Bake Off's Ruby hits out at 'sexist' critics

A finalist in 'The Great British Bake Off' has criticised the “lazy misogyny” she says the show attracted.

Former model Ruby Tandoh, who clashed with TV chef Raymond Blanc when he suggested she was too thin to enjoy food, said she was “surprised at just how much nastiness was generated from the show”.

Writing in The Guardian, she said: “Despite the saccharin sweetness of the Bake Off, an extraordinary amount of bitterness and bile has spewed forth every week from angry commentators, both on social media and in the press.

“Many took to Twitter decrying the demise of the show, voicing their hatred for certain bakers, and asserting (week after week!) that they would ”never watch it again“ if X or Y got through that episode... How did a programme about cake become so divisive?”

Tandoh, 21, said criticism ranged from the gently cynical to the downright obnoxious, “but as the series went on I noticed an increasing degree of personal vitriol and misogyny”.

She added: “We (female) finalists are supposedly too meek, too confident, too thin, too domestic, too smiley, too taciturn.”

Blanc had waded in on the commentary to deride “female tears” on the BBC2 show, she said.

The 63-year-old chef sparked anger when he wrote on Twitter, mistakenly referring to Tandoh as the show’s winner: “The Great British Bake Off. Not much skills, female tears and a winner so thin who makes me doubt of her love for great cooking, baking.”

Tandoh hit back, writing: “@raymond_blanc ’female tears’?! and what has anyone’s size got to do with it?

“I don’t care if you’re a patisserie king – don’t be an idiot.”

Blanc later apologised, tweeting co-host Paul Hollywood: “Apologies if I upset people this morning. I would like to congratulate you on a show. Best Rb xx”

Tandoh wondered in the Guardian article: “What are ’female tears’, anyway? Are they more fragile and delicate than male tears? Do they wear pink?”

And she added: “If a show as gentle as Bake Off can stir up such a sludge of lazy misogyny in the murky waters of the internet, I hate to imagine the full scale of the problem.”