We live in circumstances which not only restrict our freedom but physically threaten us if we step out of line: in this culture, the penalty for bein… - Joan Smith

The book review lined up to appear in next weekend's Sunday Times seemed to be, in all respects, suitable stuff for the pages of a quality paper. The reviewer: Nigella Lawson, whose copy had been ordered and delivered. The book: an interesting polemical work (Faber & Faber, £9.99), due out on Monday. The author: Joan Smith, a former Sunday Times journalist and, now, coming writer and novelist. So far, so good. Enter Andrew Neil, the editor, whose principled line on the suppression of information and the duty of a free press to publish first, argue afterwards has been ringing around the High Court recently. His foot came down no less firmly at the mid-week editorial conference. That woman’s book was not, repeat not, going to see the light of day in his newspaper. Quail, quail. An interesting example, you might think, of male power exercised over women and their works. By the way, what is Ms Smith's book called? Misogynies, as it happens.

[During the 1981 trial of Peter Sutcliffe, commonly known as the Yorkshire Ripper.] I remember having terrible nightmares during the trial, feeling that the police were misunderstanding things badly because they insisted that Sutcliffe had a moral stand. To me it was clear his crimes expressed a simple, virulent loathing of the female which did not need fancy explanations like those arrived at by the police. The thing is that most people in the book are not what ordinary people would describe as outcasts; they are ordinary men. That was why it was important to end up with the Ripper. Because what is important about him is that he is not different; it's only a question of degree.
I don't go along with the idea that all men are rapists or that they are the product of Original Sin, rather that we have a culture which supports and encourages misogyny and what we have to face is that a sizeable number of men hold very strange and perverted views about women.

The last week has been a lesson in the difference between theory and practice. For several years now some feminists have tried to point out the risks posed by unquestioningly accepting claims about gender identity. When we pointed out that self-identification is unverifiable, and open to exploitation by sexual predators, we were shouted down and accused of transphobia. When we argued that vulnerable women prisoners should not have to share intimate spaces with men convicted of sex offences, we were told to think of the feelings of trans prisoners.