Letter: Men maligned

Sir: Oh, please. I thought we had left men-hating, bigoted, political correctness behind until I read Polly Clark's rant about the "`man-made violent, misogynistic and patriarchal society"' (Letters, 19 October).

Apart from the fact that our contemporary culture owes a lot to the attitudes of Baroness Thatcher, this "blame" culture goes nowhere. Should I as a man feel guilty about the alleged crimes my sex has committed? Should young Germans feel guilty about the Holocaust, or contemporary Americans about slavery? Does Polly Clark think that persecuting me because of an accident of birth is going to help?

The only "childish tabloid think" that I noticed was the creation of a unified enemy called "man" upon which personal failures and the ills of the world can be blamed - the sort of bogey-man the tabloids love.

Dr PHILIP ALLMENDINGER

Leeds Metropolitan University