The new sexism.

When I was at the London School of Economics in the early 1970's I formed with a number of friends the first Men's Consciousness Raising Group, it ran for a number of years meeting on a monthly basis. So the programme last night on BBC Two introduced by Kirsty Wark Blurred Lines: The New Battle of the Sexes was deeply depressing. What the internet has done is provide misogynistic men with an outlet for their hatred of women. The belief that all this had disappeared with the 'new men' can be seen an illusion. As Germaine Greer who wrote that seminal book The Female Eunuch (1970) said in an interview with Wark "men who see themselves as confused and subservient are very angry with women". In 1994 there was the launch of Loaded magazine. That took a so called laddish attitude to women. It was essentially misogynistic in tone and content. Moreover the Geek and Nerd culture cultivated this more explicitly. At Stirling University there was a recent outcry to the laddish sexist attitude to women at a 'sing along' on a local bus. The lyrics were clearly derogatory towards women.
From a psychoanalytic point of view this attitude reveals a deep split in the unconscious between the denigration and hatred of women and their idealization. The Madonna whore split. In addition there is the fear of women and their power over men when they were babies, this is very often not resolved and can be acted our as hatred in later life as adults. The father plays a key role in the development of his sons attitude to women, and influences his attitude to women more generally. We have a long way to go before there is any real equality between the sexes.