EXECUTIVE PRIVILEGE

Mark Steyn on American males

to whom feminists grant a right to grope — such as the President

DURING the Gulf war, a United States pilot was captured by Iraqi troops. As luck would have it, she was a female pilot, so the Iraqis raped and sodomised her. Safely back home, the plucky gal declared that this was all just part of combat risk.

`Combat risk': there's a lot of it around at the moment. In the ongoing war between women and the phallocratic tyranny, Gloria Steinem recently clarified the rules of engagement. For months now, conservative women — including Noemie Emery in The Spectator — have been assailing feminist spokespersons for their inconsistency with regard to, on the one hand, Anita Hill and, on the other, Paula, Monica, Kathleen, a former Miss America, a former Miss Arkansas, a couple of stew- ardesses on the '92 Clinton campaign plane, etc. Those of us in the phallocratic tyranny have mostly had to twiddle our thumbs in the members-only cocktail lounge with a martini in one hand and a lap dancer in the other while the little ladies slugged it out. But, in the New York Times, Ms Steinem has now issued a Hang on, exactly what kind of community service is this?' definitive ruling: 'It's not harassment and we're not hypocrites.'

The founder of Ms magazine and the National Women's Political Caucus says `for the sake of argument' she's willing to believe all the women. But, even so, what's the big deal? After considering both Kath- leen (a 'reckless pass at a supporter during a low point in her life') and Paula (`he asked her to perform oral sex and even dropped his trousers'), Ms Steinem comes to the same conclusion: 'It never hap- pened again. In other words, President Clinton took "no" for an answer.' He showed a fine understanding of 'the com- monsense guideline to sexual behaviour that came out of the women's movement 30 years ago: no means no; yes means yes.'

I confess I didn't notice the piece at first; I was too busy drooling over the Playboy Implants of the Month centrefold. But my pal pointed it out to me and my reaction was as immediate as his: as the eponymous swinger of Austin Powers, International Man of Mystery would say, `Shagadelic, baby! Let's shag!!' It turns out we'd both com- pletely misunderstood 'the commonsense guideline to sexual behaviour that came out of the women's movement'. We thought it meant thinking twice before ask- ing a woman on Fifth Avenue, 'Pardon me, Miss, but would you have the time?', for fear she'd knee you in the crotch, blind you with pepper spray and haul you up on rape charges.

For years, the more straightforward fem- inists have stomped around in T-shirts demanding, 'What Part of NO Don't You Understand?' Quite a big part, it seems. I didn't realise no includes one free grope with optional pants-drop and positioning of feminist hand on aroused male genital area. If she doesn't go for it, well, no hard feelings (except on your part): just extricate your fingers from her underwiring and move on to the next broad. Your feminist credentials are impeccable: you didn't rape her, so give yourself a pat on the back and the next one a pat on the butt.

Frankly, I was sceptical. 'It's too easy,' said to the guys after reading Ms Steinem's column 'There must be a catch.' But we went through it again, and there isn't. If this is feminism, hey, let's have more of it!

At this point, I ought to declare an inter- est: I've met Ms Steinem just once, on the eve of the 1993 presidential inauguration. She told me an interminable anecdote about coming across a turtle in the middle of the road, moving it to the verge, only to see the turtle waddle back onto the asphalt again — I think the turtle was meant to represent the American people, or the Democratic party, or maybe Jimmy Carter. Anyway, my mind wandered and, like most predatory males, I found myself undressing her with my eyes, Ms Steinem being one helluva looker, as many of these feminist babes are. If only I'd been au courant with feminist orthodoxy, I'd just have lunged straight for her bazoongas.

Nor is it just Ms Steinem. Anita Hill, the distinguished former University of Okla- homa law professor, enthusiastically endorsed the new feminist line on the President's behaviour: 'We aren't talking about sexual harassment.' But, in that case, what does constitute sexual harassment? In her recent book, Speaking Truth To Power, Professor Hill offers a few examples like the revealing uniforms waitresses at the Hooters restaurant chain are forced to wear. Shocking. This is, as legal scholars say, an 'evolving' area. According to a sur- vey in Working Woman magazine, over 60 per cent of respondents claimed to have been sexually harassed. Presumably the remaining 40 per cent are just women who've been at the receiving end of one of the President's 'consoling hugs'.

But, in theory, there are 70 million women out there waiting to bring sexual harassment lawsuits. They can't all be Hooters waitresses. One who did sue was the woman who objected to a colleague displaying a photo of his wife in a bathing suit on his desk. Others include the college students in Houston who are suing their drama professor because, by teaching Shakespeare, Moliere and other sexist oppressors, he's creating a 'hostile work environment'. He, in turn, is suing the uni- versity for sexual harassment because, by supporting the students, they've created a hostile work environment for him. At the University of Pennsylvania, a woman in a short skirt complained of a 'mini-rape' because some fellow strolling past observed, 'Nice legs.'

