Way back in the mists of time men were just men. They had the dominant role in society, at least in theory, and women could’t compete with them in the workplace because they had other things to worry about. In some ways this was less of an issue than you’d think for most of them. They were’t interested in competing particularly. There were two very different roles for men and women and each tended to follow their biology more.
Then we had the sexual revolution of the sixties, in particular reliable contraception. This blew away a lot of preconceptions about things on the back of a terrible war where women had started to do jobs that were nominally only for men. Women could have sex as much as they wanted without risking pregnancy. This meant that they could start to move away from their biology and start competing with men directly. It also blew away the myth that women are scared of sex, in fact they were scared of pregnancy, a much more difficult thing for them to deal with than some idiot leaving a trail of sperm everywhere.
This economic trend was the basis for the feminist movement. There were simply more women not being the housewife, and having jobs and careers of their own. More women were career minded, were limiting their families and so on. This meant that they wanted the closed doors and glass ceilings that men had put in their way removed. They were right, it was wrong and unfair. Of course, it was’t a conspiracy by men, it was just the way things were, but that doesn’t suit if you want to be angry.
There was also a vigorous and correct campaign to protect women from predatory men and exercising their right to dress and behave how they see fit. No-one argues with this, it was right and just. An unfortunate and dangerous sub current of this was that all men were potential rapists and predators, and all men should be watched carefully. A justified wariness and caution around men you don’t know well, given that they are in general about half again as strong as a woman of the same size, was turned into an ideology. All men were rapists, and could not be trusted.
Let us pause here and restate that: All men were rapists, and could not be trusted. This is exactly what was being said in radical feminist magazines. Women should unite, become lesbians, and only use men for brief purposes of procreation. Men are now the enemy. The anger ran very deep, it was becoming hard to be a heterosexual man in certain radical circles. To be fair a lot of the radical men were unreconstructed sexist pigs who needed to marry their professed politics and their behaviour together. But were they some kind of dangerous, sex-crazed enemy? No. They were just men. Men who love and respect women, when you kick their soap boxes away and challenge them to think more deeply. We laugh at the alleged Victorian notion that table legs should be covered up in case it inflames me’s ‘base’ desires and then act like it’s actually true.
It sounds completely crazy doesn’t it, making an unavoidable biological division into a political platform, a basis for hatred? But it is the way radical feminists used to write and think. Interestingly, this was the hotbed that the student activists of the 80’s and 90’s lived inside. You have to ask yourself: who got involved in politics and eventually got themselves elected? Who took the political gauntlet away from the male cabals and trod the boards, knocking on doors and building political parties? Women, educated, articulate women. Good thing too! But, the dangerous thing was that they had been infected with at least some of this suspicion of men.
A lot of laws, particularly those around divorce and child custody, were rewritten to be fair to the woman. They acknowledged her role in creating a family and that she should have half of the assets. This is not a bad thing. It might appear to hurt some men but it is very fair, compared to the way it was years before. But now men are denied access to their families, they are demonised when they try and ensure that cash is distributed fairly. They are a dangerous annoyance that needs to be kept away from the purity of the family. They are no longer allowed to be part of it. This is a caricature, of course, an aunt sally that you can throw rocks at if you want to. But it follows on from them being the enemy, in fact they are becoming the enemy of society at large.
It is utterly insane to say that, condemning half of society to being the enemy. But you look at the way a man can’t take a photograph on the street, or pick his children up without being scowled at suspiciously, or be seen anywhere near a playground on his own. It’s true, in some senses. When we had a friend and her child round recently I was shocked by feeling unable to give him a hug – where the hell did that come from?
The other thing about this is – what happens to boys? You will be a man, but while you are growing up men are something to be scared of unless they are your dad (assuming you know who he is). Even male teachers are suspect. Then you grow up and what? Become a bad person? It almost gives them a licence to behave how the hell they like because that’s what’s expected. Think about it, think about the lack of authority and respect for men in general, for others, for anyone but your small circle of acquaintances. Is it surprising a lot of young men (and women too) are such dangerous idiots? They have been infantilised, they have had their role models replaced by selfish useless people idolised by airhead meedja for as long as it suits the editors.
