Martin Amis tells Borris House festival audience he wants women to ‘rule the world’

"I'm a gynocrat. I want women to rule the world," Martin Amis told a capacity audience on Saturday at the Borris House Festival of Writing and Ideas in Co Carlow.

The British novelist was being interviewed by arts journalist Sinéad Gleeson. The discussion covered topics including his views on women, the late Margaret Thatcher and Islam.

“There have been 40 women heads of state, around that now,” Amis said, “and the trouble is women politicians will have to grow out of plagiarising men’s posturing. They feel they have to be tougher than men, otherwise they won’t be taken seriously. But I want a woman leader who will include her feminine qualities, which we all know are more ameliorative, more gentle and inclusive than men.”

'Feminine' Merkel
Amis singled out German chancellor Angela Merkel, whom he had briefly met once, "as one who hasn't foresworn her feminine qualities. She's a good indication of what might yet transpire."

Asked about the late Margaret Thatcher as a leader, he focused not on her political legacy but on her sexuality. "I always thought she was completely asexual. I think she appeals to a certain English weakness for the nanny who is going to bloody well spank you and teach you a lesson, and it appeals to some men, that dominatrix side. I said this to Christopher Hitchens, who had met her a few times in the House of Commons bar, and he said, 'Oh, she stinks of sex'."

Hitchens, Amis said, was ordered to “lean over” by Thatcher on one occasion in the House of Commons bar. She then “rolled up her position papers and smacked him on the bottom”.

On the subject of Islam, Amis said: “The phase we are in now is one in which more or less anything could happen.”

Referencing to recent attacks in Boston and Woolwich, he spoke of how, in his opinion, some Muslim people who were unsure of their roots sometimes became “full of hatred” of a “society whose values repel. And then you decide to do what people these days often decide to do: a great flurry of violence is your route through it.

“You go online and get a few Islamic slogans about their grievances and that’s what you yell out as you do it – that’s what differentiates it from a school killing in America.”

The two-day festival of innovative pairings is now in its second year. Some 2,100 people turned up to picnic on the bucolic lawns of Borris House in the sunshine. Apart from Amis, the big draw of the weekend was novelist Anne Enright’s interview with musician PJ Harvey, with more than 1,000 people seeking one of the 200 tickets for this event.