Feminism

I’ll never forget the first 'Funisher' I met. It was sometime in the late 1980s when you could meet all sorts of interesting girls. She was one of the moderately attractive, moderately intelligent broads the media has always been jam-packed with, the on-off up-down girlfriend of a male mate of mine, and one night she was annoyed by some roué writer who seemed to think he had droit du seigneur over all the PR girls at his publishing house, of which she was one. She fussed and fumed about it for a bit, then three vodkatinis in, a serene smile swallowed her face and she said ‘I know how to punish him - I'll have sex with him!’ My second husband couldn’t help exclaiming ‘Gee, I wish women had punished me like that when I was single!

Google ‘Mark Pearson’ and the first thing you will learn about the 51 year-old artist is that he was accused of a sex attack. You can read all about how at Waterloo Station Pearson supposedly sexually assaulted a woman before striking her.  Then, if you have time, read on: and you’ll also discover this never happened. That a jury, shown CCTV footage proving the incident never took place, acquitted Pearson this week. Yet while now, and perhaps forever, Pearson’s name will be linked to a crime he did not commit, what we will never know is the name of the women who falsely accused him.

If you think it’s only crybaby students who set up safe spaces in which they might hide from gruff words and ugly sentiments, think again. More of the world beyond touchy campuses is being safe-spaced too. Consider Twitter, which this week announced the establishment of a ‘safety council’ — Orwellian much? — to ensure its users will be forcefielded against abusive, hateful or unpleasant blather. Yesterday, on Safer Internet Day — which promotes ‘safe, responsible, positive and boring use of digital technology’ (okay, I added ‘boring’) — Twitter revealed that it has anointed 40 organisations to advise it on how to make sure tweeters can ‘express themselves freely and safely’.

I recently attended a talk for aspiring young journalists where the two female speakers were both senior news editors at a national publication. One of the speakers said quite bluntly to the audience, 'If you want to have a big family, this is not the job for you. Not with the hours we work.' Some people may have found what she said offensive. I thought it was refreshingly honest. It is not often that you hear women speaking so plainly about the practicalities of balancing motherhood with a career. In fact, I think there is a serious dearth of this type of advice, which is sorely needed. It is a reality all women face and struggle with. From contemporary feminism we hear very little on the subject.

‘Do you really not like Hillary Clinton, or are you just sexist?’ Cosmopolitan actually asked that question last week. Claiming that much anti-Clinton commentary is ‘gender-specific’, with Hillary frequently described as ‘dishonest’ or ‘shrill’, the mag asked Clinton’s critics to search their souls to see if they really do oppose Clinton the politician or just hate women in general. Americans who would rather chew tin foil than vote for Hillary: are you misogynists or what? Cosmo’s implicit branding of Hillary’s critics as sexists — all of them? All those millions of people? — is only the latest stab by the Hillary fanclub to chill criticism of their leader.

[audioplayer src="http://rss.acast.com/viewfrom22/whysexmatters-thedeathofsportandistheeusinkingwhetherbrexithappensornot-/media.mp3" title="Melanie Phillips and Jacqui Gavin, a trans activist and civil servant, discuss gender"] Listen [/audioplayer]Once upon a time, ‘binary’ was a mathematical term. Now it is an insult on a par with ‘racist’, ‘sexist’ or ‘homophobic’, to be deployed as a weapon in our culture wars. The enemy on this particular battleground is anyone who maintains that there are men and there are women, and that the difference between them is fundamental. This ‘binary’ distinction is accepted as a given by the vast majority of the human race. No matter. It is now being categorised as a form of bigotry.

This is the cover piece of this week's Spectator, out tomorrow: Once upon a time, ‘binary’ was a mathematical term. Now it is an insult on a par with ‘racist’, ‘sexist’ or ‘homophobic’, to be deployed as a weapon in our culture wars. The enemy on this particular battleground is anyone who maintains that there are men and there are women, and that the difference between them is fundamental. This ‘binary’ distinction is accepted as a given by the vast majority of the human race. No matter. It is now being categorised as a form of bigotry. Utterly bizarre? Scoff at your peril. It’s fast becoming an enforceable orthodoxy, with children and young people particularly in the frame for attitude reassignment.

