did it because he could. Today anything can be said about men, or done to men, and nobody protests. Men are the whipping boys, they are an easy target. Modern Britain hates men.
Cited sources
1 Social Trends 31 (2001) and Social Trends 32 (2002), Office for National Statistics, London: The Stationery Office. Reported in Rebecca O’Neill, ‘Experiments in Living: The Fatherless Family’, Civitas (2002).
2 For example: ‘Fractured Families’ (2006) and ‘Breakthrough Britain: Ending the Cost of Social Breakdown’ (2007), The Social Policy Justice Group, chaired by Iain Duncan Smith, ‘Broken Hearts: Family Decline and the Consequences for Society’, Centre for Policy Studies (2002).
3 ‘Farewell the Family? Public Policy and Family Breakdown in Britain and the USA’, Patricia Morgan, IEA Health and Welfare Unit (1999).
4 Daily Mail 26 February 2010.
5 ‘Breakthrough Britain’.
5| HOW FEMINISTS VIEW THE WORLD: WELCOME TO THE GRIM WORLD OF DUALISM
Four legs good, two legs bad.
George Orwell 1903-50 English novelist: Animal Farm (1945)
Feminism springs from the same intellectual tradition as Marxism, both sharing a core belief in dualism. There’s an oppressing class (the bourgeoisie, in the case of Marxism, and men, in the case of feminism) which is by definition always in the wrong, and is to be overthrown; and there’s an oppressed class (the proletariat and women respectively) which is by definition always in the right, and must overthrow its oppressors. Adherents are taught and encouraged to see the world through the lens of this dualism, and of course it’s possible to make some sense of the world in this way. Carefully selected examples could be found to prop up any creed based on dualism.
But why, you have to ask yourself, might anyone want to think in this way? In the case of feminists the answer is obvious: misandry. They hate men. Feminists are angry so they wish to bring men down, which requires less effort than beating men on the grounds of merit. Any strategy or tactic is permissible, indeed laudable. Adverse consequences are acceptable even if it’s women in general who suffer (as it often is).
I’ve all but given up trying to debate with feminists. They have well-prepared scripts they stick to through thick and thin, and seldom engage their brains. On occasion I’ve said to a feminist (or written in an email), ‘You really believe this crap, don’t you?’ The line always goes down well, I find.
The sequence of events when one tries to engage with feminists is invariably the same, and differs only in how far along the road you manage to travel. The most common response is no response at all; as I was to discover, even invoking the law in the form of The Freedom of Information Act to obtain the prospectuses and reading lists of Women’s Studies and Gender Studies courses generally produced no response.
The few feminists who respond to people challenging them will almost invariably be rude and condemn them as sexist, misogynistic, blah, blah, blah. They fly into rages when you calmly try to engage them in any sort of nuanced arguments. My theory is that many feminists are profoundly stupid as well as hateful, a theory which could readily be tested by arresting a number of them and forcing them – with the threat of denying them access to chocolate – to undertake IQ tests. My suspicions on the matter are only reinforced by the lengthy terms with which feminists pepper their conversations. Normal women don’t employ terms such as ‘epistemological advantage’ or ‘patriarchal hegemony’, do they?
Perhaps the most curious feminists are feminist academics, which is ironic because they’re so incurious. They’ve built their castles in the air, and are busily adding to them. Not one of the feminist academics I contacted had the slightest interest in engaging in an exchanges of views. They appeared to me to be propagandists of the worst sort.
Feminists often refer to the process of indoctrinating people with their creed as ‘raising their consciousness’. Dualism has an immediate appeal for people seeking a simple explanation of the world’s ills, at least for people unable or unwilling to accept that nuances exist and are inevitable in a complex world: broadly speaking, in the case of feminism, that explanation is, ‘Women good, men bad’. This reduction to absurdity is surely an example of consciousness lowering rather than raising, and is an assault on naturally enquiring intellects.
6| WHY MEN HAVE NIPPLES, AND MY SEX CHANGE STORY
How beautiful maleness is, if it finds its right expression.
DH Lawrence 1885-1930 English author, poet, playwright, essayist and literary critic
Why do men have nipples? It’s an age-old question to which we now have the answer, but before I reveal it I’d like to present the result of a Google search I undertook in September 2011, using that very question. The search purportedly found 1.81 million ‘hits’, which is surely a testament to the dysfunctional times we live in. The first ‘hit’ was a page on the Guardian website Guardian.co.uk where people post questions and other people post answers. The question, ‘Why do men have nipples?’ was posed by one Hilda Bird of Lagos, Portugal.
The following is a selection of my favourites from among the answers posted by visitors to the Guardian website, and I should like to thank them warmly.
‘Why do men have nipples?
To help our creator to put the breastbone right in the middle.
Louis van de Geijn, Renkum, Netherlands
Because we are built to a common pattern. But in the process, female breasts happen to be more prominent!
Jhune Catubag, Parañaque, Philippines
Men have nipples because they’d look plain wrong without them.
Morven Gailey aged 7, Stroud, England
Men’s nipples are purely there to indicate temperature, and a jolly good way of chastisement, a good tweek can stop even the naughtiest behaviour.
Janine Bailey, Oxford
I was short on male platty fish so I stole one from where I work. After about a month it turned into a female. Evidently some creatures can change gender after birth. Nipples are there just in case.
Peter Johnson, Stockton, Cleveland
I’m not really sure why but I’m so glad I have mine to tweak, at work or on the bus. Sometimes on the toilet reading the paper or while watching my neighbours through their window. They bought a rowing machine.
Andrew Anderson, Pakuranga, Auckland, New Zealand
The same reason women have beards!
Graham Foskett, Treakle, Bumstead
Men have nipples because they help men find water. Walk to where they point and when they cross, you’re above water! Simple. Mainly why men drink so much beer, I guess.
Aaron Goodwin, Middle of England
Because people like me need something to play with when bored...
Adam Newsham, Preston
Because nipples are a turn-on.
Malika Othman, Scunthorpe
Something else for the female to suck on. ;P
Lucy Campbell, Rugby, Warwickshire
So when there’s no boobs around you can pretend your a woman and play with yourself ;D
Dean, Jack and Connor, Derby, England
So if a man decides to have a sex change it makes the surgeon’s job easier?
Harry Machin, Burslem, UK
Because without them men would get jealous.
Bethanie Lucas, Manchester
So my girlfriend