AND ANOTHER THING
Looking forward nervously to the triumph of Madame Butterfly
PAUL JOHNSON
Awe approach the 21st century, signs are beginning to appear that we may be experiencing a fundamental change in the way humanity conducts its affairs. Until the present, however well or badly the human race has fared, there can be no question that its direction has been in the hands of men. From the beginning of recorded his- tory, we know that all the key decisions, and an overwhelming majority of the minor ones, have been taken by males, in all soci- eties and at all periods. For huge stretches of history women have been virtually invisi- ble, except as breeders and unpaid menial labourers. The intellectual input of women has been insignificant, and it is still tiny compared with its potential magnitude, though it is now accelerating with dramatic speed.
In short, throughout its existence the human race has been operating with only half its creative energy. We have tended to see this loss in terms of individual tragedies, and sympathise with the frustra- tions of countless women of talent and even genius whose lives were thrown away. Our hearts go out to those gifted women who, by courage and persistence, did con- trive to intrude a little into a man's world.
Was it not monstrous that Jane Austen, our one perfect novelist, had to remain silent for so many years of her short life, never had a room of her own and had to use a corridor to do her writing, covering it up hastily whenever she was interrupted? Why was Sir Joshua Reynolds's painter-sis- ter, perhaps more talented than he was, never allowed to follow her career? And why did Gwen John, whose art was so much finer and purer than her brother Augus- tus's, die neglected and hungry, while he roistered his way through a long, misspent life? Thomas Gray, lamenting the unseen gems of purest ray serene or the countless flowers born to blush unseen and waste their sweetness, thought entirely in terms of village Hampdens or mute, inglorious Mil- tons or guiltless Cromwells being wasted. Would he not have written a far greater poem if he had pondered the fate of the multitudes of unknown Janes and Eliza- beths — and Francoises and Gretchens and Carlas and Natashas — who from the dawn of humanity have been denied the right to use the brains their creator gave them?
But these are just sad tales of frustrated women. And it may be that, with feminine ingenuity and stoicism, they were not so frustrated after all, finding compensations in all kinds of ways. Jane Austen, for instance, does not strike us as an unhappy, unfulfilled woman; like Nancy Mitford, another victim of the system, she was never short of a laugh. But what of the much wider, unmitigated tragedy of mankind as a whole, advancing only at half-speed, per- haps less? What have we missed by keeping women off the bridge and out of the engine-room — how much further would we have travelled by now? This question is never considered.
In a hundred years' time, however, the misuse or non-use of female talent will be judged the most glaring and incomprehen- sible mistake of human history. Because by then it will have become blindingly appar- ent that women are not just the intellectual equals of men but in many respects, per- haps in all important respects, their superi- ors. Why this should be I cannot say: part of God's ultimate providential plan, I sup- pose, since He certainly made women the moral superiors of men. In plenty of other species females are the driving and direct- ing forces, and I don't myself find it diffi- cult to imagine a world society largely run by women.
What is harder is to see quite how we will get there, granted that at present, and for the foreseeable future, women are still bru- tally handicapped by their biological role as the carriers and rearers of children and — dare I add? — by the huge and irreplace- able satisfaction they get from this role. This year's school exam results confirm the fact that 16-year-old girls are cleverer than boys of the same age, or at any rate better at ordering and disciplining their skills. They also provide overwhelming evidence that girls in single-sex establishments per- form far better than girls exposed to the world of sexual competition. The GCSE performance figures, reproduced in many other countries and providing, for the first 'Hove you completely, but not necessarily permanently.' time, definite evidence that the females are intellectually superior to males, have to be qualified by figures for 17- and 18-year- olds, which reflect stronger motivation for boys and a falling-off in the academic con- centration of girls as the sexual urge begins to bite.
But this merely underlines the burden, or braking effect, which women's sexuality imposes on their performance. And this can gradually be eased by social and other changes. My own observation suggests to me that there are many able women in the world today who are uneasy because they are not married and having children, and who remain unhappy about their predica- ment. But they are not sufficiently unhappy to marry unsatisfactory men, as they would have done a generation ago, because they are no longer prepared to enter a submis- sive arrangement with someone who is manifestly their intellectual inferior. This is the great force for change today: the grow- ing self-confidence of women in their capacities, their willingness to display this pride in practical ways, the first stirrings of female triumphalism. The process will be pushed forward by many factors: the decline of submissive marriage, the collapse of male self-confidence, the ability of scien- tific commerce to provide a shopping mar- ket for women who want marriage, children and careers right to the top, and the greater influence of women on the political deci- sions which hasten all these processes.
People who blithely assume that the West, having given birth to feminism, will continue to provide the forcing-house for such changes are in for a shock. Feminism is, and has always been, an irrelevance masking far more fundamental changes which have enabled women to perform bet- ter and be seen to do so. The Asian people are now taking the lead in learning how to organise their societies more productively and efficiently, and I expect them to play the female trump card first. The Japanese, in particular, who have shown they can move at amazing speed when they so deter- mine, will leap-frog the West by enabling women to jump directly from a posture of supine subservience to aggressive leader- ship. The Vietnamese, Koreans, Chinese and others will not be far behind.
The 21st century will be the age of Madame Butterfly — still beautiful, I hope, but no longer the victim, more the perpetrator.
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