In such a world, many of us potential rapists have found it easier to stay indoors and finish that novel or concerto we've always meant to write — though we know our sins will always find us out.

fire -

`When you talk of preserving t e status quo, are you referring to yours or mane?'

Beethoven's Ninth Symphony, according to feminist musicologist Susan McClary, reveals 'the throttling murderous rage of a rapist incapable of attaining release'. As they say at the Vienna Conservatory, 'What part of Nein don't you understand?'

Happily, in this minefield of confusion, Ms Steinem has now simplified the rules. In the dark ages, senior executives would simply sidle up to the new girl in the typing pool and utter boorish, chauvinist, intimi- dating cracks like, 'Why, Miss Jones, you're beautiful without your glasses.' Today, under Ms Steinem's 'common-sense guide- line', the sensitive New Man can instead say, 'Why, Ms Jones, you're beautiful with- out my pants on.' I think I speak for most unreconstructed old sexists when I say that we'll gladly tear up the offensive snaps of the misses, willingly forswear insulting remarks about nice legs, lay off allusions to that misogynist Shakespeare and swap that rapist stuff by Beethoven for something more enlightened (Dean Martin singing `Pretty Baby') if in return we can solicit fel- latio from every well-stacked chick in the accounts department.

There's just one thing that bothers me. As I arrived at the office with my boxers round my ankles, I couldn't help thinking: this new revised feminism is great for guys, but what's in it for women? I mean, 1 know Monica Lewinsky was the only White House intern to land a full-time job with the federal government, but, for most other women, Ms Steinem's licence to grope could mean a lot of unwanted traffic across their brassieres and a lot of executive penises being waved in their faces. What does the sisterhood get in return?

Well, as Gloria sees it, it's an acceptable `combat risk'. 'For one thing,' she writes, 'if the President had behaved with compara- ble insensitivity toward environmentalists, and at the same time remained their most crucial champion and bulwark against an anti-environmental Congress, would they be expected to desert him'?' In other words, if, say, he'd signed the Kyoto treaty, would they overlook his own illegal emissions? Absolutely. 'If President Clinton were as vital to preserving freedom of speech as he is to preserving reproductive freedom, would journalists be condemned as "incon- sistent" for refusing to suggest he resign? Forget it.'

By 'reproductive freedom' Ms Steinem means abortion. Indeed, the most sensible interpretation of her strategy is that it's an excellent way of drumming up business for her favourite industry: if every man is to be allowed one free pass at every female sub- ordinate or job interviewee, the law of averages suggests a lot more women will find themselves exercising their right to `reproductive freedom'. This is what the leadership of the women's movement has been reduced to: defending a man's right to grope in order to protect a woman's `right to choose'. Of America's 1.6 million annual abortions, only 15,000 are for any kind of foetal abnormality; less that 1 per cent of all pregnancies are due to rape. That leaves over one in four healthy foe- tuses voluntarily terminated as a cumber- some form of contraception. Leaving aside the individual consequences — variously traumatising, dehumanising or physically harmful, the real `women's health issues' that feminists never talk about — what is it exactly that women are choosing?

With the increasing prevalence of gen- der selection, in cases where the sex of the child is the criterion for termination, the overwhelming number of aborted foetuses are female. In American cities, there's a direct correlation between rising abortion numbers and irresponsible male behavi- our, suggesting that it is de facto a man's right to choose: 'I ain't payin' for no child. Get rid of it.' The whitest states in the Union have the lowest abortion rates — 4 per 1,000 women in Wyoming — while the blackest cities have the highest — 138 per 1,000 women in the District of Columbia. Inner cities are the pussy-hound's Klon- dyke: a small geographic area packed with poor women whose Medicaid cheques will pay for their repeat abortions. Thus, a woman's 'right to choose' becomes just another facilitator for male licence.

Some women have been embarrassed at the apparent contradictions of Ms Steinem's defence of unwanted breast- fondling and trouser-dropping. But in fact it's a logical harmonic convergence between the first move — the initial lunge — and the last resort — the abortion: Ms Steinem has constructed defences of both sexual harassment and 'reproductive free- dom' that boil down to . . party time for guys! There's a bumper sticker popular with feminists: 'I'm Pro-Choice And I Vote!' Now we men can get one of our own: 'I'm Pro-Choice And I Grope!'

`Oh, frishklob!'