The Guardian > Quotes

“There’s far greater awareness now – and the great thing is women know there’s help available.”
― The Guardian

“If it weren’t hysterical – if the amazing Serena Williams would really be 700th in the world if playing against men – this would mean that skill, technique and hand-eye coordination have become effectively irrelevant in tennis compared with brute strength and force. And if that’s true, John McEnroe might want to consider piping down about it, for fear of turning off the audience and jeopardising his revenue stream.”
― The Guardian

“Even if he had got the theoretical ranking correct, though, what’s his point? That physically stronger tennis players have an advantage over smaller ones? Like, duh. Serena Williams is competing in a different class. You might just as well say Ricky Hatton wouldn’t have done so well if he had to fight Anthony Joshua. Or Bradley Wiggins couldn’t cycle over the finish line faster than Lewis Hamilton could do it in a car. What’s the point of saying it? Just to belittle a fellow sportsperson’s achievement? It doesn’t tell us anything about the player’s innate ability.”
― The Guardian

“Problem is, John, there’s no point anybody competing. It’s all pointless. It’s just whiling away the time with a bit of entertainment before we die. It’s not like there’s a great pile of tennis needing to be played, God bless the volunteers who step up for it.”
― The Guardian

“The killing of Daphne Caruana Galizia is unusual because she was female and European – but there are many countries where brave reporters are routinely murdered for revealing the truth'.”
― The Guardian

“A gentle giant, not a sexist or possessive bone in his body”
― The Guardian

“And now he’s called for men to compete openly against women, in order to prove… what? Nothing at all. Why does he want to see female players losing to vast, dangling male players? To embarrass them? I notice he doesn’t call for Paralympians to compete openly against Olympic gold-medallists. Is that because he respects the different classes in that case, recognising that weight and strength divisions don’t equate to quality divisions? No, it’s just because he wouldn’t so enjoy the sound of himself saying it.”
― The Guardian

“It’s also a shame because I didn’t have John McEnroe pegged as an idiot.”
― The Guardian

“argument na moją obronę, myślę:
'This is why I say McEnroe’s an idiot. I hesitate because it’s possible he was just trying to say something interesting – an unfashionable impulse, these days, and one to be treasured. You don’t want to slap down everyone who says something stupid in the heat of the moment, while trying to spice up a broadcast or interview, lest we hurtle even faster towards an entirely empty and monotonous public discourse'.”
― The Guardian

“And they’re all nice, cheerful environments, because that’s what the women deserve.”
― The Guardian

“Domestic violence – the warning signs
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Common abusive behaviours set out in Power and Control:

• Jealousy and possessiveness.

• Humiliating and insulting you in front of others.

• Sabotaging your relationship with friends and family.

• Sudden changes of mood – charming one minute and abusive the next.

• Monitoring your movements, insisting on time limits when you do things, checking your phone, social networks and spending.

• Controlling what you wear and eat (so subtly, you don’t see it happening).

• Blaming you for the abuse (“I’m not like this with anyone else!” “You make me like this.”)

• Expecting you to have sex when you don’t want to, including when you’re ill or asleep.

• Damaging your treasured possessions.

• Harming or threatening to harm family pets.

• Driving recklessly to frighten you.

• Threatening to kidnap or get custody of the children if you leave.

• Telling you you’re useless and could never cope without him.

• Dominating how you feel – whether that’s happy, afraid or frightened. Having the power to make you constantly change your behaviour to avoid his “displeasure”.”
― The Guardian

“Here’s the ultimate glitch in his argument. If you extrapolate logically from John McEnroe’s suggestion that 699 people are better at tennis than Serena Williams, then there’s no real point in her competing. And if there’s no point her competing, there’s certainly no point any other women competing.”
― The Guardian

“The 2015 legislation concerning “coercive control” was also a step forward, attempting to tackle the techniques other than violence that are used by a perpetrator to control a victim – from what she can say to how she must look, to where she can go. These were behaviours Horley had highlighted in her book 25 years earlier.”
― The Guardian

“It’s also a shame because I didn’t have John McEnroe pegged as an idiot. He seems bright, funny and quite liberated. Only a couple of weeks ago, he posted a great vlog about equal marriage in reply to some dodgy comments about lesbians by Margaret Court.”
― The Guardian

“And then the priest came. I’d never allow this now, but in those days, you didn’t know what best practice was. In front of me, he persuaded her to go home, saying her husband promised never to do it again. And of course he did – she was back again later.”
― The Guardian

“What a shame. She should have replied: “Dear John, you’re right. I probably would be about 700 in the rankings. But then, I am six months pregnant.”
― The Guardian

“Sarah couldn’t handle prison and prison couldn’t handle her,” the inquest jury heard from a fellow prisoner.”
― The Guardian

“In a patriarchal society like ours, says Horley, domestic violence will always be with us. “Women don’t even have equal pay. Girls are still growing up with the message that the handsome prince on the white horse is the happy ending. For as long as there’s an imbalance of power between the sexes, it’s inevitable that that power will be abused by some men.”
― The Guardian

“But Serena Williams is right, albeit not as funny as she might have been: his statement is not factually based. 700th? Where did that come from? McEnroe was meaning to say, “She needn’t think she’s all that; there are plenty of men in the world who could beat her” but he overegged it with the number 700, which is a rather hysterical guess.”
― The Guardian