When I first announced I was going to write this article there was some consternation in the Courier office. "If you handle it with your usual tact and diplomacy," said Rob sternly, "we'll all be shot by the Sexism Committee!"
"Ha, them!" I exclaimed confidently. "What can they do to me, they're only a bunch of women!"
Some time later, whilst hanging upside down in Lisa Turnbull's office watching her wave the aptlt-titled nutcrackers menacingly in front of my face, I paused to reflect on the wisdom of adopting such an outspoken stance.
When I was a child (oh ghod, here we go), PC stood for "Police Constable", which is what every little boy wanted to be because then you got to handcuff little girls (years later, such tastes would be described as "sophisticated"). When I was a teenager, PC had a "V" missing, because that then you could snigger about it in handicraft lessons. Now I'm an adult - ahem, grown up - PC apparently stands for "Political Correctness", which is what we're all supposed to be. Look sorry, I don't know quite what it's suppposed to achieve but it's not going to work and I can tell you why in one word: "testosterone". Partly that proportion of the world's reserves held in the bodies of men, and partly the other half held in the bodies of feminists like Andrea Dworkin.
The initial feminism of the seventies died a death after women realised that it was only okay to burn your bra so long as you didn't mind men staring at your nipples afterwards. In the eighties, women said "Stuff this!" and started kneeing men in the groin on their way to the top of the career ladder. It was the mood of the country and even starched, reactionary Conservatives from public schools were scared of women, or one woman in particular.
Now we are in the "post-feminist" era. This apparently (based on research from the Womens pages of the Grauniad) takes the relaxed attitude that women are the superior sex anyway, because they have better orgasms and babies, and therefore men are to be pitied for their bruised egoes and womblessness. At the same time, they better bloody watch what they say.
This is contradictory; you can train a man not to say things like "Cor, check the tits on that!", even in front of his mates, but he'll still think it deep down. Might as well try and train a cat not to shit in the gladiolas; your garden looks nicer but the cat still craps. I agree that it might be worth doing in order to teach the ignorant brutes some respect, but let's not lose that reasonableness we keep being told to have. It's the nature of the beast - inside every man is a hairy savage who wants to grab your hair and drag you back to his cave. Well, nearly. Men do strive to be polite, romantic and sensitive, but their attempts are usually at odds with that one part of their anatomy that is oblivious to flowers and chocolates, unless the chocolate is melted first. It might be fastened securely between the legs but it's actually an entirely separate creature with its own ideas and desires, as any woman who has had a romantic snog ruined by something hard pressing against her thigh has discovered. Believe me, we are deeply moved by that passionate moment; we're just not the only ones to move. Any touch from a member of the opposite sex that isn't actually a slap in the face is enough to make the salamander stir.
This is why no man can ever be guaranteed 100% politically correct, even with those ideologies that purport to wash his brain twice as clean as previous concepts. He might refer to women in such a way that one would never guess he knew they were a separate sex, but give him five minutes when he thinks he's unobserved and his eyes will be all over your figure. Don't even ask what his brain is up to because it's deep in discussion with his nether regions, nodding vigorously and glorying in that momentary respite from guilt. Against this kind of mental debauchery, the word "tits" is merely an atmospheric disturbance and banning it is like closing the stable door after the horse has farted in your face - the smell lingers.
Nor is it any use attempting to view him as handicapped by dint of an unfortunate chromosome accident at conception. Forget pretending to extend courtesies designed to comfort him into believing he is equal with you. A man cannot feel entirely equal with a woman. She may honour him with the most personal intimacies, acts that are sweaty and unhygenic and words that are urgent and demanding, yet she will probably never, for example, allow him to help her select what to wear for a night out. Such moments she will only share enthusiastically with an exclusive band of others:
a) close female friends;
b) gay men;
c) favourite cuddly toys.
A man will not believe he is your complete equal under such circumstances; the delicate male ego will not countenance it. Besides, you never share his delight over "Baywatch".
What men learn about women today, they mostly get by casually browsing Cosmopolitan when they think you're not looking. In fact, you might as well read it with him because otherwise he's going to get a hopelessly skewed and aggrieved idea of equality. By showing him you treat it as humourously as he pretends to, you will reassure him because men are incredibly peeved by the insights that Cosmo claims to give into their psyche. "Hang on, I may be a sexually frustrated, insensitive, ugly, brutal, two-timing bastard but I'm not that bad!" is what he thinks. Cosmo advice flows something like this, usually in the same issue:
you need a man
to replace the one you've got
who's a right loser, untrustworthy too, and probably has secret fantasies about watching you do it in threesomes with animals
even though he can't help it and should be made into a registered charity
because finding a new man promises lots of exciting flirting and hot sex
unless you have secret fantasies involving lesbianism and alsatians that you want to share with us
despite the fact that sex is a nightmare because it always happens at the wrong time and you have to display your huge, unsightly bottom to your partner
but with this simple diet plan, you could transform your bum from a spare tyre to a pincushion in only ten days
although looks don't matter, of course
even though men think they do
but still...
you need a man.
Some sexist pigs would say that this accurately reflects the thought processes of a typical women, but as a man I can't say I've ever found them that straightforward. The best that can be said for Cosmo and its ilk is that these magazines make men and women appear equally clueless; united at last.
Recently, The Courier received a complaint about a reference to "a nice bit of shag" in one of our articles. The complainant alleged that this appeared to be aimed at women. Ironically, the article in question was written by one. We didn't reveal this at the time, being too helpless with laughter to get the words out, but later I thought, "How unfair". Now men automatically get blamed for any political incorrectness. Further research seemed to confirm this: women can be as depraved as the average cockbearer, but crucially their filth is either ignored or seen as justifiable revenge. Perhaps the problem isn't political correctness; perhaps men and women just haven't learnt how to be politically incorrect together, in good humour. They don't share the same jokes. And perhaps therein lies the problem: actions speak louder than words. By all means, apply your kneecap to the sad excuses for masculinity who harrass you in the Bay. In return, I'll feel free to slam the door in the face of the next ignorant bint about to walk through without acknowledging me. Don't waste time and effort trying to warp the language into something it's not, so that the problem remains hidden rather than sorted out.
If you ever found a man who was everything you ever wanted him to be, who understood you, who saw women purely as people and not at all as playgrounds and who was entirely virtuous in both deed and thought, he wouldn't be a man, he'd be a shape-changing alien come to suck your brain out when you weren't looking. And if you don't believe me, don't worry because you probably haven't got a brain to suck out. Be honest: he's as mixed up, illogical and plain perverse as you are. And he's got a willy, so don't expect miracles. If he treats you as a person and never forgets you're a woman, don't look for things to get any better because they can't. Open wide, laugh loudly and then tell that one about the impotent Economics student you heard the other day...
Ade Rixon