The novelist Doris Lessing yesterday
claimed that men were the new silent victims in the sex war, "continually
demeaned and insulted" by women without a whimper of protest.
Lessing,
who became a feminist icon with the books The Grass is Singing and The Golden
Notebook, said a "lazy and insidious" culture had taken hold within feminism
that revelled in flailing men.
Young
boys were being weighed down with guilt about the crimes of their sex, she told
the Edinburgh book festival, while energy which could be used to get proper
child care was being dissipated in the pointless humiliation of
men.
"I
find myself increasingly shocked at the unthinking and automatic rubbishing of
men which is now so part of our culture that it is hardly even noticed," the
81-year-old Persian-born writer said yesterday.
"Great
things have been achieved through feminism. We now have pretty much equality at
least on the pay and opportunities front, though almost nothing has been done on
child care, the real liberation.
"We
have many wonderful, clever, powerful women everywhere, but what is happening to
men? Why did this have to be at the cost of men?
"I
was in a class of nine- and 10-year-olds, girls and boys, and this young woman
was telling these kids that the reason for wars was the innately violent nature
of men.
"You
could see the little girls, fat with complacency and conceit while the little
boys sat there crumpled, apologising for their existence, thinking this was
going to be the pattern of their lives."
Lessing
said the teacher tried to "catch my eye, thinking I would approve of this
rubbish".
Even raving feminists can have their lucid moments!
