Middle-Aged Women Don't Want to Use Their Power To Harm You

So don't harm us when we're younger and we won't have to

Those waking up on the other side of the world might be wondering what all the fuss is about, why women in the UK are talking about ‘middle class women of a certain age’. Let me explain.

Over here in the UK, there is a TV chef called Gregg Wallace. He shot to fame from greengrocer to prime time TV host of shows like BBC’s Masterchef. I don’t really know much more about him apart from that, though I have heard the stories – for years.

In the last week or so he has been accused of inappropriate sexual ‘banter’ (as he sees it) with production staff and contestants on his show. I believe some have also accused him of groping. He has been suspended from his show, and he went on Instagram to bemoan this fact minimising his alleged crimes as ‘just’ thirteen complaints from a handful of ‘middle-class women of a certain age.’

Now this is man’s speak, this is short-hand, in Gregg’s world (on a market stall, down the pub, in the locker room, hell, perhaps even a gentleman’s board meeting), this usually would have quickly dispatched with the issue and the complaining women, because what he is saying is ‘these are just bitter old crones who are past it, not young women who I would actually fancy.’

The trope of the bitter woman is a powerful one, it is a great silencer of women and to be fair to Gregg, it usually works, distracting men and – sorry to say – many women from the real issue which is the man’s bad behaviour, and instead attacking the woman as a form of defence. It’s also known as DARVO, Deny, Attack and Reverse Victim Offender, once you are familiar with this tactic you will see it everywhere.

I see Wallace also posted on his Instagram yesterday a quote from a woman asking why the press aren’t more concerned about someone’s mental health, the inference being that we should be concerned about Gregg’s because you can bet your bottom dollar if we are to play bad-man-does-bad-thing-and-gets-called-out-on-it-bingo that the next thing he will suggest is that he is suicidal and/or he’s going to get treatment for his disorder which, until a few days ago, was not an issue to him in the slightest.

As I have said many, many times before (read: until I am blue in the face), men are only sorry when they get caught, not when they’re getting away with their crimes, because while they are it is working just fine for them. Wallace enjoyed it. He liked getting away with disarming and shocking women by describing lewd sex acts, hijacking women’s time and attention by making them listen to these descriptions without consent. Allegedly. It’s a power trip, as most controlling and abusive behaviour is. It’s not that he couldn’t control himself, like he’s got a tic, because he could, he did in scenarios where it was not welcome, like perhaps chatting to his bank manager, instead he actively chose to speak to women like this to exert his power and authority over them, and probably for a bit of a sexual thrill.

But this time, even men are calling him out. Over on his Instagram men are reminding him that it is 2024, they are reminding him that it displays his deep misogyny to describe women as those ‘of a certain age’, that his mask has well and truly slipped and we see him. Or at least some men are, others are saying it is ‘just banter’.

The bad behaviour of men will only change once other men call them out, because it is only then that they suffer real life consequences, and so, good for those men who do speak out, but for every one that writes something on Instagram, there are probably ten men who stood by and laughed as he did it in real life. Those men are, in my opinion, as guilty as Wallace is. Allegedly.

But I want to turn my attention to those ‘women of a certain age’ that he speaks of. They may not have been this ‘certain age’ when he was inappropriate with them, perhaps they were a lot younger, but what comes with time and age for women is this absolute and intense effing exhaustion of how men get away with treating us throughout our lives and so yes, by the time you get to a ‘certain age’ you’re pretty tired of it all. Plus, in the meantime, you might even have given birth to some more females yourself that stand to go through the exact same thing as you did because men refuse to call it out and when women do, they have some names to call us to make us shut up.

And so yes, maybe it is women of a certain age, because men have stopped sexualising and objectifying us (thank god) and now they want us to be quiet about the abuse that we have suffered. They create names for us, this ‘Karen’ thing which I detest and yet see so many young women using as this patriarchal slang to silence women who dare to speak out about bad men, bad service, bad behaviour.

And the thing is, and take this from a woman of a certain age who has spoken out about a man’s bad behaviour, we don’t want to do it, it causes us pain, we don’t enjoy seeing men suffer the consequences of their actions, we would rather they had just not harmed us in the first place so we didn’t have to.

When I spoke out about my ex and the story of his abuse of me and others appeared in the newspapers, he also dismissed me with these tropes, the crazy woman trope, the jealous or bitter woman trope, and it worked for many, many people, this male shorthand, it is very powerful and it has endured for millennia. Men (and women) who did not hold him accountable for his actions, who sympathised with him and believed those cliches that he came out with about me, ensured that women continued to be harmed. They would rather seek fault in the women he lied to.

When I spoke up about my ex it made me ill, I cried for weeks that I had caused him pain, that I had caused him to suffer the consequences of his actions. I did not want to use my power against him but in the end he left me no choice.

It is not easy to put your head above the parapet, and I understand – and know – many women who choose not to, and with good reason because you will be called anything you need to be to protect that man’s reputation, to maintain the status quo, the power imbalance, the patriarchy. The same system that keeps everyone feeling safe. Feeling, not being safe.

Many women come to me, both in my role as a journalist and as a woman who has spoken out, I have heard many tales of mistreatment by men in the public eye that you will never hear because they don’t have the energy to share them, and they are scared. And I understand that, I would never force someone out of their comfort zone. You also need to have kept your receipts, you cannot write things about people if you cannot prove it in a court of law should they choose to sue you, and by the way this doesn’t make you a devious or cunning woman (another trope), it makes you an intelligent and responsible one.

For every woman who speaks out, there are thousands – tens of thousands – who don’t for fear of receiving the same treatment she got. Women’s heads are held aloft on metaphorical spikes to stop others from doing the same. There is nothing to be gained for women personally for speaking out, but … it just might mean another woman is not harmed, it just might lend weight to another woman’s voice, it just might mean that police can back up another – worse – story of his bad behaviour.

And that is why we do it.

We women of a certain age do not want to use our power against men, we just hope they won’t cause us harm so we won’t have to, and that is always their choice.

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