busker

Sexist French bashes women creativas

I'm talking about the great Neil  French, copywriter supreme and galactic creative honcho (or is he now ex- ?) of the WPP Group.

He has riled folks with comments about the failings of women in advertising, and Nancy Volk, herself no slouch in this field, has snapped back.

I used to glimpse NF in Hong Kong and environs, and attended all his seminars and made sure to sip VSOP at all his favoured bars from Sydney to Shaukeiwan, Baguio to Barker Road.

He was nothing but provocative and, out East, it's like breathing in and breathing out to appear sexist.

Wonderful description of Neil as, "a man from an era and geographies that reinforced that the role of women should be reserved for pleasing the men, marrying them, bearing and caring for their offspring."

Oh dear, precisely my roots and everyone else's I grew up with in the far east, privileged sons of robber barons, scions of some great hong , or simply off-spring of dedicated civil servants ....

No wonder when we brought our colonial savvy back to set up our own fragrant harbouring homes, we knew *exactly* where gweilos  like Neil were coming from.