Today's young women think they're victims... Do stop whining, sisters. We've WON the sex war



Had you been listening to Today on Radio 4 yesterday morning, you would have heard the scholarly Bronwen Maddox discussing peace in the Middle East.



No one introduced her as ‘a woman’. She simply spoke as the editor of the erudite Prospect magazine, and in that context her sex was immaterial.



Then, with that screeching gear-change unique to the BBC’s flagship news programme, up popped sunny anchorman Evan Davis to tell us that feminism has ‘rediscovered some vitality’.

One horrid man harassed Laura Bates in the street, another horrid man groped her on a bus and two horrid men referred to her breasts as she passed. All in one week!

But was he speaking of Miss Maddox and her successful career? If only.



Instead, Evan was about to introduce an excited ‘new-wave activist’ called Laura Bates, founder of the Everyday Sexism Project.



Feminism is new to Laura. She told us that she had managed to get all the way through university without seeing the point of it, until — cue Damascene moment — in 2012, Laura had a Bad Week.



One horrid man harassed her in the street, another horrid man groped her on a bus and two horrid men referred to her breasts as she passed. All in one week!



The light dawned. Laura was a victim and the ‘project’ was born.



All it is, if you’re interested, is a kind of wailing wall for similar victims. They can go online and tap in their own stories of horrid men, then more victims can read them before adding theirs to the misery list.



It seems extraordinary that Caroline Criado-Perez appears unsettled by trolls on Twitter

Well, you say, if it makes them feel better, where’s the harm? And you’d be right; there is none.



But it’s all part and parcel of an infinitely depressing trend, in which women who define themselves as feminists interpret such a position as meaning that, above all else, they are victims.



The ‘new-wave activists’, as Evan Davis called them, mistakenly name themselves after what was a spirited, worthwhile and overdue movement of the latter half of the last century, when those of us who really did have something to complain about set out to prove how strong, tough and smart we were.



We never did actually burn any bras (apologies if that spoils your fun, but it is no more than an enduring urban myth), but we did raise our fists and bellow: ‘I am woman, hear me roar.’ We did march, we did reclaim the night. And you know what? By and large, we won.



Nothing is perfect, of course.



Overall, men continue to earn more than women, but a man who does the same job for the same hours does not, now, earn more than a woman does.



We may still be lumbered with too much of the domestic duty — but our daughters now comprise most of the student body in, say, medicine and thus will form the majority of the consultants of the future.



We juggle a dozen balls as our mothers did — but we have choices they did not. Financial independence, reliable family planning and freedom from drudgery are all achievable goals.



Compare and contrast, if you will, with these ‘new-wave activists’. Their cry might be: ‘I am woman, hear me mew.’



Feminism, in today’s clothes, is all about women’s weakness, helplessness and what they cannot possibly do for themselves.



Take, for instance, Caroline Criado-Perez, this week’s keynote ‘victim’.



Following her efforts to persuade the Bank of England to put Jane Austen on a new £10 note, she found herself targeted by trolls on Twitter who wrote nasty things about her. One man even made rape and death threats.



Now, I’m not suggesting this is anything other than thoroughly unpleasant — as, indeed, is all trolling.



But Miss Criado-Perez is, like myself, a freelance journalist, and it seems extraordinary that she appears unsettled by such abuse.



Every time anyone writes a piece for this or any other newspaper that may be read online, readers can express their opinion of both the argument and its writer.



If you are very vain or very masochistic, you can trawl through them at your leisure. I am neither, so I don’t.



Miss Criado-Perez, however, declared the correspondence ‘horrific’ and called for help, reporting the worst 50 to the police.



Author Philippa Gregory called it 'an absolute insult' when a man wants to help park your car

Now some 21-year-old has been arrested, and it is to be hoped that someone, somewhere, might be duly punished.



But I still can’t understand why she bothered, why she didn’t just ignore the abuse as I ignore mine.



Was she really, truly scared — a sophisticated Londoner, who knows you run more risk of attack by someone you know than you ever do by some chump hiding behind Twitter?



Or is she just another example of the poor-little-me, latterday feminists who want only to be looked after?



A dirty joke in the office? Head for the shrink, call it post-traumatic stress and claim damages.



A boss who fails to promote you? Head for the tribunal, call it discrimination and hope they tan his hide.



A partner who belittles you? Head for . . . oh, of course. He’s robbed you of your self-esteem, so you can’t go anywhere.



The one thing you cannot possibly do, whatever these dreadful men throw at you, is the one thing that our lot learned to do to great effect — which is to stand up for yourself.



We may or may not have called ourselves ‘feminists’, and for what it’s worth I never did, but we were no one’s pushover.



When I listened yesterday to Laura Bates on Today, forced into launching a whole new website because she was groped on a bus (wow, that’ll show ’em, Laura), I remembered the last time it happened to me.



It was a packed Tube train in my case, and I felt — but could not see — the fiddling hand.



So I addressed the entire carriage in a loud voice: ‘Will whoever owns the paw on my bum please move it now.’ One face went scarlet. (Note to Laura: that did show ’em.)



By the same token, author Philippa Gregory this week called it ‘an absolute insult’ when a man wants to help park your car.



And she’s right. But there’s no point in seething about it when you can say it instead.



Only last week a male friend was a passenger in my car. After an hour of ‘You can move lanes now’, and ‘Sure you can manage?’ (when faced with the rigour of a three-point turn), I parked at home and he said, ‘You forgot the handbrake’, then reached over and pulled it up.



‘This car is an automatic,’ I said coolly. ‘It is in “park.” It is my car. And I am driving.’



Then I released the handbrake.



No website, no petition, no police, no shrink, no tribunal, no wailing wall. And, most of all, no victim.



The whole point of what my generation achieved was to remove from our heads — and from the heads of those who stood in our way — the notion that women were born to be victims. We proved we both could and deserved to stand on our own two feet, equal to one, equal to all.



To see a younger generation of self-styled ‘feminists’ come along, turn back the clock and declare themselves victims all over again is, for us, a disappointment.

