Let women kill too – you know they’re worth it

“Why can’t a woman be more like a man?”  an exasperated Rex Harrison used to ask in My Fair Lady. If he was around today he’d find that she was being offered more opportunities to be just that. The latest comes today, with the declaration that the opportunity for women to appear ‘in the conflict zone’ will be upped to where women may well be active combatants in the British army, not just support staff.

I expect there’ll be women who’ll hail this as another step on the long road to equality. And certainly it’s true that women are discriminated against in our society in all sorts of ways, including their role in the British armed forces.  There is some argument that  women would not have the physical strength to carry the weaponry load that the modern soldier must haul around, but the word is they’ll find ways to accommodate that and clear a path so women  can get right up to the firing line. In other words, women will have the same opportunity to kill other human beings that men currently have.

That, of course, is where the drive towards equality becomes semi-insane. For years women argued that if females were properly represented in politics, there’d be a different way of looking at the world and that world would become more compassionate, more caring than the abrasive macho place it was.  That sounded good until Thatcher came along and it emerged that equality would or at least could mean sharing all the nasty, brutal attitudes that distinguish the male world. Maybe it’s a bit like Catholics in the northern media during our own conflict: when the BBC or some other radio/TV outlet wanted to put a republican through the interview wringer, as often as not a Catholic was chosen to do the job – and they did it with a will.

How tragic that women, who could bring compassion and non-aggressive attitudes to politics (and every other area) have sought instead to ape the worst characteristics of men. And surely I’m not alone in seeing this latest demand to provide equal opportunities for trigger-squeezing  in the British army as essentially a victory of men over women. When the colonial master gets his native to ape him, the job of colonialization is complete. It looks like men have won the battle of the sexes with the aid of women.

“Don’t put your daughter on the stage, Mrs Worthington”  Noel Coward sang. Today he’d more likely be begging “Don’t put your daughter on the front line”.