Women are from Venus, Men are from Mars Hill

I've just been catching up on the latest Internet and media storm around the relationship between men and women. Once again someone has come out and made some surprising comments on the vexed subject of the respective roles of men and women. But it strikes me that the concept of "complementarity" is very important here.

Paul Jewell, I suspect, has just said something off the cuff and amusing. A journalist remarked about the penalty decision that  Amy Fearne didn't give for Ipswich that the crowd "to a man" would have given the penalty. Mr Jewell's response was to remark that - to a man, yes - but to a woman, no.

Now it could be argued that Jewell was just using a convenient way of picking out the assistant referee. It could be pointed out that when he referred to "the lineswoman, or whatever she's called" he was struggling in exactly the same way as every other person involved in football in the country as they say "linesman", then remember it's an "assistant referee or whatever they're called". For myself i'd suggest to FA two alternatives - either take a leaf out of the Fire Service and refer to them as "line-runners", or follow the universal and gender-neutral term that is actually used  across the country, and call them "lino".

But I digress. The whole argument, as I say, ignores the concept of complementarity. There are roles that must be held in such a way that they complement each other - not that one is more important and the other lesser (although they are) but that society may function in an orderly way. I refer, of course, to the relationship between referee and lino.

In the beginning it was ordained that the referee is the head of the team of officials, while the lino is subject to the ref's authority. We do not allow the lino to be in authority over the ref, for the referee's decision, no matter how wrong, is final. And we do not know the secrets of the conversations that take place between ref and lino. For all we know it had been ordained by Robert Lewis, the referee at the game, that the linos were to make no decisions other than offsides and whose throw-in it was. Some refs do this, and they are within their rights - though we may disagree with their views. But it does ensure that everyone knows their place. And if that were the case, then the responsibility for the non-penalty was thoroughly with the ref. The linos (both of them, male and female) were mere adornments on the side of the pitch in this case.

Now I like to think the best, so I'm going to assume Paul Jewell wasn't being sexist. I'm going to choose to believe that, like Diane Abbott tweeting, he fires off his thoughts without them actually going through the "thought" process. I'd like to think if the lino had been in possession of a Y chromosome then Paul's response would have been "obvious to a man - but not that man." For if history has taught us one thing, it is that  football managers are bad losers no matter who the officials are.

Sorting out Movie Night

Once again the Beaker People have been getting a bit - well, a bit too masculine. I don't know whether it was the riots or the Libyan rebellion, but people have started talking about oppression, liberation and freedom.

And so it was that we came to the Monday Evening Film Club. And I've had to do some judicious switching.

Once they were all safely in the Room of Viewing, and with the doors locked to be on the safe side, they discovered that The Blues Brothers had been substituted for the evening. With Notting Hill. Instead of them all coming out ready to go to da joint in aid of a good cause, there wasn't a dry eye in the house. I reckon we've got a good five or six days of testosterone-free pebble-considering and tea lights before us, before we need to start taking the less gentle among us into account again.

Pope in his own Chapel

Drayton Parslow is starting to get on my nerves. No, check that. Drayton Parslow has always got on my nerves. But he's worse at the moment.

Having given up the Modern World on moral grounds has left him with so much spare time. I just met him wandering down School Lane, humming "We will overcome".

I've tried to accuse him of pride - told him that he just wants to be a famous ex-blogger, like Church Mouse or the mysteriously-productive Phil Ritchie. Then I turned it round, and told him that if you want to be a famous ex-blogger you need to be a famous blogger in the first place. But he smiled that sickening, beatific smile of his, and went off singing "O for a thousand tongues to sing".

I saw Marjory a bit later, knitting some potato peelings into a nice cardie, and she gave me the distinct impression of being a formidable woman who wants her creature comforts back. I don't think it's long before Drayton is back with us in the 21st Century. That's the thing with these people in believe in Male Headship. It's all very well doing that at Church. But it's never going to work in the Real World.

Male Archdruids

Once again I'm being nagged as to why there is a so-called "glass ceiling" for men in the Beaker Folk. Why, they ask me, is Hnaef merely Executive Arch-assistant to the Archdruid?

And in reply, I normally point out that it's not a glass ceiling. It's an 18th century original feature ceiling, with concrete reinforcement, a bodged Artex job, large authentic original oak rafters, a bit of mildew and a big sign saying "Beware of the low ceiling". Especially if you're a 6'2" assistant in walking boots.

