No wonder you sussed out my nice side.

Amen to than.


Now don't be nice all the time Ignazio - I'm quite partial to a bad boy

Sorry Bitchy_me but I find your whole post is incredibly naive.

Suffice to say - have you come across many men who say they dislike Tom or Austin? Me neither, funny that. Men don't take against each other in anything like the same way. If a man is good at something he gets respect from other men & men fall much more easily into brotherhood & hierachy.

I find women's competitiveness & bitchiness a very disappointing trait & if that offends some people tant pis. If women just got on & worked together in the world in the way that men do - we would get equality soo much faster.

There's no such thing as a sisterhood because women are too busy saying "I couldn't warm to her, I don't know why".

I mentioned this in another thread but I think Rachel actually is going on a bit of journey with her personality....as it's presented on the show that is.

Speculation I know but I reckon her excellent marks in the last two weeks have given her a bit of a confidence boost and it's showing through.

I have her down as unlikely to get enough votes to win but hopefully in the final weeks she can throw off the 'nice but dull' tag to some extent.

I have, but that's okay because when it's men it just gets brushed off manly competitiveness but women aren't allowed to be competitive with each other.

I knew I could start agreeing with you again sooner or later.

Naive is something I truly am not.

I spent three whole years studying gender and race issues, so I do have some knowledge of how women are portrayed. But in a reality show? Come on. How on earth can a case be made of jealousy of Rachel when there are at least two more successful, beautiful (or even more successfully beautiful) women there who are more popular with the voters?

And the whole Tom and Austin question. How many times are we reading that it is the women who are voting for them? So all the men are jealous of them, is that the conclusion we should be drawing? But yet no one ever uses it as an argument.

My conclusion, based on my brief research on these message boards would therefore be - be careful if you are women who does not like another woman or you will be accused of being an ugly fat old harridan who is jealous. Men, on the other hand, are allowed not to like other men based purely on taste.

It was Kelly's grin and giggle that irritated me.

Me too!

Me three!

No I think men are expected to be competitive with each other just as women are, but it manifests in different ways.
Their competitiveness is much more overt - viz Tom & Austin competing for 10s. It's like a little duel between them. But Gaby, who women decided on here that they new intimately from 'the expression on her face' - was out of the show for being too competitive. If a female contestant shows any sign of caring too much or wanting to win - she's kicked. If you look at men & their heroes - sporting, literary, scientific, comedy, whatever - they're much more at ease with respecting other men for what they can do.

Women have heroes far less - & women who excel themselves in any field tend to get bitched about as much as they get looked up to.

Btw it's taken as read that these are generalistions & don't apply to all.

I think this is partly because Strictly's labelled as a housewives' show by many of the papers, or at least one predominately watched by women.

But surely you've posted on the forums for long enough to know quite what horrific things women say about female reality TV show contestants, particularly BB but to a lesser extent SCD: "Slapper, fake, competitive, irritating, game plan, blah di blah".

The point about Rachel is that she's a lads' mag pin-up - & was regularly in the top 10 world's most sexy women. She's a girl next door type rather than a siren - but there are different ways of being sexy. She's less good-looking than Lisa or Christine but affects female viewers far more directly - because it's highly likely that their bfs have at some stage fancied Rachel - which is highly unlikely of Lisa or Christine. She's like a lads' mag fantasy gf - pretty, sexy, docile & quiet. lol. Lisa's far too intimidating - what man would want to take on George Clooney in bed?

On my research of message boards - I'd say I would understand why posters may infer that my dislike of a particular women is based on jealousy as there's so much of it about. I'd also say it's much more tricky for women to win reality shows than men.

Right, enough of this nonsense I'm off out.

Thank you, missfrankiecat, that really cheers me up! Austin hasn't impressed me at all so far - in fact for all the people accusing Rachel of being boring, "as interesting as watching paint dry", for me Rachel is highly watchable. But whenever Austin dances I just cannot for the life of me sustain enough interest to watch him for two minutes together. I like both Rachel and Tom and would be delighted to see them in the final.

Have a nice time

And in answer, no, there are some women who might be jealous, but there are also a whole host of women who are not but who simply do not like Rachel. It is all down to who moves you and who doesn't.

And of course you probably also know there are far more derogatory words to ascribe to women than there are to men, and most of them with negative connotations over and above their direct meaning.

But I still believe that the jealous tag is bandied about far too readily. It is much more simple, or complicated, than that.

I don't see why she shouldn't win, she is as good as anyone else. I just don't understand why she does not have more public support, she is lovely and has danced really yesterday and last week. She didn't dance badly before! Nice girl.

She could get her brothers to do a bit of persuading .

I'm amazed at the direction this thread has gone in! Talk about sweeping statements!


This is probably one of the daftest post I've ever read on here LOL!

Natasha, Jill and Alesha all WON SCD!

Loads of women voted for Zoe, Louisa, Emma & Kelly - none of them would have lasted as long as they did without a large female vote. You are almost saying women should vote for women!

Personally I wasn't supporting Zoe, Louisa or Emma as I preferred other couples (with male & female celebs). Kelly I would never have voted for her and it was because of the 'man's woman' thing - can't stand beautiful, intelligent women doing the 'girly' thing).


Alesha didn't do the tour and she managed to win. Didn't tickets for the tour sell out really quickly (again)?

There are plenty of people going to see the tour to see the whole spectacle and also celebs & pros from earlier series.

Personally I think the final 3 will be Rachel, Austin and Tom and the final 2 will be Rachel and Tom - and either could win and I'll be torn as to which to vote for.

