The woops! team is a new group of artists who gather verbal gaffs made by public figures and plaster them on t-shirts, in songs, in photos.

Our very first move is Deliberately Barren.

Need we say more?

Here’s the site:
http://www.cafepress.com/woops

“The question of whether people have children, whether they marry and have children, is entirely a matter for them and I do not think it should be a matter of public comment,” Mr Howard told reporters. [emphasis mine]

Notice what he didn’t say, that the question of whether women marry and have children is entirely a matter for them and is nota matter of public comment.

This tells me:

1) He uses ‘people’ to generalize the matter (as though men are ever subject to this particular brand of scrutiny) and make it sound like there’s no sexism here.

2) He does not deny, as the BBC’s line of questioning that follows indicates, that it in fact is a matter for public comment.

3) He is not willing to stand up to the patriarchy, in that he uses multiple qualifiers to weaken his stance: He doesn’t “think” that it “should be” a matter for public comment.

4) His use of “marry and have children” is typically hetero-normative, and shows the patriarchy’s agenda that the two always go together.

So, Anna, I wouldn’t even say that this has been “condemned” — there has been some minor wrist-slappage, but nothing further, as far as I’ve heard.

Two little pissy addenda:

– He apologized last year, then did it again. He’s not sorry.

– They put her statement about the whole thing last. It’s about her and she’s billed last. Oh, no, my mistake, it’s actually all about the menz.

*grrrrrrrrr* IBTP.