Piers Loses It Over Sexist 'Handbags' Comment Debate | Good Morning Britain

football pundit steve thompson will not be heard on bbc radio until next year because he made remarks the corporation says do not align to their standards yes he tried to be humorous and used colloquial phrases we've all used for thousands of years without anyone throwing their toys out of a pram within 20 minutes of a match between lincoln city and akronton stanley tom o thompson described a scuffle between two players as handbags out and when referring to players making the most of a foul he commented he's being a bit of a drama queen he'd have been better wearing a skirt so while his comments sexist we're joined by journalist rebecca reed who says yes they are let's get rid of this language and football presenter alison bender who says well alison let me leave it to you i mean you i think you're worried aren't you about tiptoeing around phrases and what you can say in the heat of the moment yeah i feel like the world's gone mad as piers morgan would say i'm actually reading your book at the moment piers and i think you cover a lot of this kind of thing the problem is we have to put this into context in in football commentary especially on the radio you have to paint a picture with as few words as possible the term handbags have been used for years and years in football and anyone who watches football and indeed other sports like rugby knows exactly what that's referring to it's a it's a shortcut way of basically saying there's a bit of an incident there's a bit of a cat fight which i'm sure we probably can't say cat fight either for the same kind of reason absolutely not why can't we say but hang on what's wrong with cat fight well cat fight for a state for the same reason is kind of referring to like women with nails out kind of thing also offensive to cats i mean let's be honest if you're a cat why are you being used in a derogatory way you did buy handbags but this is the point isn't it rebecca rita there is i know what rebecca's about to say is going to exhaust me before i even start because when you start policing language here's the problem with it and why i keep going on about this kind of thing there's no end to it there's always somebody somewhere who's going to get offended by something in language but you do believe in the policing of language to some extent because you wouldn't say that we could say the n word or the p word or use a homophobic n word to the phrase drama queen do me a favor i'm starting a point and what i'm going to continue to go on to say is everybody agrees that there are some words we can't use and that there are some things that are too offensive to say and all we're talking about here is where is the line and for me i don't love sexist language i think we can all agree that these are old-fashioned relatively dated terms and particularly when we have a problem with getting women into sport and particularly women in football it would seem like a really easy thing to do to use different on hang on words do you say we all agree don't speak over me well sorry stay in your lane keep your handbags shut is that what you want to say to big girls blouse yeah they look like a big drama queen i want to make one point before you go to addison you say we all agree we don't all agree here's my point most people don't agree with this nonsense rebecca they don't go in the streets and ask people 100 people in the street are you offended by the phrase drama queen or handbags out in football nobody's no one's going to say they're offended it doesn't exist other than in the minds of a few radical feminists it's not radical to suggest that it's frustrating when male bad behavior is described with words that are only ever used to associate with women there are so many other better words that you could use than drama queen histrionic lovely word better vocabulary not suggest not using a female behavior to bring to describe men who are doing the fighting it's interesting okay because what i was going to say alison was i think if you'd use the term handbags when you were describing female football players i would agree that was kind of demeaning and belittling but these were male football players so i sort of just saw it as gender neutral yeah i agree and i think one of the other problems and i i get rebecca's point about language is important we're hearing it all the time i mean the head of the fa greg clark made three blunders within 20 minutes and and had to resign over that word and language are important absolutely but i think we're creating a situation in a way that is even creating sexism because many men are so petrified about what they can and can't say i've been to football matches in press boxes where a colleague will turn around and say something to me and then a look of panic i'm sorry is that okay are you offended by that um i'll give you an example actually that i think you'll like susanna because i was at crystal palace game i know that's your team and the crystals the um the cheerleader girls came out onto the pitch and obviously cheerleaders dress a bit sexily that's what they do and i was live on air doing team news and at the very end of my package at the very end of my life i actually said i'll throw back to you in the studio but i'm sure you'd much rather look at the crystals and look at me and i got the camera to pan over i then got a phone call from my boss very angry phone call saying alison you absolutely shouldn't have done that it made the male pundits in the studio feel incredibly uncomfortable and they didn't know what to say oh for goodness sake well they get better male pundits who grow a pair oops i'll just say grow a bear that's sexist everything is sexist isn't it and yeah here's the problem rebecca here's the problem when when if when a woman a high-profile woman says something genuinely dangerously offensive and wrong like joe brand right who went on radio 4 after milkshakes were thrown at politicians including nigel farage and she said that actually why bother with a milkshake when you could get some battery acid and there were 441 complaints but nobody upheld any of them and she was free to carry on saying you should throw battery acid at politicians now that is language that i think should be policed it is endangering the lives of politicians but because she was a high profile woman guess what nothing happened if i'd if i had explanations that was a really really really stupid thing to say and i don't condone that either i think particularly no repercussions for her for saying throw battery acid on politicians but if you're poor old tom o thompson right who's just a nice guy doing a nice job using phrases that by the way we've all used for donkey's years without anyone being offended you get suspended and sent home and i'm sorry it's nonsense yeah but donkey's the point isn't it it's an old phrase that we can very easily get rid of nobody says are you now offended by the word donkeys in that what i just said no she's not offended by donkeys i've said donkeys years ago is that derogatory is that derogatory to donkeys okay well firstly some people believe that people and donkeys are different personally i do what you're putting humans above donkeys that's derogatory to donkeys this is a problem once you start going down this road donkeys years ago why is it donkey's years why are you being offensive to donkeys i think you're now arguing with yourself is this segment turning into a massive turkey that's offensive to turkeys you see where this goes rebecca everything everything becomes offensive the world the world's gone nuts thank you ladies we've got to leave it there i'm sorry i called you ladies people persons whatever you want to call yourselves i really couldn't give a damn thank you both very much indeed though we appreciate it it was almost handbags at dawn you

Channel: Good Morning Britain

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Keywords: good morning britain, breakfast show, news, morning news, gmb, good morning britain interview, itv, piers morgan, susanna reid, Talk Shows - Topic, handbags, football, sport, sexism, controversial, debate

Id: FTOqmqQO9Dk

Length: 8min 1sec (481 seconds)

Published: Tue Dec 01 2020