This is a book which didn't need to be written and doesn't need to be read, and that is all the more galling considering the need for new thinking on men's and women's roles. In less-than-energetic prose, Guardian columnist Rosalind Coward argues that most of the aims of feminism have been achieved, and that men are now "in the same critical position occupied by men 20 years previously when feminism erupted as the voice of their disaffection." There have been huge advances for women, of course, but it is ludicrous to suggest that 20 years could change millennia of conditioning - I mean, I felt the cold breath of Queen Victoria in Booterstown in the 1960s, because of my grandparents' influence on my parents. That men are in a bad way, however, there is no doubt. Coward tells the story we know well by now - how male suicide is spiralling out of control, how the majority of the long-term unemployed are male, how often men suffer from violence, how boys are being consistently outperformed by girls at school. She delivers the one worthwhile message of the book when she points at women's "triumphalism" - at this last set of statistics, particularly: "I love the fact that young women are more relaxed and take for granted that they are better than boys," says Anna Coote, director of the Institute of Public Policy Research. I recognise this triumphalism because I have felt it myself - no doubt the legacy of having gone to a co-ed school where girls were definitely expected to be that little bit soft-in-the-brain - and it is uncharitable, unhelpful, even dangerous.
Coward admits, however, that the aims of feminism which related to work were largely delivered by changes in the employment economy. As the need for physical strength receded and flexible employees not averse to flexible hours and contracts were suddenly needed, women became, says Coward, "the prototype employee for global capitalism". The book is limited by the fact that Coward herself doesn't seem to be able to look beyond bald employment statistics - what does it do to women that men are in most of the symbolic positions of authority, in the main churches and in Government, for instance? And she doesn't tackle the crippling limitations of the advances which global capitalism have delivered. If there's one thing that global capitalism is far from interested in, it's motherhood - unless it's flogging you "Club Class" baby car-seats or brown goo chirpily labelled "spare ribs for baby". When it comes to employment, it is their role as mothers which mostly differentiates women from men, and is probably the reason that, as Coward writes, only a quarter to a third of women want careers and most find the option of part-time work attractive.
IT'S true that, as Coward writes, 30 years ago feminism didn't focus enough on women's role as mothers because that role had constituted their whole identity for too long. But while women have managed very well to work like men, their different needs as mothers are overlooked to a large extent. Yes, those needs are different from those of fathers - in Ireland, for instance, a woman may find herself returning to work 10 weeks after her baby is born, or at least two months before she should ideally be weaning the child off the breast. In some other European countries, the possibility of opting out of the workforce for a year or even three years is there, but not here and not in the UK.
What we need to do, surely, is lift our vision up from the productivity of men and women towards a society which safeguards those who cannot safeguard themselves - children, of course, but also old people and the disabled. The construction of the identity of adult men must be the work of men themselves - within the context of women's love and support, of course. It is as mothers, however, that women have the potential to do their best work towards the security of both men and women. Now, Rosalind Coward, how can you possibly say that feminism is finished?
Victoria White is the Arts Editior of The Irish Times