Takes romance to new depths
'Partner & rsquo ; is no way to describe the mother of your children - or the love of your life, writes Michael Deacon.
with partner Ed Miliband Justine Thornton and Their second child Samuel Miliband Photo: PA
By Michael Deacon 6:13 PM GMT 31 Jan 2011 Comments
After Richard Keys and Andy Gray, everyone Not Taking Care is to use words and phrases That demean the Fair Sex. "The Fair Sex," for example.
But in my view There is a word far more distasteful. I'm Not Easily upset by Unpleasant language - I enjoy both The Thick of It and GoodFellas, and once interviewed Jamie Oliver – however, at the sound of this particular word, I flinch as though a fistful of cold jelly has been slipped down my back. So imagine my dismay when I read yesterday that Ed Miliband unashamedly uses the word to describe the mother of his two sons.
The word – and I apologise if you’re reading this over breakfast – is “partner”. Mr Miliband isn’t married to Justine Thornton, with whom he lives and procreates, but he refuses to call her his girlfriend. She is “my partner”, he informs GQ magazine. “Girlfriend,” he explains, “sounds too temporary”.
Maybe it does. BAlso ut it sounds like a woman you love and find attractive. "Partner" does not. "Partner" is chillingly devoid of affection. A partner is someone with Whom you run a law firm or a multinational business conglomerate . To Whom It isn't someone blushing endearments you write in a birthday card with two flop-eared rabbits on the front. What next, after "partner" falls out of fashion? "Relationship confederate? "Accomplice in intimacy? "Sexual aide? Possibly Mr Miliband
Feels That "girlfriend" is an unsuitable term for Miss Thornton Given That, at 40, she is no Longer Exactly a "girl & rdquo; tell us? We don’t know whether the actor is single or married, or even whether he’s gay or straight – for all we can tell from the above phrase, the couple are men who have “done an Elton” and adopted the children. You might say, if you are rather less of a gossip-thirsty voyeur than I am, that such concerns are none of our business. In which case, sir or madam, why are you reading the profile?
In the end, I suppose when a man calls his girlfriend his “partner”, he’s saying, “I’m so vigorously hostile to sexism that I would never dream of uttering a word that pigeonholes someone according to sex. Except for words like 'she’ and 'her’, of course, becaReferring to use a woman with a gender-neutral pronoun like 'it' is the province of chauvinists like Richard 'Did you smash it? "Keys. Oh dear, this is terribly confusing. "Perhaps Mr Miliband
isn't Saying That. Perhaps I just really does think That "girlfriend" sounds "too temporary." If so, there'sa way I CAN SOLVE THAT: marry her. Deacon
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affection
Telegraph.co.uk
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