A chara, - John Waters's brand of backlash "theorising" is liberally laced with local references and personal anecdotes, but in his Monday column, he invariably replicates the reactionary sentiments of the antifeminist doxosophers of 1980s US and UK fame. Now it appears that he wishes to abdicate responsibility for the agenda he has so carefully nurtured.
His innocent claims to be but a champion of the oppressed male ring somewhat hollow to those of us who have read his persistent and, frankly, ludicrous attempts to treat everything from the Catherine Nevin case to men's experiences of violence, the operation of the justice system and the "Exploring Masculinities" programme as evidence of a creeping and malevolent feminist conspiracy.
He has rubbished as ideological the work of social workers, psychologists, educationalists and of course feminist activists, while at the same time presenting his own as the face of common decency, unblemished by the stain of ideology. As he creates straw targets for his ire, he passes off his "femies under the bed" rhetoric as common sense - as if common sense itself is not socially constructed or is not susceptible to manipulation by conservative ideological forces.
I don't imagine that I am, or should ever care to be, one of the women that John Waters might "respect", but I know anti-feminism when I read it. One doesn't have to be an expert in media deconstruction or discourse analysis to interpret the unsubtle sub-text of his column of December 18th. Mr Waters is aggrieved that Nuala O'Faolain has accused him of using feminism as a "curse word", yet he juxtaposes "feminists" and "feminism" with words such as "sly", "trick" and "dishonesty". He portrays men as victimised, vulnerable or even helpless, while feminists are caricatured as canny deceivers.
With his snide reference to "feminists with no children", he evokes traditional myths of childless women whose menacing and meddlesome ways undermine stable relationships between women and men. Most tellingly, he suggests that such women (as myself!) have no right to comment on matters of which we have no immediate experience - a bizarre position for a self-styled crusader such as Mr Waters. What we "childless feminists" are expressing, through our words and activism, is a capacity for solidarity, a willingness to transcend narrow self-interest and to imagine a collective good. What is the alternative? Is it to revert into solipsistic selfishness and deny our responsibility to speak out against injustice whenever we see it? - Is mise,
Rosie R. Meade, Department of Applied Social Studies, University College Cork.