The Sex-change Society: Feminised Britain and the Neutered Male (Paper) [Paperback]

Fascinating discussion of gender feminism, no-fault divorce and family breakdown.

The title is to make the point that the state is effectively father now to many children, that married men are being required to work less and be more involved with their children or be divorced, and that women are under great pressure always to work for money like an old-style father.

There is much on the distinction between equity and gender feminism - the reasonableness of the former and the damage of the latter, with its demonisation of men. Particularly interesting is the contradiction between the criticisms made of married fathers with the promotion of divorce: married fathers are exhorted to spend more time with their children instead of working, while divorced (or evicted) fathers, dumped into bedsits, have to work harder than ever for money to support their ex-wife, children and bedsit, yet without the involvement formerly felt essential in marriage (instead a fortnightly re-enactment of that closeness is promoted as sufficient, just for a sanctioned day or two.)

There is an extraordinary chapter about domestic violence, arguing that there is almost as much violence from women on men as in the other direction. Incredible if true (and it is heavily referenced,) the purpose of the argument is to oppose the feminist opinion, that men are inherently violent and untrustworthy, and have to change to be more feminine to be accepted.

The doziness of the last Conservative government is recorded, during which gender feminism progressed at full speed, so too the non-judgementalism of Family Law judges, and there is a fascinating criticism of court Welfare Officers, who appear to be anti-marriage.

Melanie Phillips has become a hate figure for the left wing establishment. She'd need to be invented if she didn't exist, probably because of the force of her arguments compared with the failure of theirs, but perhaps also that agitators need something to agitate against. I find her far sightedness most impressive. For example, read "All Must Have Prizes", published as long ago as 1996, a demolition of progressive education in Britain, particularly concerning teaching children to read. There seem to be documentaries and articles daily now that give detail of the success of Synthetic Phonics in teaching reading even to teenage children. Melanie Phillips was like a prophet about this, and I suspect "The Sex-Change Society" of being just as correct and prophetic.

This book issues a warning about the nationalisation of our child raising. The UK government offers every inducement to mothers to leave their children in child care dumps while they go out to work. At the same time feminism has demonised men in all walks of life. This book is a timely wakeup call.

I was interested in this book because of the favourable reviews of it. I did find it interesting but I also thought it a little long winded. The author's basic premise is that men have been emasculated by married women with children working and by the social acceptance of single parent families undermining marriage. She suggests by making divorce `no-fault' the government devalued the family. She seems to forget that permission to do something - i.e. divorce - is not compulsion to do it. She has quite obviously not been through a divorce herself otherwise she would not be suggesting anyone divorces because they were having a bad day. It is a traumatic experience whether or not you have children and is rarely undertaken lightly.

The author stops short of suggesting that married women with children should not work outside the home and men should not play any part in day to day child care but that it is the subtext of her argument. She states categorically that housework and childcare are demeaning to men and they should not undertake these chores or they will become feminised - which to me seems totally ridiculous. I am not sure how her argument squares with the male celebrity chefs we see on our television screens but presumably that is acceptable because cooking is creative and the chefs don't do their own washing up.

The author does make some good points about changing morals creating problems in society with children growing up in single parent families but to suggest that all single parent families produce problem children is a very broad generalisation; as is the assumption that all men are unwilling to divorce because it is more usually women who file the petition. She does not try and investigate the underlying reasons for this but heaps all the blame on women for the breakdown of all marriages. I would suggest she should at least have mentioned that it takes two to break up a marriage and that the petitioner may well not be the person at fault. Unless there are figures available to suggest with whom the `fault' lays she should not make the assumption. As with most authors who write about women and single parent families being at the heart of all social ills she fudges the issue of male single parent families and those who are single through the death of husband or wife.

Phillips is a shade disingenuous about the purpose of Child Benefit by suggesting it is paid only to mothers with the intention of undermining two parent families. Child Benefit - originally called Family Allowance and in existence for decades - has always been paid directly to the mother so that she could ensure the money was spent on the children. It dates back to the days when the two parent family was the norm and was meant to ensure the mother had money to spend on the children even if the father spent all his wages on himself. It was in existence in the 1950s to my certain knowledge and that decade could hardly be said to be one which saw the rise of feminism. Child Benefit is also paid to single fathers in any case.

The author's knowledge of the way the financial aspects of family breakdown were dealt with prior to the advent of the Child Support Agency (CSA) seems a little sketchy. She appears to be suggesting that fathers were never made to pay for the maintenance of their children prior to the CSA. This is not the case. Formerly maintenance of the divorced wife (or husband) was decided by the courts. Affiliation orders were also made in the case of children born outside wedlock, the question of paternity being decided on the basis of a blood test and on the balance of probabilities before DNA testing. There is a common law obligation on the father of any child to provide financial maintenance and always has been. What she failed to mention is that the rise of married women working has reduced the financial obligations of divorced husbands to maintain their former wives.

The author to a certain extent undermined her own argument by her emotive language. It is clear she is of the opinion that the only valid arrangement for a family is to have a stay at home mother and a breadwinner father. But to say that government policy favours a female breadwinner at the expense of a male breadwinner is difficult to understand. Government policy - to me - favours the family however that is made up. In any case now there are many female breadwinners and according to recent figures approximately 200,000 stay at home fathers who take on the day to day role of childcare and housework. To this author presumably they are emasculated and bad for society.

This book is well written but spoiled by the political rhetoric and the glossing over of inconvenient facts which would undermine her argument. Society is changing and to suggest that men can only play a part in society if they play the role of breadwinner in the traditional family is to my view to undermine and undervalue men. As is her assumption that men can only be made to behave properly if they are confined to the family. If I was a man I would be insulted by many of her arguments.