I
have always found it an interesting exercise to imagine how the times
we live in will look in a hundred years time. When I did this the
other day, it occurred to me that we are living through one
of the greatest turning points in the whole of human history. Right
now. Dramatic stuff, right? The funny thing is that absolutely nobody
is talking about it.
Let's take a glance into a crystal ball and imagine what might be going
down a year from now. The whole EU disengagement process will be well
and truly under way. The news will show Prime Minister Teresa May
arriving Berlin alongside her Secretary of State for Brexit, Angela
Leadsom. Waiting to meet them for formal handshakes and photographs
is the Chancellor of Germany, Angela Merkel. In the background,
voices from home are snapping at May and Leadsom's heels. Scotland's
First Minister, Nicola Sturgeon is well along with the task of
easing her people towards the UK exit door. In Belfast, First
Minister Arlene Forster demands that the border question is properly
addressed. Trade Union Congress leader Francis O'Grady and Labour
leader Angela Eagle angrily insist that the rights of British workers
must not be forgotten. Meanwhile other voices urge the Brits and
Germans to make nice for the sake of the world's economic stability.
Christine Lagarde tells it as it is as far as the IMF are concerned.
President Hilary Clinton speaks out for the Land of the Free and the
Home of the Brave...
Get
the picture? Sure you do. Here are the most powerful people in the
world and every last once of them is a woman. Fair enough, one or two
of these predictions might not come true, but then again my fictional
scenario it is far from inconceivable.
What
does it mean? I reckon it means that after many thousands of years
human beings have finally caught up with nature. Cast your mind back
to one of those documentaries we have all watched about a pride of
lions on the Serengeti plains. What is the role of the females? Basically
they call all the shots. They run the railroad. They do the hunting.
They determine who gets to eat first and how much. They decide whether or
not the pride should move on or stay put. They sort out the cubs and
oversee the training of the coming generation. And the male? Well he
doesn't hunt and has no say in the day to day running of the pride.
He is kind off of to one side looking vaguely grumpy about life and he
tends to get even grumpier when the cubs come over to him to take the piss. He gets to eat when the female bosses allow him to eat.
In
fact the poor old sod only has two roles in life. To breed the next
generation and to fight off other males who come along to challenge
his territory.
And
this is how things work in just about every mammal society. For some
reason human beings have bucked this trend and for thousands of years
it has been the males of the species who have called all the shots.
When you think about it, that is exactly what they have done in the
most literal sense. Called shots. Waged war. Allowed their
testosterone fueled urges to wreak centuries worth of havoc.
So
why have we chosen such a different course from the rest of our
fellow mammals? Is it because our human males are so much stronger than
the males in other groups of mammals? I don't think so. Try going up
to an eighty stone silverback gorilla and tell him he is a weakling.
Instead we have justified the top dog status of our males through a
long list of completely artificial rules. Basically, religious rules. Woman
have been deemed to be inferior by most of the world's religions.
Islamic women are required to hide their faces from all but their
husbands whilst Christian women are not allowed to aspire to become bishops. It has mainly been religious rules which have backed up
decisions like depriving women of the vote or the right to fight in
the front line of shooting wars. Once you get away from all the
biblical/Koranic tosh, none of this stuff stands up to any kind of scrutiny. Who would you
prefer to have beside you in the trenches when the bad guys are
coming at you – Jess Ennis or the overweight bloke from the Post
Office who smokes forty a day?
All
the stuff about the 'fair' sex who are so weak and need so much
looking after has always been bollocks and slowly but surely as the
centuries have rolled by it has been exposed as exactly that. The odd
thing is how hard society finds it to admit it. Not many people were
able withstand Gestapo torture. Not a single one of this
extraordinary group was male. Every single one was female. Fairer
sex? Aye right. Tough as old boot leather more like. When it comes to
dealing with the outer extremes of pain, women are Premier League to
our male Championship. This is hardly surprising of course. They have
to give birth: we don't. It makes a lot of logical evolutionary sense
for them to be well and truly harder and braver than we are.
Over
the last hundred years or so, the grip of religion has become ever
weaker all across the western world. Over the same period, law after law
has been passed to move us closer to gender equality, both in the
home and the work place. Once this equality has been granted, the
female side of our species has hit the outside lane of the track and
run past us males as if we weren't there. The gap is becoming wider with every
passing year. Check out the A level results when they come out. The
girls are pulling so far ahead of the lads that it is almost
impossible to ignore any more. A couple of months ago we were visited
by some students from the University Of Georgia State. I asked about
this. Last year 70% of new admissions were female. This year it was
on target to be 75%. The university authorities are worried about it
and planning to introduce some king of positive discrimination for
lads. Imagine it. If you are female and you want to come our
university, you need at least three straight A's. If you are male, three B's will be plenty.
It
is worth looking at the craziness of the post Brexit world as if it
was one of those Serengeti lion documentaries. Look at idiotic,
strutting behaviour of the males. Corbyn and Cameron and Farage and
Johnson, wounded old lions roaring in anger at being removed from
their place in the pack. Lots of noise and not a drop either calmness
or basic common sense. They have been so hell bent on winning their
pathetic turf wars they have neither noticed nor cared that the
country is going to hell in a handcart. And once the crisis
threatened to become overwhelming, they ran and hid like utter
cowards.
And
then? Then all of a sudden we started to hear calm female voices fill
the void. Female voices with carefully thought through plans for
clearing up the mess created by all the vanity and testosterone. Maybe we
agree with these plans, maybe we don't. But at least there is some
competence and courage. Now that the lionesses are taking charge of
the situation, things are slowly but surely becoming less chaotic.
So
what will happen now we have finally arrived at this historic tipping
point? I think for those of us lucky enough to live in the liberal West, it is all
good news. Less war and more carefully thought out government. What's
there not to like? Sadly this will only be half of the story. We will
become ever more divided from vast areas of the rest of humanity.
There is no sign of girls losing their second class status in places
where totalitarian regimes call the shots or where the bullying voice of Islam
or Catholicism drowns out all others.
We
are entering a whole new epoch. It will be the Venus of the West
against the Mars of the rest. For what it's worth, my money is well and
truly on Venus.
Two
and a half thousand years ago a really, really smart guy from Ancient
Greece saw all of this coming. He was Socrates. And here is
what he said.
'Once
made equal to man, woman becomes his superior.'
Smart
cookie!
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