Am I a Misogynistic Dinosaur?

This blog has arisen out of a number of recent events. It all began with International Women's Day on 8th March 2010. That prompted me to tweet @jiminthemorning (Jim Hawkins) on Radio Shropshire. Jim invites extensive involvement from his listeners. After an off-air exchange with Jim, I was interviewed on his programme. This led to some lively debate on issues to do with women - and men for that matter and to the title of the blog being given to me by one listener! The term "misogynistic dinosaur is a quotation from the film Casino Royale, where M is describing James Bond). Later that evening, I watched "Women" on BBC 4 and commented on Twitter. All of that leaves much unfinished business and the result is this piece. My intentions are to review the feminist movement, argue my views and ask you to consider where you stand.

Historically, women were the property of men. They had nothing to call their own. Their views were given no consideration and their roles in society were restricted to domestic duties, including the upbringing of children. That has only changed, in essence, in the last half century. The world in which I grew up, in the 1960s was very different from today. In truth, most of us had nothing and in that context women's issues did not seem so out of place. The revolution which has taken place has encompassed much more than the women's lib issues which normally get highlighted in a discussion of this kind. Just about everything has changed. Nevertheless, some men, at least, had more than nothing and probably all had more hope for their future. If we all felt ourselves to be on the scrapheap then women were at the bottom of it. Let us remember, also, however, that women did have a historical contribution long before the Women's Movement began.

That aside, let me list the campaign issues of the Women's Movement: reproductive rights, domestic violence, maternity leave, equal pay, voting rights, sexual harassment, sexual violence, sexual oppression. I guess we all agree with them, every one of them. In fairness to the present day International Women's Day it is specific rights around the world which are the focus of their attention, very much in keeping with this list. So why do I have a problem?

Let me now introduce a few quotations from prominent feminists:

"All men are rapists and that's all they are. They rape us with their eyes, their laws, and their codes" Marilyn French, author of "The Women's Room", 1977, the best selling feminist book ever.

"Rape is nothing more or less than a conscious process of intimidation by which all men keep all women in a state of fear" Susan Brownmiller "Against Our Will. Men, Women and Rape" 1975

"If it were admitted that the family is maintained at the expense of women capitalism would have to devise some other way of getting the work done." Ann Oakley "Women" BBC 4

"All women are lesbians except those who don't know it naturally. They are but don't know it yet. I am a woman and therefore a lesbian." Unattributed "Women" BBC 4

 "Till all women are lesbians there will be no true political revolution." Unattributed "Women" BBC 4

"We're at the end of a period of masculine rule, quite harsh at times... egalitarian rule..." Unattributed "Women" BBC 4

"Relationship between the sexes is a political relationship, therefore, we are in politics." Kate Millett "Sexual Politics", 1970

"There is no question that men are predatory on women - women are prey." Marilyn French "Women" BBC 4

It has been put to me that these are just extremist views of a left wing element in the Women's Movement. Well, I'm afraid that is simply not the case. I was there, growing up when all of this happened. I experienced appalling hostility from women in the movement first hand. I knew their views intimately.

They were a single sex organisation opposed to male supremacy - that's it in a nutshell and that much cannot be argued as untrue. I pleaded many times that there were men sympathetic to their objectives as per my first list and that we would help them fight the ruling class tyranny. No one ever took me up on it. The movement tried to forget men and create a lesbian society with no leaders in it. They were pretty well anarchists. They were certainly as sexist as any male organisation. So that's my first objection. Feminists should have realised that there were males on their side and worked together. They did not and could not.

My second problem concerns their view of the family. A sociologist, Ann Oakley, best described the feminist view. She was the first to put forward the idea that gender is not determined by biology and although it seems a little quaint today, because we have moved on even further, at the time it was revolutionary stuff. Today, we use profiling more or less exclusively to describe people, regardless of their biology and we are much freer in our interests and roles. The focus then, however, was on freeing women from domestic drudgery. Ann states that the role of the housewife must be abolished, the family must be abolished and gender roles must be abolished. She admitted on the television programme that they did not, at the time, think through how else they would bring up children. So here's my second objection. I believe that the family is the best way of bringing up children, one man, one woman and the children. I am not, in this context, going to say why I hold that belief but I might in another blog, another time. I also believe that most people aspire to a single, life long relationship with a partner and an unbroken family life. I accept that there are very important exceptions to that but I want to emphasise here that the feminists excluded the family at the expense of all those other considerations. I think we should start with the benchmark.

My third issue concerns power. As a Strategic Family Therapist power is my base currency in human relationships. It is fundamental in all human systems, be they a couple, a family, a workplace, a corporation or an entire society. When I look at human relationships I see the "rape" of which the feminists speak but I don't see what they see. I see it everywhere and in many ways. I never see it exclusively in a whole sector of society. That would be prejudice, sexism, racism or whatever. The feminists rightly saw the abuse of power but wrongly understood it. They attacked an entire species - man - and that may make them the most sexist organisation in history.

It's a bit like the French Revolution. You start off agreeing with the objectives because you see the injustices that have taken place - but then the heads start to roll. Within the movement women remained egalitarian. There were never any leaders. In society, it's a different story. We do now have women in roles at all levels, not enough, perhaps, but it's certainly not a novelty. We still have families and the roles of the adults are shared much more and so is the distribution of power. I suppose the unfilled woman, trapped in a lonely house all day long with nothing to do but housework was, in reality, the nightmare of the 1950s.

So, to return to my original objectives. Am I a misogynistic dinosaur? Are you a feminist? Or, like me, do you applaud the civil rights achieved by the Women's Movement but disagree with their wider vision of society and their take on male and female relationships?

Tags: misogynist dinosaur International Womens Day Jim Hawkins Radio Shropshire women twitter feminist men society 1960s scrapheap campaign rights reproduction domestic violence maternity leave equal pay voting sexual harassment sexual violence sexual oppression rape Marilyn French Susan Brownmiller BBC4 family capitalism work lesbian revolution egalitarian predatory single sex Ann Oakley gender roles profiling power human systems sexism racism civil rights