I have been listening to Woman's Hour (A daily hour long show in the moring on BBC Radio 4 in the UK on "women's issues") for a couple of weeks now to try and get a better feel for where mainstream feminists are coming from. It has been an interesting if also funny and exasperating experience. Funny in that regularly the lack of self awareness or out right sexism that is expressed is genuinely hilarious and that no one picks up on it or all effectively nod their heads in agreement that "yes women have it worst". Exasperating in that I often have to pause the show (I use iplayer) due to how genuinely jaw-droppingly naive, sexist or idiotic some of the comments or their positions are and I have wait a minute or two before I can continue.

As an example I am listening to a late night woman's hour episode on lust and there is an ex-sex worker (self described feminist) who now I think writes about sexuality. The whole show is how female lust is not regarded and is not catered and has some real points about sex education sucking but to be honest that goes for boys as well. The main drive though is that somehow female lust is specifically undervalued and no one cares about it. This ex-sex worker describes in the context of sex therapy that she was for many of her clients a sex therapist letting them express their lust which otherwise they could not. (please note woman's hour is generally very against sex work and often condemns it as men using women). She says that her feminism finally came through and made her re-evaluated what she was doing and she decided that it was women who's lust was being ignored. So men were coming to her with lust they couldn't express and were dissatisfied and this leads her to the conclusion that is was the partners of these men that were the ones really in need of assistance. And this led her to now being against her own sex work and she stopped it. There may well be a problem with women's lust not being expressed but if the evidence you are seeing is of men not being able to express their lust I struggle to imagine what kind of foot work you have to go through to think that women have it worse. This regular both gender's issue turned into worse for women thought is a staple of this kind of thought.

Through all of this and the dozens of other times my jaw has dropped at the lack of self awareness on the show I realised what the problem often is with these feminists.

They do not understand men, they don't seem to want to and they lack empathy for men. They have an in built presumption that whatever is happening to the sexes is worse for women. They can't ever set that aside, whatever issues they see come up for men surely women must have it worse. They often expressly state this, in their Addiction program one of them stated that women drink more as they have more to do in the home and men have less to think or worry about and that's why they aren't so addicted to alcohol. Because men don't express as much as women do and don't complain about their position in life these feminists think that men can't possibly have the issues on the same level or more so as if they were in that position they would start campaigns and shout to the high heavens so everyone knew how terrible it was. But men don't generally do that, we keep quiet, we keep our emotions to ourselves and the thing the world takes from this we don't feel as much, don't have as many issues and need less help/empathy/support. I kind of knew this before but to hear it so clearly expressed in what in the UK is regarded as a mainstream feminist program listened too by millions of women is very sad. Apart from regular use of bogus facts and myths we all know about the whole tone is one of women as an oppressed people suffering at the hands of men whether that be societally or individually rather than letting go of gender clinging to it as a source and reason for issues and problems to explain away far more complex issues.

The saddest thing is they can go from expressing and talking about a real problem affecting women and dealing with it in a sensible and reasonable way and then the next issue which they completely misrepresent and either blame on men or claim it is "soooo" much worse for women. They seem so stuck in a particular mindset they lose site of their goal of actually talking about and helping women rather than bashing and condemning/misrepresenting men. I do not expect a program for women to focus on men but to complain of objectification by men in one sentence and then basically express that it is fine for women to do in the next (which they do on so many issues) is horribly disingenuous and lacking in self-awareness.

There are many issues for both men and women in many areas some of which are affected by gender in different ways but this monopoly on victim-hood (not that we want victim-hood but to be understood that men are victims of many things) due to gender that is claimed sickens me. It leads to a lack of empathy and even trying to understand men and I think hurts anyone looking for real equality within society.

I just wanted to get this off my chest and see what you guys thought of this analysis and if there are similar shows etc in other countries that present this sort of message.