But then I also point out that men are, as a whole, less sensitive, less emotionally attached, less empathetic. Less gentle. With no real sense for colour, or the appropriate use of scented tea lights. And a lot more needy - men spend all their time trying to ensure that their egos are stroked (if you're lucky). They break their legs and sustain other injuries playing football, and then when they hit 44 they have a mid-life crisis and dye their hair or spend all their time at work. Followed shortly afterwards by a heart attack and a gradual decline. Also, being on the whole big and lumpy, they've no grace. They go a bit flaky.

In short, they're the weaker sex. They don't provide the sort of stability we need round here. In a crisis, they're liable to go off collecting train numbers on the Marston Vale Line when they should be open to the hurt, suffering and needfulness around them.

And if you really want male leaders, you can join the Church of England. I believe they've loads of them.

Revenge of the Bogeyperson

A bit of a disaster for poor Gordon.  The Beaker Secularists have long been campaiging for the right to take assemblies, and finally somebody let him into one of the local infant schools.  His basic message, "God doesn't exist so be good - although nothing will happen either way" seemed to go over the heads of the little ones. So he expanded his thesis by explaining that God doesn't exist, just like Santa doesn't.  Faced with 120 children crying their eyes out, and looking for a way to retrieve the situation, he told them that if they didn't believe that Santa doesn't exist, the Bogeyperson would get them.  To be fair to Gordon, at least they were quiet after that.  But several of the kids need counselling, and in some kind of fundamentalist reaction six have formed the Teeny Division of the Moon Gibbon worshippers.

Gender-inclusive language

I note with interest Clayboy's comments on the use of Gender-Inclusive Language.  My view regarding the Book of Common Prayer and its "Traditional" language successors, to which I presume he is generally referring, is simple.  When the context for masculine use is generally positive - "for us men and for our salvation..." - this would clearly refer to all people, the "man" being used in the sense that "anthropos" is.  On the other hand, when it is something more like "that he may turn from his wickedness" - clearly that is referring to a male.  This is the tradition in all the communities of the Beakers.

Male Archdruids

Now the vexed question of whether or not men can be archdruids has constantly raised its head.  Many people would think this is a step too far from our Beaker tradition - after 4,000 years of female archdruids, how could we take this radical step, cutting us off from the rest of Beakerdom, most of which has not even accepted male druids yet?
And yet the appointment of those male druids, controversial as it was at the time, has generally proved to be a success.  Hnaef and Drayton, despite their obvious flaws (being posh and being a scheming, plotting traitor respectively) have managed to avoid making a complete bodge of it.  Those who said that men couldn't do the job, being more suited to cutting wood, filling the car up with petrol, growing nose hair and banging the holes out of doilies, have had to think again.  OK, they've not changed their views but at least they thought about it.

Drayton, who seems to have a vested interest in the situation, has come up with a whole series of suggestions about how male archdruids could work.  If a male archdruid were ever created, and in a community other than Husborne Crawley - as I own the Great House and all land pertaining to it.

One suggestion that is clearly completely unworkable is that such an archdruid should be on a level with any other archdruid, able to set their own policies on tea lights, chanting and howling at the moon.  They should even be entitled to attend the Archdruidical Synods held annually (in the Seychelles this year, as it happens) just as if they were real female archdruids.  Well, it's not going to happen is it?

Another idea that I found quite workable was that, as a controlled experiment, a Beaker community could have a male 'archdruid'.  We would distinguish the role in written communications by always putting the word in inverted commas.  When speaking we could make that little gesture where you put speech marks up around your head as you say the word.  This would in no way detract  from the dignity of the role, but make it clear that they weren't real archdruids without inverted commas.

Finally, there is a proposal that would get round the problems that many female druids would have in reporting to a male 'archdruid'.  Put simply, we would be prepared to appoint male archdruids provided they would only have male druids reporting to them.  This would avoid the bizarre situation occurring where female archdruids had to resort to Alternative Druidical Arrangements (ADA) by reporting to a separate flying archdruid - or, as she's better know to the Archer Folk of Amesbury, Archdruid Ada.

All in all, I'm not sure we yet have all the answers.  I think the best thing we can do is appoint another committee to look into it, to report back in - what, say ten years?