for right-minded people. For any non-British reader wishing to gain insights into Gordon Brown I recommend Vernon Coleman’s Gordon is a Moron. Brown was a firm supporter and personal friend of Harriet Harman, the militant feminist Labour MP.
What’s new in the United Kingdom, and highly unwelcome to Righties such as myself, is that David Cameron, the leader of the traditionally right-of-centre Conservative party for which I once worked – and currently the leader of a coalition government with the Liberal Democrats – is a Leftie. In the United States he’d be regarded as having political persuasions well to the left of those held by most Democrats.
Perhaps Cameron’s most shameful act in his first year of office, which started in May 2010, was the enactment of The Equality Bill just two months after taking office. The Bill was the brainchild of Harriet Harman, a militant feminist politician from the preceding Labour administration, and it was surely the crowning glory of a dismal career dedicated to a feminist agenda, none of which was to be found in her party’s election manifestos. In 2008 she passed legislation enabling political parties to force all-women prospective Parliamentary candidate (‘PPC’) shortlists onto their constituency parties for the ensuing 25 years. Cameron used that legislation some six months before the 2010 general election, and I resigned my party membership as a result. I was informed by a senior official in the party that I wasn’t alone in having done so.
In David and Goliatha: David Cameron – heir to Harman? I argue that Cameron’s support for feminist agendas stems partly from his having a female-pattern brain. One of his most eminent predecessors as Conservative party leader was Margaret Thatcher. To many traditional Conservatives (including myself) she was the most impressive peacetime prime minister (of any party) in the 20th century, and clearly had a male-pattern brain. The chapter, ‘The different natures of men and women’ in this book covers the topic of gender-patterned brains. David and Goliatha is being withdrawn from sale and its content is contained in my later book The Glass Ceiling Delusion.
To people who ask why I chose the image of a female vampire for the cover of this book, I say that the image reflects two defining characteristics of feminism: anger and ugliness. Feminists’ anger is founded upon and fuelled by their misandry (hatred of men) and the book has a good deal to say on that topic. And to my mind any ideology based upon hatred of half the world’s population is emphatically ugly.
There is of course another meaning of the word ‘ugly’, that relating to physical appearance. It would be dishonest to deny the evidence before us – that feminists are generally less attractive than normal women – and the link between female attractiveness and feminism is covered in this book.
To the charge that my book makes feminists look ridiculous I happily plead guilty, but in my defence I point out that the group which has most successfully made feminists look ridiculous has been feminists themselves.
There are encouraging signs of growing consciousness among men – and women, for that matter – of the damage being wrought by feminists, and a backlash against the ideology is surely approaching. The question is not whether this backlash will take place, but rather what forms it will take.
I thought the reader might welcome some light relief after reading a lengthy book on the topic of feminism, and so it is that I end this book with a sample chapter from my travelogue Two Men in a Car. The book is set in a country – France – where feminism has only recently started to rear its ugly head.
Until the next time.
mike buchanan
bedford, old england
1 february 2012
1| THE WORLD MUST BE CHANGED, APPARENTLY
When intellectuals discover that the world does not behave according to their theories, the conclusion they invariably draw is that the world must be changed. It must be awfully hard to change theories.
Thomas Sowell 1930- African-American economist and social commentator: syndicated column, 10 December 1985
The developed world is increasingly engaged in a futile attempt to placate feminists, a small band of angry man-hating Leftie women. The more battles they win, the more they start. They’re irrational and insatiable. They have no interest in a dialogue with people who hold differing views. Until and unless we stop them, they’ll continue their assault on men, women, the nuclear family, government, the legal system, academia, the media, business, and much else.
We need to take the threat of feminism far more seriously than we do, and to start fighting it. This will be a very difficult challenge because feminists don’t acquire their power through democratic means, nor through merit, and they exert their power out of sight.
The first stage of the battle against feminism is to raise the consciousness of more people about the true nature of feminism in the modern era. Then we – the majority of both men and women, whose interests are being assaulted by feminists – will be in a better position to demand of our political leaders and others that they stop their spineless capitulation to these awful women.
This book is my personal contribution to raising people’s consciousness about the nature of feminism in the modern era. You do what you can.
2| ARE YOU A MISOGYNIST IF YOU ONLY HATE FEMINISTS?
Chris Finch was in an argument once and he went, ‘How can I hate women, my Mum’s one.’… Yeah? There’s a lot of truth in that.
David Brent (Ricky Gervais) The Office (2001)
Any man prepared to comment objectively about women – even about a small group of women such as feminists – is automatically and immediately branded a sexist or a misogynist, often both. Once denounced as a sexist or a misogynist, a man must be reviled or avoided. So I thought I should start the book by addressing the inevitable charges of sexism and misogyny, knowing that feminists will take no heed of anything I have to say on the subject. But I haven’t written the book for them; I’ve written it for the vast majority of people – women included – who don’t share their creed.
As people who know me are aware, I love some women, I like others, and I dislike a small number. If my opinions about women make me a sexist or a misogynist then most people I know – men and women – are too.
The irony, of course, is that the charge of misogyny is most often employed by feminists, women who are themselves guilty of misandry: the hatred of men. I wasn’t familiar with the word before I started my research for David and Goliatha. Misandry is the beating heart of feminism, as we shall see.
Are you a misogynist if you only hate feminists? Of course not. You’re normal.
3| WHAT IS FEMINISM IN THE MODERN ERA?
I listen to feminists and all these radical gals – most of them are failures. They’ve blown it. Some of them have been married, but they married some Casper Milquetoast who asked permission to go to the bathroom. These women just need a man in the house. That’s all they need. Most of the feminists need a man to tell them what time of day it is and to lead them home. And they blew it and they’re mad at all men. Feminists hate men. They’re sexist. They hate men – that’s their problem.
Jerry Falwell 1933-2007 American Baptist cleric, televangelist and conservative commentator
Countless words have been written – almost all of them by women – about the meaning of the words ‘feminism’ and ‘feminist’. I read a number of books about feminism and concluded there are as many definitions of the words as there are writers on the topic. And when words have many meanings, they arguably have no useful meaning. We return to a useful distinction used by Christina Hoff Sommers, the author of Who Stole Feminism? (1994).
Ms Sommers is an American former professor of philosophy, and a self-described ‘equity feminist’. Wikipedia has some interesting material on Ms Sommers including the following:
‘Sommers uses the terms ‘equity feminism’ and ‘gender feminism’ to differentiate what she sees as acceptable and non-acceptable