As if to make a massive display of their dearth of self-awareness, Twitter feminists have spent the past few days nagging the Oxford English Dictionary over its definition of the word ‘nagging’. They have also rabidly denounced its definition of ‘rabid’. And they have deployed shrill lingo to slam its definition of ‘shrill’. To nag a dictionary in a shrill and rabid way over its entries for ‘shrill’, ‘rabid’ and ‘nag’ suggests feminists’ irony deficiency has reached life-threatening levels. Or maybe they're having a cosmic laugh. Never have I been more tempted to view the new, media-led feminism as a Chris Morris-style send-up of buzz-killing liberals than I have while reading about Dictionarygate.

I’ve pointed out before that to be a woman who sucks up to Islamic extremists is to be a somewhat upmarket but equally self-deluded political equivalent of those strange women who write love-letters to incarcerated rapists and serial killers of women. I’ve recently spotted another septic sister-under-the-skin, though I imagine this one will be better-dressed and better-read. She is the consumer of the recent glut of ‘Death of a Woman as Hipster Diversion’ programmes: Serial, Undisclosed, Making A Murderer, The Jinx. This is true crime for those who know how to pronounce quinoa, but it is no less nasty a habit. Those who indulge in this particular 'guilty pleasure' should, indeed, feel guilty about it.

Regardless of the background of the men who carried out the attacks in Cologne on New Year's Eve, it is a pretty horrific story. A series of sexual attacks took place in the city centre by a group of around 1,000 men. More than 150 women have filed criminal complaints, three-quarters of them for sexual assault. Two cases of rape have been reported. It is the kind of story that should make headlines - and should provide ample fodder for writers who like to tackle feminist topics head on. After all, surely this is the very definition of 'rape culture'? And if the actual attacks aren't enough to merit a reaction, then how about the suggestion by Cologne's female mayor that women should adopt a 'code of conduct' to prevent future assault.

How’s this for dark irony: throughout 2015, ‘white male privilege’ was the buzzphrase on every rad tweeter and liberal hack’s lips, as they fumed against the easy, pampered lives allegedly enjoyed by human beings who had the fortune to be born with a penis and pale skin. Railing against ‘white men’ and their cushy existences has become the stock-in-trade of many feminists. Yet towards the end of 2015 it was revealed that there’s a social group in Britain more derided and less successful than pretty much every other social group. Guess who? Yep, young white men. Especially young working-class white men.

'A victory for feminism,' came the cries this week, as news broke that FHM was to close after 20 years. Then came a rush of virtue-signalling males proclaiming that they were surprised anyone still read that old misogynistic rag. Of course how many people actually read it is now becoming pretty clear, yet it was a question I found myself asking strangers while I was working as an intern at FHM in the summer of 2011, on a project meant to help rebrand the lads' mag. The magazine was stuck in a funk after its 90s heyday and struggling to connect with millennials. Not as classy or as cool as GQ or Esquire, as useful as Men's Health or as plain smutty as Zoo or Nuts, FHM had lost its way.

Even yew trees are at it. It seems the ancient Fortingall Yew in Perthshire, which everyone had assumed to be male, is bearing berries and is therefore, at least in part, female. Dr Max Coleman of the Royal Botanic Garden Edinburgh, observed: ‘The rest of the tree was clearly male. One small branch in the outer part of the crown has switched and now behaves as female.’ Which makes this not just the oldest but the most socially progressive tree in Britain, the Caitlyn Jenner of topiary. Or perhaps it was just one transgressive branch making a bid for attention, having been trapped in the wrong trunk all this time. You can’t go far this year without encountering someone in the process of transitioning between genders or who has already arrived at their gender of choice.