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"Now Chesterton thought that this natural authority of women would be exercised quite differently if it were translated into political power. The instinctive despotism would translate itself into two effects of which - I think we have ample evidence today. One was that they would treat everybody as if they were children - and create a 'nanny state'. ' They would turn society itself into a great nursery' , Chesterton actually said." - Lynette, below.
Lecture given at 'Mankind' conference [chaired by Ivor Catt]. Friends Meeting House. Euston. 28.10.00. Ladies & Gentlemen This title is rather pleasingly ambiguous in that it can be either a simple question ie 'what is wrong with women?' Or it could be a foreshortened statement, 'what is wrong with women' is the following….. and that is indeed what I'm going to talk about. I pick up the thread of my argument from something GK.Chesterton
said way back at the beginning of the last century. He was a very
prophetic writer though often considered frivolous because of his
brimming good humour. Both Bernard Shaw and HG Wells were considered
more serious writers than GK in their day although almost everything
they said turned out to be wrong and most of what Chesterton said
was right. The destiny of Empire in the eyes of the governing class, says the hero, Dalroy, is in four Acts. Victory over barbarians. Employment of barbarians. Alliance with barbarians. Conquest by barbarians. The story of the Flying Inn takes place at the point at which the fourth Act is about to be undertaken. By this time, the British have been stripped of almost every sign of their traditions and their national identity. Everything Eastern is praised and accommodated and everything the British believe, is trashed. Divorce has been mad very easy, the better to accommodate polygamy. Sexual morality has been declared completely irrelevant, the better to lose the citizen in a welter of 'new ways of living'. The army has been all but abolished, but a foreign army is on stand-by in case it is needed; the police wear fezzes to demonstrate our admiration of all things foreign. Into this scenario fits the question of votes for women. Chesterton was scathing about the franchise in any case. Only men who could fulfil a property requirement had it anyway and it was almost entirely, a sham. The reality was that laws were made at the behest of powerful people, without the slightest consideration of what the mass of people wanted. It was obvious in 1914 that women would be given the vote sooner or later and this showy gesture was considered much more pressing than that all men should receive it. However, as Chesterton said, the franchise was always widened when the governing class were up to no good or were in trouble. It was because they knew it gave people no power that they gave them a vote. As a character says, 'for whom would you cast your vote if you are against the changing of Britain into something else?' Very prescient, if one considers that the last time they widened the franchise - to 18 was at precisely the time they were laying furtive plans to absorb us into a federal Europe. Incidentally, another little snippet I found whilst doing my research,
that brought a smile to my normally granite features, was Chesterton
being asked, at a lecture in Oxford, 'What would you do if you were
made Prime Minister?' But this was only one aspect of why Chesterton was against women having the vote. The other reason is more important and I am laying it out - not because I think women should not have the vote today - what is done is done! But because I think it throws some light on a lot of things we do not like. Chesterton's main objection to women having the vote was the entirely complimentary one, that he thought women's instincts were despotic. He thought the natural despotism of women manifested itself chiefly in the home - where the woman was invariably the boss, whatever the social position of the man of the house. It also manifested itself in the control and education of children - which had been managed throughout time without benefit of laws or regulations saying how it should be done. They had kept the family going, along recognisably similar lines, fulfilling the needs of husband and family, come hell or high water; in war, pestilence and famine. The had been the rock and guide of what was arguably the most important, and certainly the oldest, institution on earth and they had protected its autonomy and their right to rule it, by instinct, common sense and strength of character. Beyond the home, women also controlled social behaviour and had not needed the blundering interference of 'sexual harassment' laws to ensure that men treated them with positively exaggerated deference, nor took liberties with them in public.
It goes without saying, at this juncture, ladies and gentlemen, that I reject as a foolish insult, the idea that women were oppressed by the men they bore, reared, and married, until the second half of the 20th century. If that were indeed true, then there is no way that anyone could argue for equality between the sexes. At the very best, women would be late starters! The truth, however, is that men and women with power have always oppressed men and women without power Women were the biggest employers of labour until the first world War, because they employed servants, and they showed themselves, throughout time, to be just as capable as the meanest man, of oppressing their workers. Indeed, domestic service still carries a seemingly inerradicable aura of servitude and humiliation, as a monument to the many women who treated their servants - both men and women, abysmally. Now Chesterton thought that this natural authority of women would be exercised quite differently if it were translated into political power. The instinctive despotism would translate itself into two effects of which - I think we have ample evidence today. One was that they would treat everybody as if they were children - and create a 'nanny state'. ' They would turn society itself into a great nursery' , Chesterton actually said. The second effect would be that essentially tyrannical laws would be enacted to uphold this re-creation of 'mother knows best'! Hence, despite the vision of restraint and gentleness conjured up by devotees of female power in the early days, the chief effect of women's influence on social policy is laws that oppress parental authority. Parents no longer have the right to discipline children as they think fit, nor to require other people such as teachers and policemen, to give them the discipline they need to reach adult life without a criminal record. Moral education is undertaken by the State and children can be introduced to gross sexual provocation in the classroom and then supplied with the means to be promiscuous without their parents even being told. The results of this have been howlingly counter-productive in terms of achieving the expressed goals; lower illegitimacy, fewer abortions, less disease. But, never mind, 'mother is always right' if she works for the Family Planning Association or Brooks clinics and nothing will deflect them from their purpose. Nor is it coincidence that bullying authoritarianism has made social workers almost uniquely feared and loathed amongst the common people. Chesterton thought that the big battalions of government, commerce
and bureaucracies would welcome this natural prescriptive tendency
of women in public policy, the better to further their own manipulative
ends, whilst seeming to be impeccably 'pro-women'. And, indeed, it is remarkable how many 'dirty jobs' are given to women in making public policy; the latest being Lady Gavron's plans to turn us into a 'community of communities' rather than a nation. The 'cover' is that women are being 'empowered' by such jobs. The truth, I suspect, is that they are the fall guys. Finally, an effect that Chesterton forsaw but not to its full extent,
the rest of society would lose its bottle at the same time as women
outside the closed ranks of the sisterhood lost their confidence.
Men and women are in an inseperable union because they both come from
families and go on to make families themselves. But the translocation
of a feminine way of doing things outside the family and community
has narrowed, and therefore concentrated their effect into more tyrannical
government and a diminution of liberty for everyone. They are silenced over such things because the very idea of traditional right and wrong has been dispensed with by the new morality of liberalism. We have a unique and shameless collection of perverts, ratters on their marriage vows, and takers of money from the highest bidder - and the media turns a more or less blind eye because they too are afraid to break ranks. Well, it's a mess I'll grant you. But, if it's any comfort, I'll tell you how it was solved in 'The Flying Inn'. The clever plan to turn Britain into something else failed because, clever as it was, it had in it the seeds of its own destruction. If 'liberalism' means that people have lost the ability to put a case for what is right and wrong - they have no choice but to resort to other means. When endurance becomes worse than danger, the hero says, then people will get not just what they want; but everything they want. The collapse of communism is the perfect model for what Chesterton was talking about. Because the most organised opposition to communism came from Poland, it came via the Christian church - which has a concrete dogma that the individual personality has a sanctity, dignity and responsibility beyond anything politics or economics can demand. They won the argument so, in the end, they didn't need to fight. We must, ladies and gentlemen, learn to be more brave and to articulate arguments for what we believe without fear of condemnation. We must not allow ourselves to be silenced by the pipsqueaks of power. Another aphorism of Chesterton with which I shall end, is that when a people have lost their courage, they cannot rely on keeping any other virtue. Thank you, ladies and gents. Thank you. Lynette Burrows. |
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