Loose Women

I was last a regular watcher of ITV's Loose Women at least ten years ago. It's a long-running daytime discussion show, primarily intended for savvy women, and features a changing panel of personalities who air their views and collective wisdom on sundry topics of interest to women and women's role in society. It's less serious than BBC Radio 4's Woman's Hour. Frankly, it's TV entertainment, but with an edge. Back in 2008, it was dealing with important issues, and trying not to pull punches, so there was sometimes occasion for raised voices and minor upsets. It seems that little has changed! I'm sure the producers relish some spontaneous fireworks now and then.

One such recent contretemps, widely reported, concerned one of the ladies (Kim Woodburn) who does a show about cleaning disgustingly dirty homes (no, I don't watch it) and who was a guest panellist and exchanged upsetting comments with one of the other panellists (Coleen Nolan), essentially continuing an earlier clash on a different TV programme. Kim was invited back to Loose Women so that the breach could be healed, but (almost predictably) it didn't work out. Tempers flared up again, and she departed in anger.

Well, I was curious enough to watch the clip of this for a short while (though not to the end). It did seem to me that the panel were hunkered down, ready for some argee-bargee, and one of them (Janet Street-Porter) actually had a judge's attire on, introducing a somewhat adversarial flavour to the encounter (or rematch, if you will). The invited-back lady was clearly on the defensive, and wary of her reception. But even if she had been responsive to whatever sweet words might have been said to generate peace and mutual understanding, it looked as if she was set up to fail.

I understand there has been a bit of a backlash from appalled viewers, and that Loose Women is now under threat of being axed by ITV at the end of the year. But I wouldn't be surprised if it carries on, possibly forever, though purged of its more contentious and short-fused panellists. 

That clip might have been my only exposure to Loose Women for another ten years - if the programme lasts that long - but when in John Lewis at Home the other day the programme was being shown on many of the TV screens in the tech part of the store. I should add that John Lewis at Home is a great place to go and see really big cutting-edge 4K digital TVs, and marvel at how wonderful the pictures are. Tech that I can't justify spending money on - I hardly ever watch TV at home, and never in the caravan - but nevertheless find it fascinating to see and admire.

Well, I couldn't help standing in front of one of these big screens for a few minutes, and giving the show some attention. The two topics under discussion (as I watched) seemed entirely typical. Should children drink coffee? (Caffeine being bad for their sleep and so on) And were we being tough enough on domestic violence? (Of course we weren't)

Three of the panellists were women of middle age or older, and one was a younger woman. I could put a name to only two of them. Janet Street-Porter was one.

And I think this must be Stacey Solomon.

I wasn't sure who the two other panellists were.

I didn't pay as much attention to what they were all saying as I might have, and I can't now remember any of it. The things for me were the facial expressions, body postures and hand movements; and the make-up and jewellery of each lady. An absorbing study indeed.

Well, I certainly don't go in for all that bling. Nor the fancy hair-styles secured by perms and hairspray. I don't possess her super-forceful personality, but Janet Street-Porter's no-nonsense style is closest to my own public image.

I should think that this programme, for all its ups and downs, for all its misfires, remains influential on matters of female personal appearance, attitude, and point of view. I wonder how many woman around the country are addicted to it and model themselves on whoever sits on the panel. Quite a few, I'd say. It might be millions of women for all I know.

This one too? Well, not being a regular viewer, that cannot be. But then, perhaps I do pick up some of the Loose Women way of thinking at second hand, through my women friends, even if I can count on their absorbing the impact of the programme through a sieve of discrimination and common-sense.

Is there such a thing, really, as 'a woman's point of view'? In a shared, pan-female sense?

Among woman of the same friendship group, surely yes - otherwise they would be uncomfortable, frustrated, bicker, be at odds, and fall out, which is all unbearable.

Between different tribes of women? I'm not so sure.

All women have to cope with men, and the hard fact that this is still a man's world. There is this common rival, who is probably going to get the upper hand if you let him, even if the modern world is supposed to be all fairness and equality. The casual outrages and insulting behaviour of some men unite all women. But in a world without men, what would happen? I think there would still be a definite pecking order, and a forming into cliques, and life would not be kind to those lacking in assertiveness and the deft arts of chicanery.

Still, it will be pity if a high-profile TV programme panelled by outspoken women with plenty to say gets axed. It's a loud voice for all women on a dominant medium, and because of that must be kept going, or at least reinvented in the same mould.

A final thought. What would a programme like Loose Men be like? Who would watch it? Has it actually been around for ages, in the guise of Top Gear and similar masculine vehicles full of ribaldry, pranking and bad attitude?