With the death of Margaret
Thatcher, the old question comes to mind: why has no other female followed in her
footsteps in the UK? Why she didn’t inspire other females? Did womankind turn
on her or has the country run out of talented females? I think that is
unlikely. When Margaret Thatcher won the election, I recall the chauvinistic jibes;
like the Alf Garnet character, some argued that she is really a man in disguise
in that her character, psyche and personality is essentially male, but her
hormones went towards the other direction and gave her female organs and
appearance.
It must have been awful for her husband
to hear this type of comment. Spitting Image, the satire on TV, conveyed the
impression that he was largely confined to Thatcher’s harem. Perhaps if he had done something interesting, like adultery
or file for divorce, then the press would have given him greater media coverage.
And the few times he appeared on the
media, he had a fixed morbid expression; it made me wonder, was this due to his
marriage or his nature. Regardless, he is due some credit; there was activity
in the bedroom, and the couple produced healthy children. The Imam in me says MashaAllah, and the ethnic part of me
says “shabbash”, loosely translated
as “well done”.
The chauvinistic response towards
the first female Prime Minister was expected, given that it was and still is a male
dominated society; in fact almost all societies in the world are male
dominated. Please remember this next time you have another pop at Muslims. In
addition, by nature we are all Luddites to some extent. We resist and fear
change, because entering unknown territory is scary; hence, this has also
contributed towards the resistance to the new female leadership.
Apart from Margaret Thatcher,
Queen Victoria who peddled drugs in China, and Queen Elizabeth I, the ‘virgin’
Queen, has made their marks on British Imperial history. They are clearly the
exception to the rule of male leaders and they must excel in some way to
succeed in the first place. This implies, there is no room for the average
female to occupy leadership, like the average male leadership of J. Callaghan,
T. Heath, and John Major. By inference, there is even less hope of success for
those females below the average. Hence you will never get the female equivalent
of Ronald Reagan, George Bush II or Dan Quayle who came so close. Or was it Dan
Quail, as I recall the potato-gate scandal!
Margaret Thatcher remains the
first, and the only female Prime Minister of the UK, and this is likely to be
the case for the foreseeable future. Just look at the male dominated cabinets
across the three parties, despite the gender based policies to get women there.
Does this tell us something about the gender difference? Maybe women do not
want to pursue this; and the test of human history shows leaders have almost always
been male. But obsessed by gender equality, there is a needless drive to alter
the course of human nature and history. No matter how hard you try, it’s doomed
to fail, like the failure of Catholic celibacy; the power of human nature is
too strong. If you are not going to procreate with a female, you will be forced
to take other measures, unless you have immense will power.
The US, leader of the Western
world, by inference leader of women’s rights, according to the statistics led
the world on rape and nasty serial killers that target vulnerable females;
allegedly they wage war selectively to liberate women in the Muslim world.
Ironically, the US has yet to elect a woman to the White House as the first
female President, yet, ‘oppressive’ male dominated Muslim societies like
Pakistan and Bangladesh, have made considerable progress, even countries like
India where female infanticide is rife are ahead of the US. Maybe, the US will
force the issue of electing a female President through collusion of the two
dominant parties (Republican and Democrat) putting forward two female
Presidential candidates. That’s the great thing about democracy there is always
a choice to vote, even though competitive candidates have almost identical
philosophy with similar backers from the corporate world!
Similarly, in the name of
equality, women are being literally pushed in some countries to occupy
positions in the company board of directors, through ‘positive’ discrimination. How far should we go with this push towards
gender equality? If father and mother are equal, should the distinguishing
terms be abolished now? That should follow with abolishing gender based terms
in general, and facilities like gender based toilets. It does get confusing; she
demands gender equality, and then wants special treatment because of her gender,
so she says she is a lady, and she wants to be treated like one.
Did the first female Prime
Minister of the UK leave the same mark as the Suffragette movement of the 1920s
demanding voting rights? Regardless of your opinion, I prefer women contesting
for intellectual leadership, giving an input to formulate policies, setting
examples as business leaders and elsewhere, rather than roaming the streets
topless like wild animals, as seen recently in Ukraine, and this virus is
spreading. Those ladies should put their clothes back on and if they are really
keen on promoting welfare for women, then they should address things like the
flesh trade that is flourishing in that part of the world.
Is gender equality synonymous with
furthering women’s rights and welfare? I think the two issues have become
muddled; gender equality works to negate the inherent gender differences, and
no matter how it is explained, the result is people see gender equality in
absolute term. It stems from the odious and crude ideology of feminism that
puts the genders on a war path. Instead the focus should be on promoting
women’s rights and welfare within the cultural paradigm that exists, rather
than trying to impose a Judeo-Christian centric viewpoint of gender equality or
women's rights.
Yamin Zakaria (yamin@radicalviews.org)
Published on 10/04/2013
London, UK
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