After Oxford don said students dress like ‘hookers’, these superwomen show it’s easy to be smart AND sexy

Dulcie Pearce

Published: 1:55, 11 Oct 2019
Updated: 8:26, 11 Oct 2019

IMAGINE slogging your way through years of school, missing out on parties and fun so you can revise relentlessly. All the hard work pays off when you achieve your dream and win a place at Oxford University — only to be told by a pompous old don that you look like a hooker.

This week Dr Peter Morris, 45, accused some of the most intelligent women in the world of dressing like “hookers” at university black tie bashes. And the former Oxford lecturer, now an IT consultant, tweeted that women “shouldn’t wear tight dresses if they have tummies”.

An Oxford consultant has accused women of dressing like 'hookers' at the universityCredit: London News Pictures

Dr Morris made the comments on Twitter in a discussion with an Oxford researcher about a lack of tradition at black tie eventsCredit: London News Pictures

Of course, women can be smart, successful AND sexy, as we show here with our selection of award-winners, business owners and multi-millionaires. Young women who have won a place at Oxford will be feeling confident and empowered and like they could rule the world.

To celebrate their success and hard work, some may get dressed up in a glamorous outfit to finally have a fun night at the university ball.

Then someone like Dr Morris comes along and tells them they look like “a hooker”. There goes equality right there. Because for all the slow progress women make towards banishing sexism, there always seems to be a Dr Morris around the corner to slut-shame us back to the kitchen — a place he would probably prefer us all to be.

In Dr Morris’s world, women are getting too ahead of themselves, having brains AND bodies — and being allowed to show off both. He sees intelligent women enjoying themselves and feels angry and emasculated. And takes to Twitter to set the world right.

Sexism at university

IT is not the first sexism storm to hit the centuries-old university, where it took until 1974 for the first of the all-male colleges to open its doors to women.

Its most infamous dining society – the boisterous Bullingdon Club attended by Prime Ministers David Cameron and Boris Johnson – has been accused of a culture of sexism.

And in 2017 the history department was accused of implying women were the weaker sex by wanting students to sit exams at home to boost the results of female students.

Incredibly, the former statistics lecturer worked at St Hilda’s College, the last single-sex college at the university, which is devoted to furthering women’s prospects.

I’m sure that as an academic, Dr Morris would have done his research into his bold claims. The thing is, we women always have to feel sorry for the Peters of this world.

There is a strong chance that men like him may have become mildly aroused at scantily clad, brainy women in the Oxford area. That may have made him upset at himself — and then women. It is not our fault he lashes out at some female students. It is his.

The only woman who I wish could have been less alluring to men is Dr Morris’s mum — then this sexist, crusty dinosaur might not be around to pass judgment on the rest of us.