Gary Lineker deleting his sexist tweet about Chloe Kelly is no victory for feminism 🔵 Erase sexist tweets, and you erase the evidence of what male ‘allies’ really think ✍️ KateMaltby for ipaperviews
. Of course, you can no longer find the joke in question on Twitter, so here it is: “The @Lionesses have only gone and done it, and Kelly is England’s heroine, bra none.” Lineker eventually deleted it after much criticism.
It’s rarely a good thing when someone feels they need to wipe their words from history. If your tweet turns out to promote disinformation or actionable libel, it probably is wise to delete it, and to explain why. But I’ve seen Twitter mobs fervently demand that users delete tweets which simply express unpopular political views, or those which might well be considered offensive, but are mainstream and legal.
I always wonder what these people hope to achieve. Do they think that when a Twitter user deletes a sexist joke, after hours of being personally denounced, it’s proof that they’ve changed their mind and are about to emerge from their misogynistic cocoon, a radiant butterfly of feminist “re-education”? Of course not. They’re just exhausted. But that, so often, is what the Twitter mob seeks: confession, shriving, penance, absolution.
Here’s what Gary Lineker got wrong, however. His tweet was sexist. Here’s why. For centuries, women have been told that our bodies are first and foremost sexual objects – soft, squirmy and slightly entertaining deviations from the male norm. Our bodies deserve, we are told from the playground onwards, to be made the subject of shame and giggly jokes..
Lineker has claimed that the only people who mind his joke were those who hadn’t watched the match – and had therefore missed the “context” of his pun about sports bras. Well, I criticised it on the BBC, when I happened to be on air to review that evening’s newspapers – so I assume I’m included in his list of ignorant people. But I had certainly watched the match. I’d watched the moment which he deems necessary “context”.
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