"The topics on your blogsite are hardly different to what is of concern in the UK, though as in most things we're several years behind the USA...the law is an ever bigger ass in the US than it is in the UK. And that really is saying something."

Several of my readers are fans of The Woman Racket (pictured) by Steve Moxon, and we've run some excerpts from his book. Moxon takes things further than I would, of course, but he's an interesting read. Below is Part II of my Q & A with Moxon.

Q: If someone picks up your book 20 years from now, how do you think they will view it? Will your assertions be generally accepted common wisdom? Will they still be politically incorrect?

Funny you should choose 20 years: that's the time I see as having to elapse before the current nonsense about men-women bites the dust. Twenty years is not long as a time period in our lives (well, once you get past 40!), but it is getting on for a generation, and a generation really can be a long time in terms of a gap in thinking – and we're due for a generation that rebels rather than one that looks 'straighter' than that of its parents!

Men-women is most certainly an axis along which generational divide can foment, and the divide is one where what could be at issue usually does end up as being so. Kids are looking for how to wind up the adult world. I notice a marked difference in attitude to the book by those in the age-sub-divided Sheffield Walking Group, of which I'm a member: the 20s/30s lot are more receptive than the 40s.

The book clearly is 'ahead of its time', but it has been very well received in some quarters, even by some big figures within the BBC. My central point that dominance ('power') is only ever intra-sexual is already being accepted by the scientific community: I presented a paper at the International Society for Human Ethology conference in July and it is to be published as the main editorial of a scientific journal.

I suppose cultural change works by what starts as non-mainstream growing until it reaches some sort of 'critical mass'. There's no way of predicting when this point might be reached, so I may be being optimistic. But a batch of nonsense as profound as is the consensus on men-women can only implode. The question is: how spectacularly? A lot of people have a lot to lose, so there will be a continued rearguard even as hopelessly infected brain is splattered across university and non-commercial sector walls.

Q: Are there any substantial differences between the cultural and social position of men in the UK and men in the US? If so, what are they?

Cultural differences in comparison to what we all share as evolved social psychology are minimal – and culture is just the manifestation of our social psychology, in any case. The topics on your blogsite are hardly different to what is of concern in the UK, though as in most things we're several years behind the USA, and this is reflected in an as yet non-organised 'mens' activism' community (other than the groups campaigning specifically for fathers' rights). The main difference is probably that the law is an ever bigger ass in the US than it is in the UK. And that really is saying something. Americans seem to be considerably more litigious, of course, and Americans who are feminist have scope for perpetrating fathomless abuse. For some time 'positive action' has been enshrined in US law but it is not so in Britain – not that employers don't behave as if it is though.

Britain is in some respects a more staid place, so it is more difficult to effect change, and more difficult to undo absurdities such as the compete capitulation of all facets of the establishment to 'political correctness fascism'. America is bigger and more diverse, so there are bulwarks that remain against this insanity that we barely have in the UK.

This entry was posted on Sunday, October 12th, 2008 at 4:03 pm and is filed under Feminism/NOW. You can trackback from your own site.