Bryony Gordon

"As I stood in a group near the bar, a Tory MP came over to introduce himself. "What are you doing here?" he asked abruptly, in what I can only assume was an attempt at small talk. "I work with the party’s host," I explained. “What are you doing here?" ... And then he said: "If you work at the Telegraph, do you know that slut who writes that Single Girl About Town column at the back of the magazine? What's her name? Bryony Gordon?" The room seemed to fall silent. "Yes," I managed to respond. "I know her very well, because that slut is me." The new minister for can-you-guess-what blushed crimson and spent the rest of the evening apologising profusely."

"These incidents are only trivial if you compare them to, say, the fact that women MPs are frequently mistaken for researchers, or that there are currently more British male MPs than there have been female ones in the entire history of parliament. And if the men who govern us aren't capable of seeing women as anything other than totty, sluts or dears then what hope do we have of them taking the issues that affect us seriously?"