Wee Nippy? How very dare you, Alan Cochrane?

It's been a few hours now since I first saw the headline in Alan Cochrane's column in the Telegraph today. "Wee Nippy's role may signal big changes in strategy". I wondered who Wee Nippy was. Could it be some cartoon character in a forthcoming film or something?

But no. Cochrane is referring to our Deputy First Minister, Nicola Sturgeon, whose new role in Government is to sort all the independence related matters out, to agree the process with the UK Govenrment, to pilot the legislation for the independence referendum through Parliament. Now, it has to be said, that the second part is not likely to trouble her greatly given that she has a built in majority.

The substance of his article doesn't really matter, but who the blazes does he think he is referring to the  Deputy First Minister of the country in such a derogatory manner? You can bet your Better Together car sticker that if she were male, she would not be referred to in that way. If you type "Nicola Sturgeon nippy" into Google you come up with numerous examples of male journalists writing about her in this way. Cochrane was far from being original.

So what is it about Nicola that makes her "nippy". Well, she has a straightforward way of communicating with people that's arguably more effective than Salmond's bluster. That's why it was quite a clever move to put her in charge of the referendum. She says what she thinks clearly and without any sort of apology. Men do that all the time, of course, but when a woman does it, she's seen as strident, or nippy, or opinionated.

One of the things women do too often - and I have been very guilty of it myself - is to apologise for their opinions before they start talking. "I might be being stupid here, but....... How many times have you heard that? I expect that this phrase has never passed Nicola Sturgeon's lips. She's confident about what she's saying and just gets on with it. This is a good thing. I mentioned my disquiet at Cochrane's article on Twitter and @fingchewy referred me to this post by Rebecca Reilly-Cooper on Assertiveness and testimonial injustice. It's very well written and, although I'm not sure that I agree with all of her conclusions, I do think it's important that we try to identify and banish prejudice in our communications with each other. Reilly-Cooper explores the idea that apologetic communication from women doubly undermines them:

So then the worry is that when I make these self-effacing, timid sounding preambles to my arguments, I am not only undermining my own status as a bearer of knowledge and encouraging my listeners not to take me seriously. I am also reinforcing these prejudices in the minds of my audience. Given that I am a woman, they may have already been predisposed to deflate my credibility. When I express myself in an apologetic, tentative manner, I thereby present them with more evidence to confirm their biases, both with respect to myself, and women speakers in general. The prejudice is perpetuated, and my listeners are more inclined to dismiss my contributions, and further, those of other women. So perhaps I owe it not only to myself, but also to other women, to try to eradicate these displays of reticence from my speech, and be more confident and assertive. Perhaps I ought to be much bolder, more direct, perhaps even aggressive, in the way so many other people (men?) seem to be when engaging in debate.

Changing her behaviour is an idea she later rejects on the basis that timid people will just shrink from a debate they have every right to be a part of if they are expected to change their behaviour to become more combative. For me, the other side of the coin is that when women do behave in an  assertive manner, they are penalised for it and that's just as wrong.

Cochrane and his male journalist colleagues, even if they don't say it out loud, or even admit it to themselves, seem to have been socialised into thinking that women, when offering an opinion, should do so with eyes downcast, demurely and prettily. In other words, she should be as inoffensive as possible and definitely not scare any horses. It's all very Stepford, don't you think?

Sturgeon has a lot to prove in her new role, and she needn't think she's going to get an easy ride from me in it. What she doesn't have to prove is her right to be taken seriously and be treated the same way as a male politician would be. In a man, being able to make your point clearly and effectively would be seen as an asset. In a woman, it's seen as somewhere between strident and inappropriate.

In the second decade of the 21st century, it's not too much to ask that our male journalists should shed their stone age ideas and treat people equally.

SNP MP Wishart's Twitter tirade against Moore and Swinson

One of the problems faced by the SNP is the army of so called cybernats who spew nasty, insulting bile across the internet at anyone who dares to question SNP policy or independence - which, of course, are one and the same thing. Alan Cochrane from the Telegraph wrote earlier this year about these toxic, often anonymous individuals.

Those who cannot take part in this great debate without questioning the patriotism, and often the parentage, of those who don't agree with them are much more accurately described as Cyberscum. As such they are, of course, a legitimate target for those who hope that the debate over the SNP's plans to break-up Britain can be conducted in a reasonably decent fashion.

Willie Rennie challenged the SNP leadership to deal with these people in his keynote speech to the Scottish Liberal Democrat conference.

If they are not careful they will cause Scotland to become a divided country, setting Scot against Scot for a generation.My message to the SNP is simple: please don’t question my loyalty to my nation just because I don’t agree with your policy. It’s not all of those in the nationalist camp. There are many sincere, generous, liberal-minded people in the SNP. But it is their behind-the-scenes stalkers and abusers who need to be tackled. The SNP leadership needs to rein them in, to tackle the abuse, to overcome the division-creators. Their leaders need to act. And act now.

You would think, then, knowing the problems that they have with loose cannon online, that SNP parliamentarians would be extra careful to be positive at all times. They would take care not to fire cheap, gratuitous insults around.

Sure they would. Just like MP Pete Wishart did last night while speculating on the reshuffle.

And when I challenged him for being nasty:

I can't find that tweet on his timeline this morning so it appears he thought better of it.

Now, maybe, if he was in the House of Commons cafeteria indulging in some full fat Irn Bru and suffering the effects of sugar high, we might find it within our hearts to forgive a momentary indiscretion.

Except this is the way he does business. Last week he put out an extraordinary press release, accusing Michael Moore of attention seeking behaviour and making a pointless speech. All Moore was doing was talking in his usual ultra reasonable tone about how important it was to reach agreement on the process for the independence referendum - and expressing confidence that he and the SNP Government would do so - by the end of October. For his pains, he attracted this tirade via the SNP press office:

The only reason for Michael Moore’s speech is that he is desperately trying to get noticed and save his job in the reshuffle – it was pointless otherwise.....
...These cost increases show that the £8 million Scotland Office is simply a propaganda arm for Westminster to use in their Tory-led anti-independence campaign. It has no other role, and Michael Moore’s recent pronouncements are just indicative of an attention-seeking exercise with a UK Cabinet reshuffle in the offing.

So, will Alex Salmond rebuke his MP for such a tirade? I won't be holding my breath.