Feminism

A Times investigation has uncovered the terrible fact that women and possibly young girls in Haiti have been exploited by the very people paid to keep them safe: the staff of Oxfam, which sucks up £300 million a year from us in public and private money.  It’s a shock — and it’s not. Under the cover of moral superiority, out of sight and out of the media, all manner of NGOs, charities, and the saintly UN have committed some of the most disgusting crimes against the world’s most vulnerable women and children, and got away scot free. Not even the hyper-sensitive  #MeToo movement seems to give the shadow of a

It is 100 years since women got the vote and I have been joining in the celebrations, on public transport — lightly tapping attractive women on the knee or gently massaging their lovely shoulders and saying, cheerfully, ‘Well done, babes!’ Some react with anger and irritation to my heartfelt congratulations, especially when I ask for their phone numbers so that we might discuss suffrage further — which is, I suppose, an indication they did not really want the vote in the first place. Certainly it imposes a terrible pressure upon them — they are forced, every five years, to make a clear decision. The statistics suggest many resent this imposition

I’ve worked in several warehouses unloading stock and I’ve also worked in supermarkets stacking shelves. I’d have to say the latter is marginally harder. Not that there’s much in it: both are physically hard, mentally untaxing, and probably undervalued – but then, don’t we all feel undervalued at work? Warehouse jobs are more of a laugh. When unloading boxes that all looked the same, some were much heavier than others. If you were on the van you’d make out the heavy ones were light and vice versa. Oh, the japes we had… Best of all, there was usually an unloaded pallet you could hide behind for a nap. Whereas on

Today’s centenary of some women being given the right to vote seems to have bewildered a number of people. My colleague Ross Clark, in particular, was perturbed by the Today programme turning into Woman’s Hour to mark the centenary, which he felt was inappropriate for a news programme, and also didn’t cover the fact that suffrage was also extended to 5.6 million working men. Instead, he writes, the programme turned the occasion ‘into a women’s fest’. Worse: almost every story involving men was about sexual assault. There seems to be a curious reflex among some people to protest immediately when women are mentioned that no-one is talking about men. It’s

I guess there comes that time in every man’s life when he realises he is in fact a dinosaur and he’s never going to keep up with social mores. May as well just get use to your children’s gritted teeth every time you open your fat, opinionated mouth on anything. I find myself reaching that point in regards to the abolition of Formula One grid girls, a tradition that is no longer ‘relevant’ to the sport and how it wishes to be portrayed; which is presumably as an egalitarian, environmentally friendly and incorrupt cultural event which does not at all attract the worst rich people on earth. James O’Brien, the sort

So this week two things have got feminists cheering and whooping. First, the coming together of BBC women to demand a hike in their already eye-watering levels of pay. And secondly, the erasure of the walk-on women from darts, the sacking, effectively, of these beautiful, usually working-class women who bring a touch of glamour to a game dominated by portly blokes fond of their lager. Feminists applaud the wealthy, well-educated women of the Beeb who demand more money yet care not one jot for poorer women who, courtesy of the 21st-century lust for destroying outdated or allegedly offensive things, have just lost a source of their income. How brilliantly revealing.

Once again public figures are fanning themselves with shocked surprise at something perfectly comprehensible to everyone else: men behave boorishly when drunk, sans wives, in the company of young women in short skirts paid to make themselves friendly. Of course, what went on at the Dorchester that night is seriously not okay and it’s good news the Presidents Club is no more. But the problem wasn’t just the groping. It was the event itself, and specifically the model of philanthropy on display. Too many rich people see charity as something peripheral to the real business of life. Inoculated by their wealth from any exposure to the demand side of what charities

A year ago, I sang ‘Ye Banks and Braes’ by Robert Burns at the annual Scottish banquet at Manhattan’s University Club. Afterwards, my dinner partner, an American chap, asked me what it was about. Regret, I said. Just look at the last line. But my false lover stole my rose [virginity]. And ah! He left the thorn [unwanted pregnancy] with me.  The American is a feminist metropolitan, and so responded with due sensitivity. ‘Burns must have really understood women,’ he said. I agreed. From Burns’ love letters, it is evident that he used his way with words to climb inside their heads and, from there, into their beds. Burns fathered

It’s here, at last: the backlash against #MeToo. Finally people are sticking their heads above the parapet and asking if perhaps #MeToo has gone too far. They’re braving the inevitable fusillade of shaming tweets and accusations of ‘rape apologism’ to raise awkward questions about this hashtag movement. They’re wondering out loud if this movement that started life with the noble goal of exposing male abuse of women has now become too trigger-happy, too keen to demolish men on the basis of accusation alone, and too happy to go along with a view of women as fragile creatures in need of chaperoning. #MeToo’s dissenters have arrived, and about time too. The

As surely everyone must by now know, 2018 marks the centenary of women securing the vote in Britain. This monumental event represented a giant leap forward for sexual equality and is truly deserving of commemoration. There will, rightly, be television programmes, books column inches and tea towels marking the anniversary. Everyone should know about Sylvia Pankhurst, Emily Davison, Millicent Fawcett and their comrades. But there is a danger with every national commemoration that history is rewritten: in the retelling, some facts are conveniently forgotten and others distorted. We forget that 1918 also marks the first year that all men were able to vote and that suffrage was only granted to