A QUESTION OF FEMALE TONE
The media: Paul Johnson
on the disadvantages which face public women
IN A BID to increase its female read- ership, the Independent has been asking Why more women are not invited to appear on BBC Question Time. That is not the right question, which is why should a woman, or a man for that matter, want to appear on this programme? It is the epitome of everything that is wrong with current affairs television: too much politics (and too many party politicians), con- frontation, extremism, exaggeration and crude assertion, instead of serious argu- ment, and an absence of conversational skills, wit or verbal elegance. In the days when I used to do it, the one redeeming feature was Robin Day, who tried hard to give it an air of order, authority and civilised behaviour. But he had to compete with the studio audience, chosen, I was told, from 'activist groups', that is, mainly loud-mouthed nonentities who welcome the chance to hector the famous and mildly celebrated. The ill-bred audience was the final reason (others were the poor pay, inconvenient location and gruesome com- pulsory meal eaten beforehand) why I refused to do it again. The truth is, a television studio audience, even if kept fully under control, which rarely happens, makes any kind of sensible discussion impossible, since panellists, especially if they are politicians, play up to it in the most brazen and disgusting manner. The last time I did Any Questions, my three colleagues, all coarse-grained professional Politicians — Denis Healey, Norman St John-Stevas and Shirley Williams — simply sucked up to the groundlings and pre- vented any cerebral subtlety. When will some television company have the sense to revert to the civilised formula of the old Brains Trust, where panellists spoke to each other, and to the silent millions beyond, rather than to the noisy, artificial demos in the studio, when big issues were examined, rather than party points scored, and when politicians were largely ex- cluded?
To reinforce its complaint, the Indepen- dent invited readers to submit names of worthy women who had not appeared on Question Time, and produced no less than 72 suggestions. The result was an interest- ing indication of the way this paper is following the same disastrous course as the old Guardian and drifting inexorably to the Left. Whether the women chosen echoed the bias or its readers of the filtering process exercised by the staff, the selection was predictable and overwhelmingly left- liberal. I counted no fewer than 29 of the 72 who could be categorised as Left, and of the remainder a majority came from the Caring-Compassionate-Concerned nexus. The few who could be classified as neither were there primarily to give the appear- ance, or rather the illusion, of 'balance'. Most of the 72 were communicators, quan- goists, educators, arts bureaucrats and 'advisers', charity lobbyists and the like, political fringists and agitators, feminists and religious zealots. Very few wealth- creators and child-bearers and, above all, not many with whom you'd want to get stuck in a snow drift.
The selection, however, had the merit of persuading one foolish fish to rise to the bait, in the shape of Margaret Forster, a rather sour-faced female novelist included in the 72. She sent in a classic example of the Letter to the Editor which it may be healthy to set down on paper, to purge the system of indignation, but should then be torn up. The Independent, she fumed, had suggested that women like herself who refused to appear on the show did so because they were afraid to stand up to politicians. What? 'Quail before the like of Kenneth Baker, Kenneth Clarke, Norman Tebbit? Child's play, my dears, child's play.' No: confident though she was of 'making mincemeat' of such men, her refusal was dictated by purer motives. She cared 'passionately' about 'state education' and would 'prefer to think in what way I can best serve my cause'. Certainly not by 'noisy exhibitionism'. On the contrary, added Miss Forster: 'I am a writer. When I care, I write' — and, moreover, 'in a plain and proper manner'. Well she raised a laugh at my breakfast table on a cold and wet Monday morning, anyway. Miss Forster's objection to studio- audience programmes is valid and essen- tially the same as the one I have just made myself — they are performances, not worthwhile discussions. Why, then, did I find her letter prim, priggish and therefore unconsciously funny? We come here to the central problem of women playing a public role in society, whether in politics or the media: tone. Mrs Thatcher sounded stri- dent because, in an overwhelmingly mas- culine place like the Commons, that is how almost any woman will be made to sound at Prime Minister's Question Time simply to get herself heard and understood. The Commons had its origins in a mediaeval chapel from which women were banned and whose acoustics were for male voices. Similarly, Miss Forster's tone in expressing herself sounds tiresomely and needlessly aggressive because she comes from a feminist tradition in which women had to be assertive and a bit pushy just to get their point of view listened to at all. Most of the barriers are now down and men readily give women a hearing on virtually any issue, but someone in Miss Forster's age- group finds it difficult to change the tone, and bring it down a few decibels. It will all be much easier for our daughters and granddaughters. In the meantime, I have already noticed that women holding powerful jobs are much more readily accepted as behind-the-scenes decision- makers, where tone is less important, than as public performers. Liz Forgan, prog- ramme controller of Channel Four, and Eve Pollard, editor of the Sunday Mirror, do not have to raise their voices or strike feminist postures, since their authority is obvious. A lady behind a big executive desk is less exposed to masculine sneers, and less likely to arouse public resentment, than one haranguing the television cameras or shouting from the Treasury bench.
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