Feminism is so passe. It's the boys who need help now



Growing up in the Sixties and Seventies, no one ever asked me how many children I wanted or at what age I thought I would marry. In those heady decades when feminism came of age, we schoolgirls never daydreamed about wedding dresses or sighed over babies.

Instead, we focused on our careers. If we said we wanted to be nurses, air hostesses or secretaries, we were pretty sharply advised to think about becoming doctors, linguists or businesswomen instead.

The idea that we were less equal than boys was so unthinkable it simply never entered our heads. We were the product of the brave new world fought for by the likes of Gloria Steinem and Germaine Greer, and we took our equality absolutely for granted.

No difference: The recent 'slut walk' marches have done little to further the cause of feminism

Throughout my career, I’ve had equal opportunities to men and I’ve seized them. Some men haven’t liked that, it’s true — but, to be honest, neither have some women.

So now when I read about the ‘new feminism’, as bandied about this week by the publishers of a new book, How To Be A Woman by Caitlin Moran, I find myself wondering: what new feminism?

In the Western world, the feminist argument has been definitively won — and all the silly and, frankly, somewhat pathetic ‘slut walks’ in the world won’t refute that.

As far as I can tell, the new feminism aims to make men share more of the childcare. And, of course, it’s true that children prevent many women from going further in their careers. But it’s also true that it’s usually the woman’s choice. The maternal instinct is so powerful that most mothers want to do a larger share of the childcare.

They also want equal opportunities for their own children. Which brings me to why feminism is almost passé: as any mother of a son will tell you, it’s boys who are suffering most from inequality these days.

Feminist icon: Gloria Steinem fought for equal opportunities for women in the 60s and 70s

For years, girls have outstripped boys at school and at university, and more women than men are entering formerly male-dominated professions such as medicine and law. The latest figures show that girls do better than boys at GCSE and in further education — 20 per cent more girls go on to university than boys, and are more likely to get a good degree.

Nothing will convince me that boys are inherently more stupid than girls. No, the reason boys are lagging behind girls is because they’re the ones who are being discriminated against. It is they who are being kept back by the system.

For a start, boys thrive on structured teaching, discipline, competition and sport — the very things absent from our schools. They need male teachers as role models, in a country where very few men go into education. They need lots of sport to accommodate and channel their aggression, in schools which offer only two hours’ sport a week. And they need courses that haven’t been feminised and that are based on do-or-die exams rather than endless coursework.

Watch a group of nine-year-old girls playing netball and you’ll find them chatting to their opponents and making friends. The feminine instinct is to find common ground. Watch a group of boys the same age on the football or rugby pitch and the contrast couldn’t be starker. They don’t talk. They just want to win.

Boys need to compete, and we need to foster that instinct, for without it they will neither achieve nor thrive.

Somehow or other, we’ve created a topsy-turvy world where girls outperform boys academically, but still somehow think it liberating to remove all their body hair, inject themselves with Botox and aspire to be footballers’ wives. Boys, meanwhile, feel resentful both of their second-class status and of the women they perceive somehow to have outwitted them in the game of life.

For truly emancipated women, the ‘new’ feminism should be about ensuring that our sons are equal to our daughters. To condemn them to the second-rate status we once endured would be the ultimate betrayal.





A clever Trevor

High praise: Nancy Dell'Olio was complimented on her intelligence by Sir Trevor Nunn

Nancy dell’Olio says Sir Trevor Nunn has told her she’s the most intelligent person he’s ever met. I’m afraid that if she believes that, she’ll believe anything — which is no doubt exactly what clever Trevor intended. Her credulity will come in very handy when he sorrowfully explains that she’s simply too charismatic to be in his next play.





Research shows that a marriage suffers when a wife sleeps badly — whereas when a man sleeps badly, the marriage is unaffected.



This is because when a man can’t sleep, it’s usually because he’s worried about work or money. Whereas when a sleepless woman finally musters the energy to get out of bed after a wretched night in a freezing room, wrestling for the duvet with a snoring lump, we know exactly who’s to blame.

The two faces of bravery

I watched Terry Pratchett’s documentary about assisted suicide with my heart pounding and hugely conflicting emotions.

The Smedleys, the archetypal stiff-upper-lipped English couple, were wonderful in their understated dignity, courage and love for one another.

No one could doubt that this 71-year-old man with motor neurone disease was quite sure that he was doing the right thing.

Chilling: John Smedley was seen taking a fatal dose of drugs in Terry Pratchett's BBC2 documentary

Yet it was chilling to watch him swallow his fatal dose in the surreal blue Dignitas house on a Swiss industrial estate — and, by contrast, unexpectedly uplifting to watch the brief scenes showing Mick, the cheery cabbie who is also suffering with MND, in the hospice where he will be seeing out his days.

Terry Pratchett said Peter Smedley was the bravest man he’d ever met. I’m not sure that he was any braver than Mick; he just chose another path.

And although we can only guess at what we would do in a similar situation, we surely all have the right to end our lives if we so choose.

It’s strangely reassuring to know that the option of the blue house is there. But, on balance, I’m still glad it’s in Switzerland rather than, say, Swindon.

Charity must begin at home

A devastating documentary last week, Poor Kids, showed British children living in desperate poverty. We can argue all we like about whose fault it is, but the children themselves are blameless and their plight heartbreaking.

As long as there are children in Britain without enough food, clothing or heating, I fail to see why we should spend so much as a single pound on overseas aid. The foreign aid budget is currently £8.4 billion a year, and is set to increase to £12.6 billion over the next three years.

We should just give it all to the man trying to tackle child poverty — welfare reformer Iain Duncan Smith — instead. Charity begins at home.

Unsightly: Elle Macpherson showed a less than perfect set of legs on the school run this week

Now, I know this is unbecoming and really very childish. But those pictures of Elle Macpherson’s legs — leathery and with a little red spot on the shin, where she’s cut herself shaving — have cheered me up no end.

Why do successful women, from Felicity Kendal to Fiona Bruce and now Carol Vorderman, play along with the sexist nonsense that is the Rear Of The Year award? Because winning it is the only really satisfactory response to the one question even the smartest woman can’t help asking: Does my bum look big in this?

Waste of space

My new kitchen bin is divided into three separate compartments: one for plastics, one for paper/glass/tin, and one for non-recyclables. Next to it is a small kitchen caddy for food waste, and a shoebox for cardboard.