I think you are right I won't be torn though will vote for anyone but Tom and his dancing face!

I'd like Rachel or Christine Blakely to win. Christine in particular has come a long way from the shy girl at the start.

i still reckon the bbc knows full well who leaked the results and cares not a hoot about it, after all what better way to bring arrogance and ignorance to boot by making the judges favourite look like a fool,

Do you know what? I don't believe those voting numbers. I think they were made up for a good story in The People.

maybe so but what if they are alot closer to the actual figure than we all think? but in my heart i believe that the bbc are intent on making the panel of idiots squirm and look foolish and in someway leaked the voting figures although they may be incorrect to the papers,

when the DWTS production team are allegedly looking at replacing the british judges with american ones then over here we need to go back to basics and have a refresh of the judges,hosts and dancers, the SCD this year has been overshadowed by sergeant-gate and i feel no matter who wins unlike in previous years ,the name john sergeant will always be remembered whilst the winner will soon be forgotten,

I don't think we'll ever know the truth tbh.

But I disagree with you saying the winner of this series will be forgotten. I think the winner will be remembered just like all the other series winners. People will still talk about JS, but won't remember after a while when it all happened. There's quite a backlash in the press now about JS leaving so it is likely it will always be a talking point that divides.

Re the DWTS thing and the judges. I doubt Len will do another series of DWTS tbh and I'm not sure of his popularity on the show, as he is the stickler for technical content and the audiences like over there do like the flashy/wow performances. I'm no expert but I know there are differences between how some of the dances are danced here & in the US and in the US they have more 'freedom' to do flashy things. It wouldn't surprise me if both Bruno and Len were replaced by American judges. It was probably quite a coup for DWTS to get them in the first place and now the series is well established they can risk replacing them.

I'm quite happy with Bruce, Tess & the four judges we've got although I'd like another ballroom judge to join them (I'd like Karen!).

Its not all females - you just need a big enough percentage. It may even be more of an OAP thing given the age profile of the audience. The apathy argument makes sense but there's no logic to its application . It just begs the question why some people don't stir up apathy which may have more to do with other things than how they dance or whether they have any story. The people who don't get support are often people who had massive support in their main careers - they succeeded by being charismatic. On SCD the people who got fewer viewers, fewer fans and fewer ticket and album sales get more votes than people vastly more successful - perhaps even because of it. Some of the males who have had support not only had no record of being charismatic but it was difficult to see how anyone could find them so. Matt Dawson's dancing would be difficult to describe as more exciting than Emma Bunton's and she would roundly defeat him on any bubblyness monitor too. There has to be some other reason why some people don't get support on this show. Given the SCD viewing demographics compared to their own (often younger) audiences, its very likely something to do with sex and age and class. That might partly explain why the internet polls are so different from The People 's leaked figures too.

As it is, the prettier girl with a posh accent and tons of charisma and a stronger story (Jodie) goes out before the more ordinary girl who dances less well (Christine) and has a weaker story. if The People is right the two males who have spent half the series semi- topless (as someone obviously thinks it will be popular) have three times the vote of the two top girls . Thats just doesn't reflect anything athts happened on teh show - its just not true that they have three times the story (less journey infact ) are more charismatic (really?) act better (have you seen Tom act let alone Austin ?) are more consistent (Rachel factually is) or dance better. When you eliminate the story and the charisma and the dancing its difficult to avoid the conclusion that the default voting setting is something else - unless someone like Alesha can open out a glaringly obvious advantage or the males are all bad.

Thats not the only bias of course. it would be interesting to know why Ray couldn't get support but Tom may be able to. They both come from the same audience, playing doctors and both danced well early on . Neither seems more charismatic than the other to me. One got votes , one didn't - one is black and one is the show lothario, one wears less on SCD than the other. The answer is in there somewhere.

Natasha won against Christopher Parker - neither hunk or dancer. She was best at 7 dances he was worst at 3. She came from the same news shows JS appeared on.

Jills nearest thing to a hunk was Julian Clarly and Diarmuid Gavin and Quentin Willson were abysmal dancers .

Alesha is the only one with real male competition who makes it. She's up against Matt and Gethin. Neither is a muscular sportsman or even very muscular. She's ahead on average marks by the biggest ever margin and is best at 8 dances.The final sees her up against matt with a lot of Gethin fans angry with Matt.

Zoe loses out to two muscular sportsmen despite leading on marks over the series, performing best on twice as many dances as the winner and getting more marks in the final .

Emma loses out to two muscular sportsmen, She has most marks and more dances she is best at and the second best score in the SF.

There's a pretty clear pattern there - females lose out against attractive muscular males. They only win when their margin of superiority is undeniable and/or the males are less attractive.

There's also similarities in which females do well and who doesn't. Jill is not well known and comes from playing a Policewoman/mate for Phil Mitchell on East Enders. Natasha is a respected news reader showing a lighter side. Alesha is not that well known as a singer and has no negative past - she isn't from a massively successful band (compared to Rachel let alone Emma) or one that appealed to a young audience or sounded new or modern. She doesn't have Zoe Ball's ladette past or accent. She also made the FHM 100 sexiest women polls but few people would know that. Mary Whitehouse would have found her sweet and wholesome and Rachel and Emma both subversive.

The polls essentially do suggest Rachel has a problem but they also suggested Tom and Austin were not much better off so all may be still to play for if The People figures are not right. Its going to be another shame though if the judges marking the best dancer as they see it means that person doesn't make the final or she does continue to do well and meets the same fate as the other females who were better but not massively better than their males.