[Image seen @ Telegraph]
Mary Queen of Charity Shops is another spin off of Mary Portas’ TV work, where the female retail guru woman is credited for revolutionising superstore Harvey Nichols basically pulls charity shops back from the brink in the show. It’s on BBC2 right now and I am enjoying the programme a lot.
In this recent episode, one of the charity shop managers who was looking after the shop during an interim period couldn’t hack it and dropped out. The regional manager claims that Mary was too tough and ‘belligerent’ in how she spoke to the charity shop manager, Graham who was jacking it in.
It made me think: are women who are almost stratospherically successful who speak up, are they seen as ‘too tough’ for their own good? I have heard people call Sir Alan ‘belligerent’ but on the Apprentice, this is not seen as a bad thing supposedly. Is it because he is a man?
Mary is telling it how it is. She is a retail expert. She changed the fortunes of HarveyNichols – why should you think she was belligerent for telling it how it was?
Are women supposed to shut up and be quiet despite their career success?
