Have you heard the latest? Some council, somewhere in Australia, is removing the wire fencing around council playgrounds just in case children playing there feel trapped and encaged! I would guess it would have only been a few years ago they insisted on putting up the self-same fences to keep vandals and other undesirables out! I really don’t know why I get so wound up about stories like this, after all it is just another case of lunatic political correctness that we have to put up with these days, but it does get me a little mad myself.
Another recent politically correct move is the drive to delete sexual references completely from university campuses, so any notices, posters, letters or signs can’t refer to ‘him’ or ‘her’, ‘he’ or ‘she’, etc. They apparently will only be able to use the words ‘them’ or ‘they’ or other suchlike non-sexual pronouns. The people insisting on this are supposed to be our most intelligent, clever, forward-thinking young individuals, the people who are going to lead us into our bright new future. God help us is all I can say!
Worse still, this silliness is taking root and growing everywhere, from its early start in feminism, when, amongst other things, a woman I knew at that time, insisted I should not call her ‘luv’ (you’ll notice the spelling, that’s important), because it was sexist. I tried to point out to her that the word, spelled as I’ve indicated, had nothing to do with sexual relationships nor did it indicate that I had fallen for her, in which case I might have used the spelling ‘love’ instead. It was, I tried to say, merely a friendly form of address to someone you might not know the name of or who was familiar to you and was (usually), a woman. It carried precisely the same sexual meaning as the term I use to speak to a bloke — ‘mate’! This doesn’t mean I want to have sex with him or give him my children, it was, and still is merely a friendly term of communication. You’d hardly find a person in England, male or female, who doesn’t use the term ‘luv’, but this politically correct lady was deeply offended. As I have said, it’s a great pity she and the other people like her, can’t grow up and find something more useful to occupy their minds.
I agree there are some rules created by these people that do have some worth, like cycle helmets and car seat belts, but the good ideas seem to be in a tiny minority when compared to the irritating and silly ones that bear little contact to reality. Like the student who, a recently demanded that any reference to men should be removed from the English language — she thought the words containing ‘man’ or ‘men’ was offensive to all women, wherever it was used and for whatever purpose, which naturally made me wonder what she would do with such words as ‘human’, ‘menstrual’, ‘manager’, ‘hymen’, or ‘manufacture’, to name but a very tiny proportion of words containing those three offensive letters!
The trouble, and the worry, as far as I am concerned, is why and how did these people get into a position where they can impose all this stupidity on us? There was a time, not so long ago, when Aussies (is that offensive to these people?), of either sex were bright, reliant, strong and cheerful; they were capable of handling almost any situation of their own and they never griped about it — in fact the Aussie personality was the envy of the world. For instance, English soldiers used to gulp at some of the things Australian soldiers were quite happy to say to their superior officers, should it be called for, but now there is a breed of ‘namby-pamby’ young people coming along, who couldn’t change a light bulb, let alone repair a car engine or help a cow give birth to a calf, but that are very quick to complain if things aren’t laid on for them, exactly as they require!
I’m afraid space does not permit me the luxury of delving deeper into this very interesting, if irritating subject, but thank goodness there are still youngsters in this country who do know the score and can look after themselves and others less fortunate than themselves — I pray nothing will happen to destroy that very necessary breed of individual!