Kavanaugh feminists

Women using emotional manipulation in the Brett Kavanaugh situation - a bit rich, isn't it? Christine Blasey Ford herself kicked this off in grand style during her statement to the senate judiciary committee. Her little-girl tone, cutesy gestures and facial expressions and, especially, the expertly delivered tremor in her voice at key moments were quite astonishing, all the more so that she turns out to have been a pussy-hat marching, Trump-hating feminist before emerging on the national scene so recently. Then there were the women who ambushed Jeff Flake, one of whom displayed the same tremulous voice as Blasey Ford as she tried to shame Flake for being rational, claiming that she, as a 'survivor', was invalidated by his masculine judiciousness. This woman was later interviewed on a news programme and her forthright tone against men was distinctly lacking its earlier pathos. Another woman tried to shame Orrin Hatch and, upon being urged by him to 'grow up', wailed: 'You can't talk to women like that!' Now, I'm all for appealing to the better nature of men. I think it's a wonderful thing for men to be caring and protective towards women. The chivalric code is one of the most amazing inventions of Western society, not only in itself but in giving us gentlemanliness, its direct descendent. But then I'm not a feminist. I have watched in utter dismay for the last few decades as feminism has derided paternalism, chivalry, basic good manners, and oh dear, anything patriarchal. From childhood and youth in the 1960s and 1970s (I'm the same generation as Kavanaugh and Blasey Ford) I have lived through the ever-coarsening interactions between men and women, driven by the sexual revolution and women's insistence that there is no difference between the sexes. Yet now feminists are marching in the streets, clad in black to emphasise victimhood, clamouring for women to be 'protected'. Ladies, you can't do this. You don't get to be hell-bent on 'equality', and then, when things don't go your way, turn around and demand that men - the men you previously said should treat you like men - lay themselves in the mud for you to walk over. The archetypal courteous gesture of a man laying his cloak down for his lady's feet to be kept clean and dry doesn't begin to satisfy you now. Though you would have spat on the cloak five minutes ago, men must now lay down their very selves, their careers, their lives and families, everything they have tried to build. How can this be?