opinion
Brian White lives in south Indre with his wife, too many moles and not enough guitars
blowtorch, enthusiastically declaring this to be “proper blokey cooking”. Undoubtedly tongue-in-cheek but the joke still relied on the idea that the introduction of a dangerous, firebreathing implement would render the idea of cooking less effete, and hence more ‘acceptable’ to us guys. Phew, for a moment there I felt patronised.
GOING FOR BLOKE I
t's now 230 years since Mary Wollstonecraft published “A Vindication of the Rights of Woman”. Hasn’t the time flown? Here we are, just nine generations later and young women across the world step wearily into their predecessors’ battered and trampled shoes to trudge the same road in the fight for equality of rights, opportunities and even unbelievably in this 21st century ownership of their own bodies. Despite many hard-won advances, however, my gender still rules the world, pretty much uninhibited. Why is it this way? Well, aeons ago, after the dinosaurs but before Fred Flintstone, male humans found that disagreements with their womenfolk could usually be settled with violence. On that basis of brute strength alone, Fred settled in to enjoy gender domination for the next 300,000 years. A threat surfaced in the late 18th century when the Industrial Revolution brought machinery which undermined the need for muscle power in many areas of life. But although this process expanded at warp speed over the following centuries, the patriarchy had built the necessary power structures to protect its sovereignty. The subjugation of women was thus assured. Go Fred. The result we all live with today is swaggering ‘macho’ politics, where compromise is seen as ‘losing face’ and cooperation as weakness. Today’s ‘leaders’
with egos matched in scale only by their incompetence, stoke outrage and division for their own ends, aided by a largely compliant (male owned) media. Let’s face it, drawing battle lines is so much easier than actually governing.
The complexities around gender roles, how we define and perceive them, make the Gordian Knot look like a party bow but the debate gets depressingly adversarial, all understanding lost in the din. It’s like an overcrowded bar where everyone has a megaphone. Resolution surely demands objectivity, a willingness to listen to a different viewpoint and for most people to shut the hell up. I have zero experience of being discriminated against. I have never been stalked or bullied into feeling ashamed of my body. Nor have I been excluded because of my sex or dictated to by what someone else believes. Since I cannot imagine enduring any of these scenarios, I keep quiet in the hope that I might, you know, learn something.
But here we are in 2022 with gender pay gaps, glass ceilings and mediaeval legislation designed to control women, none of which apply to men. Quelle Centuries of popular entertainment have surprise. So, men have ruled the world’s reinforced this nonsense, the tough-guy roost with very few interruptions for half a hero rescuing the helpless female. It was million years. How’s this working out? I inculcated in generations of young men. think we can all agree it’s women’s turn. A When my brother and I were small and survey by the Pew Research beset by cuts centre in the US a few years and bruises ago found that in areas like from bikes or So, men have ruled the world’s honesty, communication football, our roost with very few interruptions and – crucially - conflict mother would for half a million years. How’s resolution, women were shush our widely considered superior this working out? whining with to men. Despite this, only “No tears, big about 12% of countries have boys don’t cry. a female head of state/government. Be a brave soldier”. This repressing of Humankind continues to tackle existential emotion in boys was the norm in those challenges in the manner of a soccer team days and that military analogy was typical. taking to the pitch for the World Cup Final Decades later when my own son and while leaving half their players on daughter were small, I suspect I also the bench. responded differently to each when their tears ran, following a fall. (Luckily for me, Male dominance across the world is they still turned out pretty wonderful). cynical, self-defeating and downright stupid. In its hubris, my gender’s refusal to Another, seemingly innocuous, example yield control has created a monster which from some years ago nevertheless stuck in damages lives everywhere. my head like Velcro because it perpetuates this tedious stereotype: a UK television It was foretold. Mary Wollstonecraft series presented by the chef, Tom tragically died shortly after giving birth to Kerridge. When a recipe called for an item a daughter in 1797. Her daughter went on to be seared, Mr Kerridge grabbed a small to write ‘Frankenstein’.
etcetera 17
