Love Island ladies are liars & wimps – I’m glad the show is finally over, they’re a bad example for women
AS the sun sets on the tenth series of Love Island, is it time that we said a final adios to the show?
While viewing figures are down by a million on last year, writer Julie Burchill has a better reason – the girls are just a turn-off, as she explains here . . .
THE latest series of Love Island is about to end and what a lukewarm one it has been.
With it goes “lipsing” (kissing), feeling “mugged off” (humiliated), “deeping it” (ruminating), “getting the ick” (feeling revolted) and, for female Islanders only, being a “girl’s girl”.
That last one is the worst.
In fact, I can’t think of a current phrase that gives me more of the ick.
I’m a total radical feminist and I should be “down with” anything expressing female solidarity. Why then does Love Island make me want to run off and live on an island solely inhabited by stern, silent men?
For a start because women who call themselves girl’s girls rarely are women who want to lift up other talented women, a practical and desirable way to be.
They are either liars looking to soften you up so they can take your man, or wimps who bring so little to the party that they seek to portray any woman who has something about her as a conniving cow.
I actually prefer the former, as I admire determination.
Being a girl’s girl sums up the simpering soppiness of Feminism Lite.
You can recognise this beast by its cries of, “You go, girl!” and “QUEEEEEN!”.
You’ve seen it in Sex And The City/And Just Like That.
There’s a lot women can learn from men
And read about it in the works of Caitlin Moran, which are so splodgily sisterly that they should have wipe-clean pages.
In her new book, Moran asks at great length what men can learn from women.
I feel there’s a great deal women can learn from men.
And one thing is how to have brisk, bracing friendships which don’t descend into moaning hormonal swamps.
Men would never dream of calling themselves boy’s boys — unless they were gay — and good for them.
Of course there are exceptions to the rule that most female friendships create echo chambers of self-deceiving foolishness.
A group of women working together for a cause or in pursuit of something greater than themselves is always an enlivening thing, from the suffragettes to the Lionesses.
I’ve organised two fundraisers over the years, End Of, for domestic violence charities, and Safe As, for homelessness charities.
I recall the times I spent then with my friends Astrid, Samantha, Naomi and the amazing actress Julie Graham as among the happiest times of my life . . . full of camaraderie.
Working on my pro-Brexit play People Like Us with the writer Jane Robins was brilliant fun too — equal parts shrieking with laughter, splashing in the sea off Brighton beach and scribbling.
But I’ve also experienced female friendships that were inappropriately possessive, intense and over-emotional, where I’d have to tiptoe around “sensitive” — AKA soppy and stifling — female feelings in a way more associated with coercive control in sexual relationships.
Having lunch with a group of mates and leaving a couple of old ones out in order to make room for new ones would often be the trigger for tears, tantrums and the silent treatment.
Men just don’t behave like that. When I said to my husband, “If you took Sam out to lunch and Alex found out, would Alex be upset?”, he looked at me as if I was mad.
Women can have an infantilising effect on each other.
The idea that we are so weak that we need a “girl gang” ceaselessly sticking up for us and reassuring us that “you got this, girlfriend” makes me feel mildly nauseous.
I don’t like the way women tend to tell sweet little lies to their friends — be they, “No, you don’t look fat in that”, or “He’s really into you, but he’s scared of strong women”.
How will we improve if we don’t face truth?
But you probably do look fat in that and he’s very likely not into you because you’re a needy ninny.
How will we ever improve our lot if we never face up to the truth?
There’s a highly unhealthy idea around that daily life is just too much for a sensitive female flower to handle.
We see it in the huge wellness industry. “Self-soothing” and “self-care” are the new self-abuse, guaranteed to bring a flush to the skin, if somewhat more expensive.
Young women who, in previous times, might have marched around burning their bras and demanding equal pay are reborn as delicate creatures in need of ceaseless “pampering” to see them through the perils of the gruelling world of working for a living.
Women are told that shuffling around like invalids in robes and slippers at spas is better for them than getting out there and taking their chances with the shameless sunshine — lest it give them skin cancer.
This attitude has been carried over into friendships.
Whereas once they were about going out and getting blotto, the rise of sober-curiosity and therapy culture has diminished the hedonistic element which once made every female meeting a potential mini-hen night, instead promoting the rise of mutual moan-fests.
I’m suspicious of the “learned helplessness” of infinite female comfort.
A problem shared is a problem perpetuated, in my book.
My attitude probably stems from my youth.
My mum, bless her, was a highly emotional woman and a lot of her woes were down to her friends, who she was forever falling out with and making up with, equally tearfully.
My father, a supremely sunny-natured man, was friends with everyone but he took friendships lightly. He only ever cried when the dog died.
I’d far rather be a man’s woman, with all the maverick toughness the phrase evokes.
Wise up to the ways of the world
I’ve never been a girl’s girl and, at 64, I don’t intend to start.
The Love Island cuties are welcome to it.
Although, it’s telling that as we’re nearing the bitter end, the hair-braiding between cheering relationships has worn down, and the best friend bitch-fights, such as the one between Whitney Adebayo and Ella Thomas this week, have fought their way to the fore.
Meanwhile, any unloved Bombshell who’s made it through may well find herself being criticised as a fake crier by Love Island veterans — see poor Abi Moores, the stewardess — while being magnanimously condescended to by Queen Bee Whitney: “It’s not you, you’re great. You haven’t found the right person.”
But if you’re a beautiful blonde who’s been wearing a bikini 24/7 around the boy you’re coupled up with for the past fortnight and he still looks at his water bottle with more interest, girl’s girl platitudes don’t really hit the spot.
I’m sure that when these callow cuties wise up to the ways of the world, those two little words will give them the ick as much as they do me.