Where is the father or grandfather or whoever who commands respect and people listen to, who could intervene and knock sense into heads? Dead and gone. The same is true of the mother and grandmother too, the nanny state knows best, and is always fair in her dealings with people. Everyone has been infantilised – the big STOP sign stands across relationships between generations. Yes, it’s stupid, it has created a generation of twenty-somethings with their teeth still in the teat who don’t know how to behave towards each other. How do infants behave? Self-centred and quite often incapable of understanding others’ feelings – does this sound familiar? Seeing the other person’s point of view, taking it into your heart when you deal with others, is part of growing up and yes, it hurts, but it hurts for a reason. No, let’s just treat other human beings as onanistic aids on some hedonistic rush to death.
Now the state intervenes between men and women as a matter of course, it has to rake its lowest common denominator paws across families and decide for the parents how best to bring up children. It is extremely risk averse, this means that it’s easier to say no to everything in case you become one of the vanishingly small number of problem cases. This causes great pain for a lot of people, and their children, for the sake of not a lot. Another STOP sign has been created between men and women when relationships break down. Of course, this was originally justified because the state was supporting the families of “absent fathers”, sadly the families quite often don’t have anything more than they did, except the legal bill landing at the door of the parent the state can find.
Then we have the rise of the CRB culture, another risk averse mentality. Men in general are not child molesters, they are as revolted and angered by it as anyone else. A vanishingly small number of them should be locked up and kept away from children. Instead of using common sense, assuming innocence until proven guilty, of making sure situations where accusations could arise (or misdemeanours actually occur) do not happen, we have a pile of rote behaviours and rules that protect no one and breed suspicion and distrust. The bad guys just go round them and protect themselves. A child goes missing and is spotted by a lone man who will not take it by the hand and try to return it – eventually the poor mite drowns in a pond. Is this good? Is this right? Never. But the guy who could have helped was afraid to, and twenty years ago he would have done so without thinking. That stinks.
Yes, teachers and people who deal with children a lot should be checked. But the guy or gal who checks your application forms for your driving licence? Or the one who takes the money in the post office? Why? Risk aversion. The guy walking down the street on his way home from work? Every guy or gal who’s got past the age of 10? Where the hell does it stop? Tattoos or marks on the forehead saying you’ve been checked – or the other way, like the branding of vagabonds in the seventeenth century?
Where does this lead? Licenced mothers and fathers, everyone has a CRB check, a biometric ID card and is recorded somewhere on a huge DNA database – the state pushing the barriers between people so far that every relationship is a subject of the barrier, the STOP sign, and a bunch of paper pushers control your life completely on the basis of some rules that are very fair, but not even slightly compassionate. The state doesn’t have compassion, it is scared of risk, it interferes where it should’t for the best of reasons. There are places where the state should not intervene and this is one of them.
Yes kids, bad things happen, and no amount of laws and hand-wringing can stop it. Yes, often they hurt and are very hard to bear – it’s called the human condition, sorry. You can minimise the danger by learning how to be an adult and where the limits are, but the pain that comes from falling out of your mother’s womb can’t be ducked, hard luck, there is no get out of jail free card in real life. A lot of the time there is’t anyone to blame, either, so don’t bother looking. The bad guys should be punished when they are caught. Only a fool would argue with that, but politicians have to be seen to be doing something when the meedja gets all hysterical and quite often they should just say shit happens, sorry, if you can find some way to stop it happening I’d love to hear it. But that would mean admitting to not being perfect or being able to do something about things that are actually unavoidable and we can’t have that, can we?
If you don’t start from compassion, from a belief that everyone is entitled to happiness and the causes of happiness, if instead you start from knowing what’s ‘best’ for people and you attempt to force this on them even when they don’t want it then the world is a cold, cold place. A place of rules and regulations that mediate everything, where the default word is NO when you try and step outside or past them because that’s the easiest course and it means no one has to think or admit to feeling. A place where burning the wrong person at the stake is OK because they will go to heaven anyway. A place where hedonism is the best path to follow because there is nothing beyond your own trivial pleasures, where no one else matters, where we are nothing but the sum of divisions and ignorance – but you dare to question the rules or step over them slightly, even out of ignorance, and you will end up in prison or on some register where you can’t get a job. Seriously, think about it a little, and get the teat out of your mouth.
I’m ready to be burned at that stake if I have to be to stand up for my beliefs. But let’s just stop now, and not go there. Please? Men are just men. Women are just women. People are just people. 99% of us are decent, caring and honest, and that’s the truth.