Category: Dolphin Parent

Tiger or Dolphin – the politics of parenting

Prime Minister David Cameron makes the front page of The Times in the UK today with a headline that throws down the gauntlet in the battle to conquer disadvantage and inequality, beginning with social mobility – specifically, children’s potential in life, as determined by the start they get. Setting out his ‘bucket list’ of what …

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Stop telling girls untruths about Maths

Many international brows are beaten on a regular basis about why girls do not seem to choose to study Mathematics with the same enthusiasm or to the same level as boys, and the most recent manifestation of this was on the front page of the Sydney Morning Herald. A recent Australian study has shown that …

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Where Art becomes grotesque reality in the female form

If you have a spare 6 minutes, go to this YouTube link and watch a video of Ukrainian teenager Anastasiya Shpagina applying make-up to one of her eyes. She is doing so to give the impression that her eye is larger than reality, and almost fantastical, mimicking the female eyes that we are so used …

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“This was never just about Jimmy Savile.” What we are realising about the perception of women in TV over the past few decades.

Today’s Daily Mail contains a thoughtful but hard-hitting piece by Janet Street-Porter about the rumours and revelations surrounding the late Jimmy Savile’s alleged sexual activities involving young girls. Whether true or not – and the evidence, it has to be said, appears to be mounting – these reports leave an unsavoury impression not just of …

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We must put more women on screen

The new Director-General of the BBC, George Entwistle, has just gone on record as saying that the BBC has to do more to promote women in “serious” roles, or as newsreaders, in its programmes. In an interview reported in the Daily Mail on Wednesday, he said this: “We have made real progress in actively looking …

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Tulisa: a role model and inspiration for broken Britain?

I have been thinking a lot about female role models recently, and so was drawn to the Daily Mail online article this week which reported an interview in Look magazine with Tulisa Contostavlos, singer and X Factor judge. In the interview, she described herself as an “inspiration for broken Britain”; I was intrigued. I was …

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BBC Breakfast TV, a London cabbie … and positive role models for women

On Monday this week I was a guest on BBC Breakfast TV, hosted by Bill Turnbull and Susannah Reid at Lund Point, a block of residential flats overlooking the Olympic Park. What a view! The studio itself was actually on the roof, and I and Liz Nicholl of UK Sport, who was also speaking in …

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A Manifesto for Young Women by Janet Street Porter. Some thoughts.

In today’s Daily Mail, Janet Street-Porter has written a great article outlining her ‘manifesto for young women’, which ends by saying that young women need to believe in themselves. She has some excellent advice, including ‘work like hell at school’, ‘hold your head high’, ‘set your goals’, ‘swap telly trash and internet twaddle for books, …

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Refreshing views on female appearance from Hillary Clinton

Hillary Clinton – or more specifically Hillary Clinton’s appearance … or more specifically still, Hillary Clinton’s appearance without make-up – was a focus of attention in last week’s Daily Mail, and it was refreshing to hear the US Secretary of State herself say that she had given up trying to look “immaculate” in public, and …

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What can we do to promote a culture of kindness in society?

If you read my comments in today’s Mail on Sunday – “Top headmistress says social networking and public rows between celebs are causing a generation of mean girls”, you will see that I am warning against the culture of nastiness that often pervades our online (and real-life) world. Why this is aimed more at women …

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