Let’s hear it for the girly swots!

Hear hear Maw - excellent post ???

Yep. Read all that Maw. She must have seen the banner. She could have asked for it to be removed. And she was definitely referring to Boris's "girly swots".

She should not have referred to her judgement at all.

She could have found another way of referring to hard working schoolgirls in single sex schools.

She was saying there is nothing wrong with being a girl and nothing wrong with being a girl - can’t you see that?
Boris meant it as an insult and she turned it on its head by saying “be proud of being girls, be proud of being achievers. “
It’s a bit like Dina Asher-Smith saying “what’s wrong with running like a girl” ?

Well said MawB………..but still some would rather hunker down with their prejudices than actually try to understand what was going on. Still, by criticising Lady Hale, it deflects attention from the utter boorishness and dishonesty of the instigator of the phrase 'girly swots'.

I think she's getting a bit carried away.

Sorry the second part of my sentence should read “nothing wrong with being a swot” ( if by swot you mean hard working, diligent, intelligent and academically high achieving)
Otherwise it makes no sense

Who is oopsminty ?

If you meant me, don’t be so bloody rude.

Wow. That's a bit rude! Of course I want talking about you!

Was NOT

Really?
Who then?
(My original question)

Why on earth would you think I was taking about you?

Baffling

I'll give you 3 guesses
.
Even though I'm pretty sure you do know who I mean

You also gave me no time to answer your original question! 1 minute! We're not all sat round stuck to our gadgets!

No idea

This thread seems to have veered a bit. We all know that it's a good thing to be girly swots. I was one and am proud to be. However, Lady Hale's use of these quotes directly ties her to Boris Johnson and therefore indicates that her judgement on the recent case was politically motivated.
There is plenty that she could have said to those girls without making those specific references.

The only people who regard Lady Hale and the other ten Supreme Court Judges as politically motivated are the brexitextremists.

Remember BJ claimed the prorogation was nothing to do with brexit, yet when it was ruled to have been unlawful and therefore null and void, BJ and his brexit cronies claimed that the decision was all about "thwarting brexit".

You brexiters cannot have it both ways. It is a simple question of logic, but there is precious little logic in the brexiter's arguments.

I think it’s great that it’s ok to be a girly swot.
I was lucky that I got a place at a school which encouraged academic prowess, but many girls weren’t so fortunate and didn’t have that opportunity.
I was listening to a talk on the radio the other day about Dorothy Hodgkin, the only British woman to have won the Nobel prize for Chemistry.

She went to a co-educational school, but the girls weren’t allowed to study chemistry. They had to do needlework instead.
Dorothy and her friend complained and badgered and eventually were allowed to study science.

The idea that there’s something wrong with a girl who wants to use her brain persisted for decades and still hasn’t really been banished into the long grass, perpetuated not only by men either.

Good for Lady Hale, I say.

"Girly swot" is a favourite jibe in single-sex schools against those boys who are not as macho and brain-dead as the bone-headed bullies. It combines two things that the bullies secretly fear - intelligence and women.

Intelligent girls have had centuries of being insulted for being "girly swots" and told, "don't bother your pretty head with that, dear" or, "Be good, sweet child and let who will be clever". Lady Hale is encouraging girls to take the insult and use it as a rallying cry.

Would this Hale woman(who I had never heard of before) not have realised the phrase 'girly swots' would be instantly connected back to Boris? Not very bright is she? (if she didn't )

Good post MawB 16:12:21
Well said!

Elegran! that poem is beautiful. It goes on - "and let who will be clever do noble things not dream them all day long...."

Marvellous.

Johnson's use of the phrase 'girly swot' had nothing whatever to do with his proroguing of Parliament or the unanimous judgment of the eleven supreme court justices that the proroguing was unlawful.

Lady Hale and her 10 colleagues did not attain their position in the highest court in the land by allowing themselves to be swayed by puerile name calling; they attained their positions by being scrupulously impartial in their interpretation of the law and are well practiced in setting aside any personal feeling they may or may not have about those who come before them in court. This aspect of our justice system is seen on a daily basis when top barristers, for example, defend people to the utmost of their professional ability even when they might feel that the evidence suggests that they might actually be guilty.

We undermine the integrity of our justice system at our peril.
If the court had not found the prorogation of Parliament a judicial matter, then what would have stopped a PM with complicit Parliamentary party members from proroguing Parliament for 5 months next time, or 5 years?

Oooh. We're getting cliquey!

Group hug now, for all Maw's pals.

Slighty off the point there Amagran.