Men and women

'Not long ago Harvey Mansfield took a call from a journalist. She wanted a comment on a former colleague. Mansfield, a 73-year-old professor, said: “What impressed all of us about him was his manliness.”

'There was silence at the other end of the line. Finally the female voice said: “Could you think of another word?” It was then that the professor realised that manliness has become a dirty word. And if “displaying qualities considered admirable in a man” (as the dictionary has it) has become unacceptable, then presumably being a man is unacceptable, too. Wondering how this could be, he concluded that a prolonged period of social engineering — kick-started by feminists who refused to let men open doors for them or carry their bags — had resulted in the virtual abolition of manly virtues.

'Honour, bravery, self-restraint, zeal on behalf of a good cause, and feelings of delicacy and respect towards loved ones: all had become meaningless. And the men Mansfield grew up to admire, who most vividly manifested those virtues — including Humphrey Bogart, Ernest Hemingway, and Tarzan — meant nothing any more.

'Horrified, Mansfield did what a professor at Harvard does best: he wrote a book. And that book, entitled Manliness, has quickly driven feminists potty. One, Naomi Wolf, says it made her “froth at the mouth”.

'Mansfield’s thesis is that we live in a society that takes no account of differences between men and women. “Women today want to be equal to men, equal in a way that makes them similar to, or virtually the same as, men. They do not want the sort of equality that might result from being superior at home if inferior at work.

'“We are in this great experiment, and it seems to be going along without much awareness of how radical it is. But the gender-neutral society can’t simply let nature take its course, because there are no gender-neutral human beings.”

The Sunday Times, April 2, 2006. In search of lost manliness:
John-Paul Flintoff interviews Harvard professor Harvey Mansfield






'My dear boy, no woman is a genius. Women are a decorative sex. They never have anything to say, but they say it charmingly. Women represent the triumph of matter over mind, just as men represent the triumph of mind over morals.'
'Harry, how can you?'
'My dear Dorian, it is quite true. I am analysing women at the present, so I ought to know. The subject is not so abstruse as I thought it was. I find that, ultimately, there are only two kinds of women, the plain and the coloured. The plain women are very useful. If you want to gain a reputation for respectability, you have merely to take them down to supper. The other women are very charming. They commit one mistake, however. They paint in order to try and look young.
Our grandmothers painted in order to try and talk brilliantly. Rouge and esprit used to go together. That is all over now. As long as a woman can look ten years younger than her own daughter, she is perfectly satisfied. As for conversation, there are only five women in London worth talking to, and two of these can't be admitted into decent society. However, tell me about your genius. How long have you known her?'
'Ah! Harry, your views terrify me.'
. . .
Lord Henry Wotton in The Picture of Dorian Gray by Oscar Wilde, 1891