Sexism and science combine to prove definitively that women make the best firefighters

BREAKING NEWS: Men and women not from different planets!


Well, thank heavens that's settled. If only someone could have figured this one out sooner - in 1992, say! Or, perhaps, 500 BCE?

This whole idea of 'let's Accept Reality and Be Grown Up and Acknowledge Gender Differences (if we're allowed to by the OVERWHELMING ORTHODOXY OF PC FEMINIST THEORY, which obviously runs THE WHOLE WORLD) - Men Are Men and Women Are Women and we're not saying that one's better than the other but they are ACTUALLY DIFFERENT SPECIES' discourse is so dishonest. It presents itself as the brave commonsense tellin'-it-like-it-is-against-the-establishment view, when it is in fact The Voice of Hegemony. And it completely fails to think the idea of immutable gender differences to its logical conclusion.

A case study! My very favourite concept: the 'Bloke Look'. According to this (no doubt painstakingly researched) thesis, men are incapable of, well, looking for things.

"Have you seen my keys?"

"They're on the side, dear, where you left them."

"Oh, silly me! Well, I only had A Bloke Look..."

So let me, for one minute, take off my Extremely Annoyed At Sexist Stereotypes hat and ask: what if? What if men and women really are so different? If our behaviours, attitudes, and thought processes are so massively divergent that one's manly mannishness makes one worse at finding things? What do we do with that information?

Men would have to be banned from being firefighters, for a start.

Picture the scene. Your big burly Greek-god standard-issue Chippendale fantasy figure strides manfully out of a burning bungalow, muscles rippling mannishly and sweat dripping off his choice chiselled cheekbone. He clasps your darling puppy under one arm, while an iddy biddy kitten peeks out of his top pocket.

"My hero!", you sigh breathily. "You've saved Whiskers! And Fido, deartest darling Fido, you're alive!"

Something's missing, however. Something's wrong.

"But... Mr Fireman, did you not save my baby? He was in his cot, right by the dog basket, did you not see him?"

His face falls.

"Whoops."

He's done it again.

"Sorry."

But who can blame this poor fellow? It's not his fault. It's science.

"I only had a bloke look."

...

It's this kind of taking-things-to-their-logical-conclusion-and-then-a-bit-further which means that it's very lucky I'm not religious, or I'd probably end up fire-bombing sea food restaurants and taking pot shots at people exiting Specsavers.