"If a member of the public, whether royal or not, is prepared to go into a public place showing a low cleavage, it ill behoves anyone to criticise the taking of a picture," said the barrister Jacqueline Samue while defending a security guard who secretly filmed the Princess of Wales during a visit to a department store.
A perfectly unexceptional and unexceptionable remark. The good barrister was not referring to the no doubt odious practice of secret videoing (which in reality goes on in every shop and main street everywhere these days), but to the fact that the gentleman had apparently - lingered on the princess's bust and legs, and was being widely condemned for being a cad and a bounder for having done so.
Uproar to Jacqueline Samuel's remarks. Janet Anderson, the British Labour Party's spokeswoman on women's affairs (is there a spokesman too?), retorted: "To suggest Diana - or any other woman - was inviting it because of the way she was dressing is quite disgraceful." What is it pray? It in the normal use of the term, made famous by the perfectly vile and deliciously late Mr Justice Melford Stevenson RIP is rape. We arc not talking about rape. We are talking about looking and photographing.
This is not to defend secret videoing. Let us now deplore it in unison. All together now. TUT TUT TUT. Good. Moral outrage out of the way, let us proceed to be honest. If I happened to find myself with a video camera and unobserved could video the Princess of Wales sporting a low cut dress, would I not do so? Would I not, with a perfectly understandable enthusiasm for that part of a woman's body, focus in on her cleavage; just as I would, with my unaided eye, focus on her cleavage if I felt myself unobserved?
Peeping Toms
Who would not? We arc all in part Peeping Toms and Spying Sheilas. If a woman sports a handsome expanse of cleavage, is she not expressing a wish to do so? Arc we to be blamed for looking at what she chosen to expose? Would that dreary Jackson woman - what a wealth of governess sermonising awaits Britain if she and the Labour Party get to power - have been hopping up and down if the video had focussed on the princess's nostril or her left cheekbone? Would anybody never mind the d. J. w. have said a word if the exposed and videoed chest in a public place had been that of the Prince of Wales?
If the future British Minister for Women wants to get cross about anything, it should be the fate of Miss Universe, a figure who is no doubt close to the hearts of feminists everywhere. Miss Universe - it has not yet become Ms Universe - is, as we all know, Alicia Machado. The Miss Universe contest officials - God rot their adiphobic hearts - have told Miss Machado that having won the contest at 8 stone, she may not be the 9 stone 11lbs which she currently weighs in at.
This surely ought to be the scandal over which the feminists of this world should be waxing wrathful. I have seen photographs of Miss Machado before and after the added 1 stone, 13lbs. I approve of the stone 13lbs enormously. They are a splendid addition to an already splendid body. No doubt the d. J. w. and her chums might think that men should not offer opinions on the shape and condition of a female body. Sorry, sisters.
Nothing like a fine body
Like most men and I suspect women - I think there is nothing like a fine body on a woman, though of course we are not supposed to say this. There has been a strong and joyless puritan streak in feminism, alongside a selective victimhood which discriminates between the Right on and the non Right on. Many Irish feminists said that strip searching of women prisoners was degrading which it no doubt was, "as too was the similar treatment of men. But not as degrading as seeing your husband shot or blown up in front of you. Feminists stayed silent as UDR widows paced behind their husbands' coffins, reserving, their anger for the right on issue of IRA women being strip searched.
Alicia Machado is certainly not a victim dear to feminist hearts; she seems to be a refutation of everything they hold dear. In fact, she is a vindication of feminism. She is a free woman doing as she wants with her body. That most feminists think - and I happen to agree with them - that the Miss Universe competition is a ludicrous vulgarity is beside the point. It is not nearly as ludicrous as putting bombs in pubs or luring soldiers to a bogus party and a waiting posse of assassins.
Alicia Machado has put on weight. We should applaud her courage is setting an example to the young women of the world. Statues should be erected to the gallant warrior against anorexia; she should become an icon to the feminist movement, the pioneer against the sexist stereotyping of women as slim, svelte creatures, who maintain their perpetual elegance by eating an apple and a yoghurt a week, with little bottles of expensive mineral water through the day.
The swimsuit manufacturers who sponsor the Miss Universe competition are withdrawing their contracts from this gallant feminist, Alicia Machado. She is the inheritor of the banner first raised high by Emmeline Pankhurst, and passed from generation to generation to her own fair hand and the waiting paw of the d. J. w.
She is doing what she wants with her body. She has entered in a competition which I might not particularly admire, and the Sisterhood might even have certain reservations about, and she has won. Fair enough. Her body, after all. And now she is doing with her body what she thinks right, namely making it fatter. And to my mind, though this is incidental, better. Is it right she should be punished for this?
Will the feminists of the world stand idly by while the plucky Ms Machado is robbed of her livelihood? Or will they organise a boycott of the swimsuit companies for their victimising this noble Venezuelan? Where stands the d. J. w. on this, the most pressing issue of our times?