Anna Bartter
Picture the scene: it is 2006. Baden-Baden, Germany. The England football team are playing in the World Cup, but all eyes are on their wives and girlfriends: the WAGs. This gaggle of super-slim, super-tanned, surgically enhanced ladies trot on their wedges from high-end store to high-end store, arms laden with shopping bags, faces disguised by enormous sunglasses.
The media vitriol and misogyny are rife. The girls (many of whom are literally that – girls) are lambasted for being vacuous, shallow and self-serving. The more successful the romantic partner is, the higher the WAG ranking. Victoria Beckham and Cheryl Cole reigned supreme.
“In many ways, times have changed.”
The phenomenon was as complex as it was alluring: young girls aspired to become WAGs, older women despised the label as reductive and anti-feminist. The term is hierarchical: wives, then girlfriends. It leaves no room for a woman to be multi-faceted. Just a single, labelled entity – evaluated solely on her appearance and choice of male partner. There was something so demeaning about it, a huge step backwards into 1950s style thinking.
But in many ways, times have changed. The #metoo movement, heightened awareness around issues such as the gender pay gap, and social media fuelled activism have all helped to move the narrative away from the deeply chauvinist thinking of the early noughties. Yet just like that, last week, we were right back there. For those who’ve been living under a rock, let me recap.
Back in 2019, Queen WAG Coleen Rooney masterminded a frankly genius sting operation to uncover the source of leaked tabloid stories about her, leading to her being dubbed “WAGatha Christie” by writer and comedian Dan Atkinson, a term now embedded in our social consciousness. The revelation “it’s….Rebekah Vardy’s account” played out eye-wateringly publicly over social media, led to Ms Vardy’s humiliating takedown.
“At a networking event, I was once directed by the host not to speak, but to “stand there and look pretty.”
Fast forward three years, with millions of pounds in legal fees and many pleas for them to settle, we are now in the midst of the most talked about trial in recent celebrity history (other than the Depp/Heard trial currently waging across the pond). Vardy’s libel action has made it all the way to the High Court, much to the delight of commentators and the general public alike, as we voraciously devour each new revelation.
Regardless of the verdict, I’d like to take a moment to consider the wider ramifications of the action. As a former lawyer, I spent years pushing against patriarchal and misogynist views of women in the legal profession. The put-downs were many, and frequent. Comments on my appearance and choice of clothing were commonplace. At a networking event, I was once directed by the host not to speak, but to “stand there and look pretty”. My worth was been evaluated, and I was useful only as decoration.
“I think this is what Vardy wants: she’d run to tell the teacher that Rooney is being mean, and she wants people to take her side.”
To see this libel action gain such traction is disheartening, to say the least. At best, it’s embarrassing. At worst, it is damaging. Not just to the parties involved, but to women more widely. It’s all too easy to say these women are setting feminism back. I think it’s more nuanced than that. Certainly there’s a sense that even they themselves are taken aback at just how far this thing has gone – like a child who won’t back down, the juggernaut has been impossible to stop. In their efforts to prove their individual innocence (although there really are no winners in this case), they have inadvertently played into patriarchal notions of air-headed bimbos with nothing better to do with their time and money than to engage in an expensive and public spat.
Think back to your schooldays. This type of fall-out was common amongst my friendship circle. We rallied around one party, to the exclusion of the other. There was nothing more rewarding than people taking your side, and ultimately, I think this is what Vardy wants: she’d run to tell the teacher that Rooney is being mean, and she wants people to take her side.
The UK justice system, however, is a less forgiving beast than the playground, and inevitably matters have been brought to light which cast an unfavourable light on both parties.
“It’s been branded a “bitch fest”, a “cat fight” and a “spat” – heavily gendered terms.”
Vardy’s claims about the size of Peter Andre’s manhood have hit the headlines, because it’s impossible to have women on trial without talking about sex, after all. And Rooney’s inner mean girl has been exposed, as she described Vardy as “fame hungry” and “desperate” to be her friend. In a remarkable final act of nonchalance, Rooney even missed the last day of the hearing to jet off on holiday with her husband and four sons.
Neither has come out unscathed, and whatever the verdict might be (we are waiting with bated breath), this trial has surely done more harm than good. It’s difficult to see where this will leave them. A more dignified, mature approach may have been to have settled long ago, as both parties were advised to do, but then, where’s the fun in that?
“Whether we like to admit it or not, the legal profession remains decades behind in gender equality.”
It’s been branded a “bitch fest”, a “cat fight” and a “spat” – heavily gendered terms. If it were it their husbands in the dock, the rhetoric would be very different. Semantics have broader implications for how women are viewed generally, and herein lies the danger.
Whether we like to admit it or not, the legal profession remains decades behind in gender equality. This trial has done nothing to advance the cause: from the pompous male barristers (one need hardly wonder what they make of it all, rubbing their hands with glee) and their apparent lack of social media nowse, to the way in which it is being reported, the fallout is destined to continue.
The media frenzy will cool and the dust will settle, but the scars will live on.
Image courtesy of Tingey Injury Law Firm on Unsplash. No changes were made to this image. Image license found here.
annaloveswords
I'm a freelance writer specialising in women's mental and physical wellbeing. You can find my work on Stylist, Metro, Psychologies and more. Visit my newsletter at Substack to read more. https://annabartter.substack.com/