Second opinion

WOMEN are the weaker sex, but they are getting stronger, or at least more vio- lent, by the day. Strength and violence are not necessarily identical, of course, but let us not quibble over mere termi- nology. Arguments about words are the last resort of the pedant, and the phe- nomenon is real enough. The fact is that behaviour is like money: bad drives out good.

It is astonishing how quickly things can change, especially for the worse. Only a few years ago, the children of Indian immigrants used to be markedly superior to the offspring of natives, both in intelligence and demeanour. Now they are beginning to join the English underclass in their dress, man- ner and habits, and therefore have suf- fered a marked diminution in their average IQ. Why anyone should wish to join the English underclass defeats me but, in the words of a famous author, I am a camera. I record, I do not explain.

I am encountering more violent women than ever before as well. I can tell them in advance by their fag- pinched, Valium-pale faces, in which their glittery, hate-inflamed eyes stand out like a beer can in a gutter on a moonlit night.

Violence begets violence, except when it begets a resolution not to be violent, and most of the violent women who con- sult me have been victims as well as per- petrators.

A woman with tobacco-induced anorexia, dressed in a green anorak and mauve leggings, consulted me because of a difficult psychological problem. `Doctor, if I don't cry, I want to smash the house up.'

Sometimes, alas, the tears won't come, so the furniture and crockery have to go.

She hadn't been the same since the caretaker of her flats and his family had beaten her up five years ago.

`Why did they do that?'

`Cause my daughter's a half-caste, and they said they didn't want none like her around here.'

`Were you injured?'

`Yes, I was the one what ended up with a broken cheekbone, but the law said I was the one to blame.'

`And the father of your daughter?'

`No contact since she was eight months. He was an arrogant black bas- tard, used to beat me up and take my money. I left him when I discovered he was three-timing me.'

`Why did you have a child by him?'

`I caught with her on the pill.'

I asked about her relations with her daughter. Were they good?

`No, ever since they called her a half- caste bastard at school and said she should have been drowned at birth. I found her putting Nivea cream on her face so she could be white, but she blamed me. She called me a slag and I hit her, so she called her stepdad, who always called me a mongol and a spastic because I couldn't have no more kids when they left the afterbirth in me for six weeks after my daughter was born, and the pair of them beat me up. Gave me a good kicking. In the end she had a child for him.'

Had there been other incidents of vio- lence in her life?

`I got beat up by a lot of black girls.' 'Why?'

`I was gobbing in the street.'

`What happened?'

`Well, I hit this girl and it was taken to court for GBH.'

Any other violence?

`My friend raped me twice, the police said I was lying, then his girlfriend beat me up.'

Did she take drugs?

`Only weed and solids.'

`What are solids?'

`Black.'

My next patient was another violent woman. She was ruining her relationship with her son's current stepfather by throwing hot irons and boiling water at him.

How about her son's previous step- father?

`We split up. We had irrecontrievable differences.'

Theodore Dalrymple

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