Affirmative action for women - Masculinity of power
Published:Saturday | March 10, 2012 | 12:00 AM
THE EDITOR, Sir:
There's an impossible-to-ignore paradox in the history of feminist activism. It is what I term the masculinity of power. I believe some of the more extreme campaigners and ostensible natural constituents (only by their sex) exemplify this by their 'breakthrough' conduct.
Columnist Keith Noel made a subordinated reference to it in his column which appeared on Thursday, March 8, International Woman's Day. Noel's commentary, titled 'Badass gyal', was a token male's contribution to the day's dialogue on women.
In the second to last of his 11 paragraphs, Noel summed up the paradox in the comment that it is no longer the case that "what is fame fi a man is shame fi a ooman". I don't need to expound on the details of how he got there, given the easy access to his commentary which the Internet allows.
Also on the day, International Woman's Day, Earl Moore, former life insurance executive-turned-HIV/AIDS care advocate and motivational speaker, etc., quoted an eminent woman of the world who highlighted the paradox.
Addressing a large audience of high-school and tertiary students at the fifth University of Technology final-year Marketing Students' Brand Conference, he shared an excerpt of a conversation he had with the wife of United Nations (UN) Secretary General Ban Ki-moon. In 2011, he was a delegate at the UNAIDS Conference in New York, which his wife chaired.
He estimated that (as far as he observed) only two per cent of the delegates were male. During a break, Mr Ban asked his wife why this was so. Her response came in the form of a rhetorical question: "Do you know who a woman is?" Doubtless, because he was stunned by the answer she followed up with, he never forgot it. She said, "A woman is a well-organised man."
H.W. DENNIS
Mona, St Andrew