Carrie Symonds & ‘the scarlet woman’; & the end of Big Brother

The High Low inbox was full of people asking us to cover the media coverage of Carrie Symonds, the former Tory comms director accused of having an affair with Boris Johnson. We discuss the ‘scarlet woman’ trope, historically embodied by Monica Lewinsky, the then intern who was globally shamed for her affair with Bill Clinton (if you haven’t watched her 2015 TED talk yet - DO IT.) Let’s stop with the ‘tabloidese’ whereby women accused of having affairs with famous, married men are party-loving sluts designed to attack the patriarchy. Here’s a thought: let’s cover women in the same way we do men?

Also today, we celebrate the 18 year tenure - yes, 18 years - of Big Brother and Celebrity Big Brother. Whether 'civilian or celebrity' (our new favourite phrase), Big Brother was once a pop-culture phenomenon, at the vanguard of the zeitgeist. Rather than examine where it all went wrong (nothing lasts forever) we dive into the nostalgia and share our favourite bits plus YOUR favourite bits, as garnered from Twitter. Plus, Dolly interviews an ex story producer of MIC, ex head writer for TOWIE and culture journalist, Ed Cripps, to discuss the BB phenomenon in more detail.

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Hadley Freeman on Serena Williams https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2018/sep/15/give-serena-williams-break-working-mothers

Sophie Heawood interviews Lily Allen https://www.theguardian.com/music/2018/sep/15/lily-allen-brazen-behaviour-didnt-care-sophie-heawood

The Pursuit of Love, by Nancy Mitford https://www.amazon.co.uk/Pursuit-Love-Nancy-Mitford/dp/0141044012

Episode 59 of Fortunately with Fi and Jane, with Susanna Reid https://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/p06f8njn

Killing Eve, on BBC iPlayer https://www.bbc.co.uk/iplayer/episodes/p06jy6bc

Fran Yeoman on Carrie Symonds for iNews https://inews.co.uk/inews-lifestyle/people/boris-johnson-carrie-symonds-affair-allegations-sexism-media/

Monica Lewinsky’s TED talk, ‘The price of shame’ https://www.ted.com/talks/monica_lewinsky_the_price_of_shame/up-next?language=en

Nadia Petschek Rawls, Director of Social Media at TED, on Monica Lewinsky’s TED talk https://ideas.ted.com/want-to-help-prevent-online-bullying-comment-on-facebook/

She Wants It by Jill Soloway: https://www.amazon.co.uk/She-Wants-Desire-Toppling-Patriarchy/dp/1785032844 

Tiny Ladies in Shiny Pants: