The Daily Dormouse. (aka Bike, est. 2007) Part 2934 by Angharad Copyright© 2016 Angharad

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This is a work of fiction any mention of real people, places or institutions is purely coincidental and does not imply that they are as suggested in the story.
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End of April and blizzards in Scotland, frosts and cold winds in the South means lots of plants and small animals will die and the church expects me to believe in some omniscient being? Yeah, right.

Driving to work I watched various hirundines—swallows, martins and swifts—searching for food. They feed on flying insects. When it’s cold insects don’t fly and the birds don’t eat. It’s ironic, they survive flying across the Sahara desert, then across the Mediterranean, the guns of thousands of trigger happy morons in France, Spain, Italy and Malta only to starve to death in England which is probably the most friendly nation on earth to wild animals, especially birds.

So many of them are declining according to the experts who measure the numbers, but something like forty per cent of wild birds have vanished in the last fifty years. Even things like house sparrows, which used to be so numerous are disappearing from areas where previously they were relatively common and tree sparrows are very scarce in most places these days. When I was a kid in Bristol, we used to have small flocks of starlings land on our lawn and they’d go all over the grass eating invertebrates. There’d often be twenty or thirty of them, now it’s about half a dozen if we see any at all.

I was preparing a lecture on the pressures on wildlife from human activities—agriculture, logging, mineral/oil extraction, industry, housing and hunting. The latter in the UK, is only an issue where they have grouse moors or pheasant shoots and game keepers exterminate anything they think may endanger their birds—which are going to be killed anyway—irony is lost on them.

The bottom line is that there are too many humans, despite the efforts of disease, famine and war to thin us out. We are populating the planet at an alarming rate and have very few predators, save other men and disease, so aren’t hunted to extinction, though disease does kill a fair few, frequently caused by poverty even in wealthy nations. The rich are getting richer and the poor, poorer the gulf widening faster than for decades.

The only real weapon we have is education. If people understand why things are happening they usually try to help, but how can you expect them to give up greed when it seems to be their raison d’être?

War seems to be another despoiler of habitats human and wildlife which follows on from the above. Wars are caused by lust for power or resources, the power includes that of religion as most wars are often nominally fought over it, or it’s used to justify the savagery which is really about power or resources; controlling people by their beliefs or superstitions or the resources in an area. We all despise what’s happening in the Middle East and can see the falsehood of the so called Islamic State, but Christianity did it for sixteen hundred years. What drove the British to form the largest empire ever seen—greed and religion, the only good thing being it was also amongst the leaders in the abolition of slavery—which ironically was driven by religion. Apparently, slavery is still in existence though it takes a different form to the blatant exploitation of whole races of people. These days it seems to be about exploitation by stealth especially of young women who are then forced into becoming sex workers. The only answer is education but some cultures are resistant to it.

The reality is, where women are allowed to control their own bodies birth rates fall but more children survive because their mothers have more time to care for them. Where women are educated, the above also happens but also the women become more productive in terms of growing food and helping to run things which is where we have cultural clashes. In strongly paternalistic cultures, women are controlled and actively suppressed, usually there is a strong religious element involved and feminists would suggest that it all springs from men feeling afraid of women’s sexuality and being unable to control it. As a woman, I don’t know if I entirely accept that argument but I suspect it’s at least partly true.

I think it’s also partly true that many men can’t control their own sexuality and libidos and blame women as ‘wanting it’, or ‘asking for it’ if they happen to be ‘provocatively dressed’. What does that mean? How can anyone justify attacking a woman because her clothes provoked them? But they seem to think they can and the courts, mainly run by male judges, support them, yet the whole concept is so ludicrous how can it happen?

I read in the press over the weekend that one university in Utah awards blame to the victims of rape—duh! I thought universities were places of education, learning and logic—except in Utah or possibly parts of India or Afghanistan.

Okay, I’ve sort of wandered off the point or have I? What has all this got to do with ecology and overpopulation? Lots, if we educate women they begin to assert themselves and have fewer children. They tend to be more caring for the land and its wild inhabitants so everybody benefits unless you live in Utah. Feminism and ecology go hand in hand because they benefit everything and I’m talking about the real feminists not the transphobic, radical man-hating lesbians who are like the female Taliban.

While this train was still rattling along the rails of my mind Diane knocked and entered. “Boss-lady, we have a situation.”

I blinked at her. “What does that mean?”

“Geraldine Greene is outside demanding to see you?”

“Who’s she when she’s at home?”

“Leader of the radical feminist group.”

Was this some form of déjà vu? “I didn’t know we had one.”

“Apparently we have.”

“What does she want with me?”

“She wants you to sack Debbie.”

“On what grounds?”

“She’s masquerading as a woman.”

“Is this Geraldine Greene crazy?”

“Shall I send her in?”

“I think some tea is called for; put Valium in mine and arsenic in hers.”

I wasn’t sure what to expect as Geraldine Greene entered my office and we shook hands, her grip was certainly firmer than mine and I didn’t know whether to squeeze harder of let go. I chose the latter.

“Did you know you have a man masquerading as a woman on your staff?”

“Do I?”

“Yes, Debbie Matthews he calls himself.”

“On what grounds do you make this claim?”

“This,” she shoved a rather discoloured fax into my hands. It had been sent by a sister group of bigots from Sussex University and revealed she was transgendered.

“We have policies in this university about the non-discrimination of students or staff on the grounds of their race, religion, sexuality, gender, disability and so on. As far as I am aware employing Ms Matthews complies with that policy.”

“But she’s a bloke?”

“She identifies as female and has had gender-confirming surgery—that’s good enough for me and for the university.”

Diane arrived with a tray of tea.

“You’ve met Debbie Matthews, how did you find her?” I asked Diane.

“She seemed very nice, keen to learn, supportive of her students, easy to work with...”

“You’re both traitors to your sex,” declaimed Ms Greene and knocked the cup of tea from Diane’s hand before storming out in high dudgeon.

“Are you okay?” I asked Diane who was shaking. I made her sit down and having determined she was unhurt, just shocked, I called security. Then I switched off the webcam which had been recording the whole event. I hadn’t expected a personal attack as happened and was recording it mainly to show Debbie what she was up against. I sat comforting Diane until the head of campus security arrived. Just what I needed.