Jeremy Clarkson strikes again

by Victoria Sponge

To the editor of the Times,

You are probably measuring the success of Jeremy Clarkson’s recent article on lesbian parents by the number of complaints you receive – in which case, congratulations, here’s another.…

I stopped buying the Times last year (having been brought up on it), after your ‘Minister warns of inbred Muslims’ headline, and I’ll be avoiding the online version too after this.

True, Mr Clarkson says nothing that can definitively be claimed as homophobic, and ultimately admits that good parenting is in the eye of the beholder (bravo!). But don’t be mistaken in thinking this doesn’t make his article extremely insulting to lesbian parents, and lesbians in general.

I’m sure you and he will laugh off all the complaints by claiming that the article was an opinion piece, and ‘just a bit of fun’. However, stereotyping a large and diverse group of people as either “proper ones in stockings” or “the weird, big  sort in dungarees” is not only tiresome and unoriginal – it contributes directly to the sort of discrimination I put up with on a daily basis. When they find out I’m a lesbian, men tend to view me as a potential sexpot, and women to dismiss me as shouty dyke in dungarees. (Neither stereotype is true: I am not a porn actress, and I don’t own dungarees.) After a while I got very tired of laughing it off – especially when a paramedic suggested stopping the ambulance for a bit of  hanky panky when I was being rushed to hospital with breathing problems, anxious girlfriend in attendance.

Perhaps you’ve forgotten, or become blase about the the power of print – so let me remind you: articles in newspapers do make a difference to people’s  opinions and, by extension, their actions and attitudes. Clarkson’s article is going to provide justification for people who were homophobic anyway and inspiration for those who weren’t necessarily, but find themselves convinced by his words. Putting something in the public arena gives people the impression that it is acceptable, and offers people a ready-made opinion to recast as their own. I KNOW it’s a joke (my sense of humour is fully functional, thank you) but it’s not a very funny one; I know it’s ‘just’ his opinion – still, you’re following the very tedious and facile trend of using radical opinion pieces to get attention, rather than more sophisticated ones to provoke debate. I still expect better from the Times, but I’m increasingly realising how naive this is.

And of course, there’s no law against what you’ve published. But please consider its effect on people like me. There are too few positive lesbian role models as it is, without the usual tired stereotypes being enforced, and this makes life much more difficult for young women questioning their sexuality, for children being brought up by lesbian parents, and for anyone whose sexual preference ironically attracts more male attention than she would if she were straight.

Far be it from me to tell you how to run your paper – but, that said, what about a more balanced feature, where you investigate lesbian parenthood from several different angles (perhaps including some real live non-dungareed lesbian mothers)? And what about a bit more diversity on your editorial team, to stop this kind of thing happening in future? And what about an apology?

Yours sincerely,

Victoria Sponge
a (reluctantly) angry lesbian