AND ANOTHER THING
First blast of a Peking trumpet against the monstrous regiment of feminists
PAUL JOHNSON
The United Nations Fourth World Conference on Women in Peking promises to be an ugly conjunction of all that is most objectionable in the modern world of Admass — to use that useful word J.B. Priestley coined to denote the systematic attempt to drown the truth in loudspeaker voices. The conference is supposed to be about 'rights'. That, presumably, is why it is being held in Peking, capital of a country where human rights, including the most elementary one of all — the right to live — are denied on a scale never before seen in history.
The Peking regime, let us never forget, has 20 million people in its gulag — more than Stalin at his worst — and is chewing up and digesting the entire Tibetan people, destroying for ever their ancient religion, culture and way of life. It is soon to engulf and obliterate the free society of Hong Kong and announces its intention to do the same for the highly successful democracy of Taiwan, if necessary by force. It treats women primarily as beasts of burden, forces them by law to abort and kill their unborn children and, if they somehow evade this diktat, persecutes them with relentless ferocity. One of the worst aspects of the regime, which is run entirely by men, usually very old men, is the way in which it brainwashes (a process invented by it) women into becoming agents of its odious purposes. One has only to read an account of a visit by a government female 'enforcer' to a Chinese village for the purpose of investigating its reproductive record to see exactly why Peking is the last place on earth for a conference on women's rights.
That, however, is only the beginning of the moral problems raised by this sinister event. What troubles me more, because it is less obvious, is the totalitarian assumption underlying the conference itself. Why is it necessary or desirable to hold a Conference on Women? We would not dream of hold- ing a Conference on Men. No one would have the effrontery to proclaim that they spoke for men throughout the world and could be faithfully entrusted to represent their interests. Why, then, should a group of 'delegates' (delegated by whom?) claim to speak for all the world's women? Here, indeed, we have patronising paternalism at its worst — and fraudulent to boot. None of those going to Peking represent the interests of women, for they have no con- ception of what those interests are, or how most women want their interests identified and pursued. They are there to advance quite different interests, usually those of the government which appointed them. Many of the worst Third World dictators have sent their wives as head of delegation, a bad example followed by President Clin- ton.
A great many pressure groups and busi- nesses which exploit women or prey on the 'women's market' are also out in force. I read in the Evening Standard an article by Anita Roddick called 'Why I believe women should go to Beijing'. It is perfectly clear why she is going — to advance the interests of her firm, The Body Shop. She says as much. But, she adds, with breath- taking effrontery, that she and the Body Shop people will also be 'taking with us the voices of women who cannot attend'. It is as though the chairman of Marks & Spencer went to an international gathering and claimed the right to speak on behalf of M&S's 30 million customers.
This brings me to my main point — the assumption, behind all these propaganda activities, that women, making up 52 per cent of the world's population, think broad- ly alike on a whole range of key issues. There is no evidence at all of this, and much evidence to the contrary. Women did not even agree about getting the vote — some of the most vociferous opponents of the Suffragettes were women. The fiercest opponents of married clergy are women and always have been, beginning with Queen Elizabeth I, in some other respects a notable proponent of women's rights. Women who actually go to church, as opposed to worshipping at the foot of the columns of the Guardian and Independent, are bitterly divided over women priests. On 'I've packed the little woman off to some conference in China.' abortion, the most important issue of all, women hold the entire spectrum of views, forming the bulk of the militants on both sides but expressing every imaginable doubt and nuance in between. There is no such thing as the Woman's View on anything, least of all those issues where feminists claim to speak for the entire sex.
Nor is this surprising. It has often struck me, both as a student of historical texts and a journalistic observer of how people behave today, that women are much less easily categorised than men. They have, in fact, an anti-herd instinct. A woman, attending a reception, is mortified if she finds she is wearing the same outfit as some other woman. A man, by contrast, is morti- fied if he is not dressed like the other men. All over the world, dances are held at which all the men dress exactly alike and all the women dress differently. Even highly intelligent men are uneasy if they fail to conform, at least on the surface. By con- trast, women positively want to appear egregious. Men who flourish in our orderly societies are admired for being 'sound', a 'safe pair of hands'. What women of spirit ever strove to be sound or safe?
Countless generations of physical sub- servience have quite failed to break a cer- tain quiet determination in women to think for themselves. It is characteristic of the sex that a woman was the first to be recorded laughing. Sarah, Abraham's wife, has a cyn- ical chortle to herself when she overhears the men — God, her husband, two male- sounding angels — discussing their plan for her to have a child. 'What,' she laughs, 'after I am waxed old shall I have pleasure, my lord being old also?' The men overhear her chuckles and are furious. But this has not stopped women from laughing behind men's backs ever since, even — perhaps especially — in tightly controlled, ultra- masculine societies like Japan's. This kind of distinctive women's laughter began to break the surface in Jane Austen's day, and is now popping out all over the place. But, just at the very moment when women are at last getting the chance to play their individ- ualistic roles openly, along come the femi- nist totalitarians with their plans to turn the sex into regimented progressive zombies.
But it won't work. The genie of woman is now out of the bottle for good. The picnic at Peking will end as it deserves, in bicker- ing, and the derisive laughter of women who aren't there.
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