The identity politics racket part 2 - the woman problem

In theory, because of the numbers involved, women should constitute the largest element in the identity politics racket. However, in practice, most women refuse to play the feminist identity politics card, recognising the underlying anti-male motivation behind it. Thus it is left to a highly vocal cohort of leftist feminists, usually professional women, to pursue the victim agenda. Their original demands for equal pay, an end to barriers to women in some professions, and for maternity leave were all necessary reforms to rectify past injustices. But in time, the real agenda of these feminists, to disempower and emasculate men, gradually became more apparent.

With the implementation of the Sex Discrimination Act and the introduction of maternity leave, the major obstacles to equality of opportunity in the workplace for women had largely been achieved. But instead of congratulating themselves on mission accomplished, feminists made fresh demands, prompted by an ideological belief in the myth that women continued to be helpless victims of a male patriarchy which in reality has long since disappeared. Instead of taking advantage of the new equality of opportunity that now became available to them; the more militant feminists complained that they continued to face injustice because the pay gap between men and women had not been eradicated. Thus the emphasis changed from seeking equality of opportunity to demanding equality of outcome, regardless of whether the latter might be merited or justified.

There are many reasons why the pay of women does not equal that of men. Most importantly many women out of choice take a career break to look after young children. In addition, relatively few women are interested in outdoor jobs which require hard hats and high visibility vests and which require turning out in all weathers. Women tend to be more attracted to the caring professions which mostly pay less, and they are less willing to seek overtime or unsocial hours work. For all these reasons and more women will never achieve pay equality with men, and the belief that they can is thus a chimera which will never be realised. The time has long since gone when we need to appease the special pleading of disgruntled feminists on this issue, since their demands are outside the control of both government and employers to deliver. So the hullabaloo they continue to raise on this unattainable grievance should be firmly resisted.

Feminists ostensibly claim equality, but what they appear to be seeking instead is special protection from the rough and tumble of the workplace. Thus they seek ever more prescriptive regulation and control of the relationships between men and women under the guise of preventing sexual harassment. Unsolicited sexual advances in the work environment have never been tolerated by employers; although in the past men may have got away with this kind of behaviour simply because women refused to challenge it. So women themselves should, in the first instance, develop the personal resilience to handle this kind of nuisance. In larger organisations, if this behaviour continues then they can raise the matter with their line manager or the human resources department, when the offender can be called in for a formal warning. It should not be the responsibility of employers to police or micro-manage the personal relations of their staff. Feminists are currently using the stick of sexual harassment, now expressed with catch all vagueness as ‘inappropriate behaviour’, as a weapon to brand all men as predators.

Identity politics creates its own brand of ‘progressive’ stereotypes. Men are portrayed as predatory sex pests who need to be policed and controlled. Women are presented as victims who require protection by extensive and invasive personal regulations. The current agenda of feminists to portray themselves as ‘vulnerable’ whenever confronted with the ever threatening male is likely to backfire. If women are really as helpless as the current breed of feminists make out, forever in need of an extensive chaperoning regime to protect them from male colleagues, it needs to be asked whether they should be allowed into the workplace at all.

Pejorative put downs such as ‘sexist’ and ‘chauvinist’ targeted at male colleagues are intended to intimidate and silence them into submission. They are invariably an attack on male heterosexuality, demonstrating feminist arrogance insofar as they claim to be speaking for all women, most of whom do not share their anti male neuroses. So we all need a break from feminist whingeing, griping negativity in which they appear intent on returning women to the protectiveness and purity of the Victorian age.

The identity politics racket – Part 1 the conservative legacy

Over the past few decades the British people have been living through a slow motion coup, in which the main institutions have increasingly become occupied by cultural Marxists imposing the ideology of political correctness on the nation. Unfortunately, their task was made easier by some of the historical baggage inherited from earlier generations.

Although there was a gradual improvement throughout the first half of the 20th century, by the early 1960s Britain was still a relatively unequal society in which individuals could be openly discriminated against purely on the basis of their sex, race and sexual orientation. Thus liberals and progressives of that time were easily able to portray themselves in a positive way as modern, forward looking, free thinking, open minded champions for a more enlightened society, in contrast to the reactionary, self satisfied, privileged and hidebound conservative establishment which then controlled most of the levers of power.

