Everything and nothing has changed

I listened to a Woman’s Hour phone in yesterday on the joys and problems of being a stay at home mother or a working mother. Among the calls was a lady – can’t remember her name but she was very positive and cheerful and basically said, ‘Come on – things HAVE changed. We can go out to work if we want or more likely NEED to, we shouldn’t apologise for wanting more than caring for our children – we work to pay bills not because we’re selfish and even if we do want things like status and a sense of satisfaction in working – what’s wrong with that? We shouldn’t have to feel guilty for having ambition. Things are different for our generation. And I thought – yeah good on you.
And then I read Dennis Waterman blaming Rula Lenska for him hitting her because she’s a 'clever woman' and you know what it’s like with these uppity wimmin and their cruel tongues making less educated men feel bad. Well according to Waterman she (surprise!) provoked him and I think no – nothing’s changed at all. 'It's not difficult for a woman to make a man hit her,' he says. No Dennis, all she has to do is say the wrong thing. Or just get in the way of his fists. The ‘he or she made me do it,’ is the classic abuser’s excuse as we all know. I remember reading some horrendous piece where a paedophile pointed out that little girls were actually very seductive and what's a guy to do? Or the girl who goes out wearing a tight skirt and 'gets herself' raped. Or in this case – clever women deserve to get hit. It’s all the same really. Victim blaming. Nothing has changed. Dennis Waterman – you are an anencephalous tosser. Clever enough for you? And Minder was shite.

PS: After I posted this piece I read again the Christina Odone piece about it in the Telegraph, linked above. And then I scrolled down to the comments. Read them if you want to be depressed. Out they come the 'jokes' about never hit a woman (no matter how much she deserves it) - oh ho ho, and about how the domestic violence figures are skewed in favour of wimmin. Where are the figures for this? I know that there are women who hit men and men are often too ashamed to come forward. But why when there's a piece in which a man admits to having hit a woman and then basically blamed her for it, are practically all the comments of the 'la la la what about men la la la wimmin are bitches la la la' type?