a handwritten letter or card says: âI have taken the time to buy this, and then to sit down and write it myself, because I really care.â Efficiencyâs great. But kindness is better.
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I know heap of academic women with children. Each to their own and I think, to much was read into Lucy's comments.
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It must be something in the air, there's a dog thinks she's beautiful. There's another one thinks she's too ugly for tv and now this, oh and there was the bloke who thought foxes don't attack humans.They're either all Attention seekers or you're all at risk, whatever it is and I want it cleared up before I get home in a few days.
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"No doubt this was intended as a rather flip, humorous comment. It backfired for two reasons" Says Sandra Parsons about Lucy Worsley's comments about choosing not to have/ or not having children. No, Sandra, it "backfired" for just ONE REASON alone, and THAT was because YOU decided to take something that was said in an innocuous way, and build it up into something that was neither said or intended, in order to find offense where none was intended, and therefore 'latch onto' a story that might get women all 'riled up'.........Which begs the question as to just WHICH woman here is actually offensive to other women. Is it Lucy, for just making an innocent comment, or you for assuming that women are so dim they are BOUND to be offended?! I think it's you......But anything for a story, eh? Hum.
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Lets get this straight. Reproducing yourself is not a selfless act, it is the height of selfishness.
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I definitely think there is a woman with a lot of issues....but it isn't Lucy. Far too much has been read into a comment which may reflect the insecurities of the author rather than Dr Lucy.
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Lucy just seemed to me to be saying that her education has allowed her to satisfy her own choices - doing a job she loves, without the responsibility of children that she does not want. Nothing wrong with that. I didn't see anywhere where she said she was too bright to reproduce. Education has allowed a lot of women to satisfy their own choices, and for many that includes having children that they feel they can afford to raise, at a time of life that suits them. Lucy was happy enough to make the statement, so if the author of this piece doubts what she meant by it she should just ask her, instead of attributing the most scandalizing interpretation to it. Insisting that a woman is saying that, unlike the rest of us, she's too clever to have children when she is saying no such thing just looks like a cheap attempt to create the next Samantha Brick and a shed load of comments and page views.
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Now plainly being a parent is far more fulfilling and important a role than being a tv historian or whatever and voicing an opinion on art which will be listened to with transitory attention by a very few people for a very few years, but, she doesn't agree and that's fair enough. If you don't have something, you don't miss it (or indeed know what it is you're missing), so if this lady is happy and feels fulfilled without having children while pursuing her successful career and whatnot, that's her business and that's great. I wish her all the happiness that she - and all of us - deserve.
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Education and intelligence do not automatically go together.
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How stupid to claim someone meant something that they obviously didn't mean.
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Being a mother is O.K and not being a mother is O.K. Putting down others to justify your own choice in NOT O.K.
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