This conservative consensus began to break down from the mid 1960s onwards with the rise in feminism, opposition to racial injustice and a more frank and open discussion of sexual matters. So some of the early demand of liberals clearly addressed problems that needed rectifying such as the granting of equal pay for women, an end to discrimination in public services for black people and the repeal of legislation which criminalised male homosexuality. So given the reasonableness of some of the early progressive demands it was clearly right that they were conceded.

Not everybody was happy with these changes but they had the strong support of educated and activist young people newly benefiting from the expansion in university education. Since liberals were largely pushing at an open door with their early demands, their self confidence grew and their claims became more vocal. In contrast, the conservative establishment found itself increasingly placed on the defensive.

Future posts in this series will explore how these reforms to rectify past injustices and to promote equality of opportunity gradually morphed into the current obsession by liberals with the pernicious practice of identity politics. The posts will consider in turn how this development has impacted on the politics of gender, race and sexual orientation, and allowed an extensive an entrenched victim culture to develop in all these categories.

Homosexual equality delayed

This blog has previously explored the odyssey of the British political establishment from its detestation and criminalisation of homosexuality in the 1950s to its detestation and criminalisation of homophobia today. As outlined here http://bit.ly/2lHOh9k and here http://bit.ly/2mL2uWo 1950s parliamentarians set their face against any liberalisation of the law against male homosexual activities. By the late 1960s the climate had changed sufficiently to allow decriminalisation for men over 21, but homosexuality was still widely condemned as shown here http://bit.ly/2woxAZd . Twenty years later disapproval continued at a high level sufficient to ban the promotion of homosexuality in schools as described here http://bit.ly/2hZ25zm . However, by 1994 many parliamentarians had reached the conclusion that the time was right for young homosexuals to be given the same rights as heterosexuals.

Conservative MP Edwina Currie proposed an amendment to the Criminal Justice Bill that would reduce the age of consent for male homosexual activities from 21 to 16. She declared that ‘homosexuality in this country is subject to enforced discrimination, which is now out of date, indefensible and way out of line with the rest of the civilised world. Most nations have the same age of consent for straight and for gay sexual activity - and have done for years, with no problems at all. They do not bother to make any distinction, even when the age is lower than it is here.’

Mrs Currie reminded colleagues that a case had been brought before the European Court of Human Rights, which she believed would have an excellent chance of success. Her view was that ‘the state should be kept out of the personal lives of the men and women of this country. Everyone is entitled to his or her privacy. What my neighbours get up to in private is their business and not mine, and it is not for the state to interfere’. These are in principle commendable objectives which governments have continued to ignore up to the present, not just for sexual activity but also in respect of recreational drugs and viewing images deemed ‘indecent’ or supporting terrorism.

Mrs Currie drew attention to the effect criminalisation had on ‘young men seeking help, whether through counselling, health advice or sex education. They are too scared to come forward and ask for help, as to do so would involve identifying themselves as breaking the criminal law, so they do not come forward’. This argument would apply equally to today’s young teenagers, but there appears to be no appetite from politicians to change the law to allow problems such as those described to be rectified, and which still form part of young teenagers’ experience.

Despite a massive propaganda campaign over the previous quarter century to promote the normality of homosexual activity not all MPs had been persuaded. One Conservative MP asked ‘on the issue of equality before the law, does the hon. lady realise that it is neither natural nor normal to carry out homosexual activity? That is why there has to be protection for young boys. It is a different matter if they participate in that which is normal and natural, but if they are guided into activities that are neither normal nor natural, protection is required.’ Whilst his observations about natural sexual activity are undoubtedly correct, he failed to justify why private unnatural activity needs to be criminalised, incurring potentially lengthy jail sentences.

