Big Game Hunting.
Thanks, Bryan 48nav (#41), for springing to my defence. Yet I would not plead in aid my grey hairs.
Rotate Too Late (#42), has put his finger on the 'root of the matter'(Churchill's phrase), IMHO:
..."MAYBE somebody saying the uncomfortable elephant in the room type point should be regarded with more respect"...
It is not the only "Elephant" (aka "Sacred Cow") from which we sedulously avert our gaze. The prize specimen is the "Free at the point of Delivery" mantra of the NHS. Setting aside the fact that: "there is no such thing as a "free lunch"
(someone always has to pay):
When Aneuran Bevan set up the NHS in 1948 this was a noble aspiration indeed. It was thought that the health of the nation would so improve that the demand for NHS services would diminsh. As we know, the exact opposite has taken place, to the extent that all the revenues of the land could be devoted to the NHS - and it would still be underfunded - because the demand for its services is (potentially) infinite. The NHS, as at present constituted, is a bottomless pit.
The only way to "square this circle" is to take an axe to the Sacred Cow. "When I were a lad", a visit to the Doctor cost 5/-. If he came out to you, it was 7/6. The system worked only because the doctors "tempered the wind to the shorn lamb", those patients well able to pay subsidising those who couldn't. My father had a serious abdominal operation. "Mr "X" does one of these for 100 guineas" , said the Ward Sister, "and then he does three more for nothing"....
5/- then amounted to three hour's work by a man on average wage. A comparable sum today would be £40. I do not suggest a draconian figure anything like that - but surely, excluding those living on benefits, nobody should object to (say) £10. At one bound, the NHS would be solvent - and there would be a marked reduction in the attendances at surgeries and A&Es.
All this is widely off-topic and off-Thread. But if we slay one Sacred Cow, how about the one at the heart of our discussion ? Men and women are different (vive la différence !) There are some things men are better at (hand-to-hand combat against another man for a start). Women are supremely better at giving birth. It just is so. Accept it.
Danny.