Mrs Currie drew attention to an anomaly which more broadly still continues to be unaddressed ‘that the age at which a boy can be held to be guilty of rape was recently reduced from 14 to 10, but in law he is judged to be absolutely incapable of making up his own mind’ about his sexual orientation until he is 21. Society still appears to hold the contradictory view that young males as young as 10 years are fully aware of what they are doing when they commit sexual crimes, yet at the age of 15 are still presumed to be in a state of ignorance, innocence or immaturity to consent to sexual activity. It clearly makes logical sense for the two to be harmonised, most reasonably at the post pubertal age of 13 which would become the age of sexual responsibility. This reform would still protect genuine children, bring about an end to state meddling in personal and private activity that is widely practiced by young teens, and would have the additional merit of removing the current widespread societal pathology over normal sexual attraction, as well as removing barriers for those seeking help and advice on sexual matters.

Mrs Currie addressed the fear that ‘changing the law would result in rapacious, middle-aged homosexuals hanging around school gates, waiting to seduce young boys’ by sensibly declaring ‘I wonder whether anyone ever talks to young people. Most of them are inevitably and naturally seeking relationships with people of their own age. One year is the average age gap between partners at their first sexual experience. The idea that teenagers might be attracted to some wrinkled old biddy is preposterous’. The hysteria that still prevails on this matter overlooks the deep physical repugnance felt by most young teenagers to anyone who looks older than the typical members of a boy or girl pop band.

The Home Secretary Michael Howard, although allowing a free vote, personally opposed Mrs Currie’s amendment citing the Wolfenden Report from 1957 which concluded that ‘a boy is incapable at the age of 16 of forming a mature judgement about actions of a kind which might have the effect of setting him apart from the rest of society’. He considered that the key question was ‘to determine an age at which most young men could be said to be mature enough to take a decision on these matters for themselves’, adding that ‘there will still be some young men for whom a homosexual experience after age 16 will have a profoundly influential and potentially disturbing effect’. This may well be true but youths in such a situation should have been provided with sufficient guidance to have developed enough resilience and confidence to make their views perfectly clear by refusing consent and thus avoid entanglement in the criminal justice system. Mr Howard concluded that ‘the way of life that we are currently discussing involves an abandonment of the possibility of marriage and children, which sets those people who choose it apart and which requires the criminal law to give all the protection that it can to the young and vulnerable before they are confirmed in that orientation and before they take that decision’.

The shadow Home Secretary Tony Blair supported the amendment stressing that ‘let us be clear about the issue before us tonight. It is not at what age we wish young people to have sex. It is whether the criminal law should discriminate between heterosexual and homosexual sex. It is therefore an issue not of age, but of equality’. Mr Blair in making this statement encapsulated the main justification of those MPs who supported reducing to 16 the age of consent to homosexual activities. Mr Blair continued ‘I do not believe that sexuality is determined by persuasion. The overwhelming evidence suggests that being homosexual is not something that people catch, are taught or persuaded into, but something that they are’. This was a viewpoint that the majority of people had by then come to share, in contrast to the alarmism that underpinned the 1950s debates. Mr Blair concluded ‘that people are entitled to think that homosexuality is wrong, but they are not entitled to use the criminal law to force that view upon others’.

One interesting statistic that emerged from the debate was that ‘in 1990, 1991 and 1992 there were respectively nine, ten and twelve prosecutions for homosexual offences between those aged 21 and over and those under 21. This contrasts with the figures cited in the 1950s debate when over 90% of prosecutions involved a male below the age of 21. In practice the number of prosecutions of unlawful but consensual sexual activity has only ever affected a minuscule proportion of those engaged in such behaviour.

Mrs Currie’s amendment was lost due mainly to the opposition of her fellow Conservative MPs, but a separate amendment reducing the age to 18 was passed. In so doing MPs signalled their view that an activity which had previously carried a maximum sentence of five years should never have been a crime in the first place. They also confirmed that earlier societal fears relating to the need to offer protection, through the criminal justice system, to those deemed vulnerable had been exaggerated. With the election of a Labour government possessing a huge parliamentary majority the equalisation of the law on the age of consent for homosexual activity was eventually achieved in 2001.