We’re all armed to the teeth with indignation, put down your guns

Ihave to say, I agree with almost every word of Jo Martin’s Facebook post. The Lancashire mother of three took to social media in high dudgeon this week, after a doctor praised her husband for behaving “manfully”.

Billy Martin had taken their three-year-old daughter to a hospital appointment with paediatric surgeon Colin Baillie. Afterwards, Bailey wrote a follow-up letter in which he observed: “Unfortunately, her mum could not be at the clinic visit today as she was unwell and her father stepped in manfully.”

“It’s ridiculous. It’s terrible. It’s sexist,” wrote Jo Bailey, in a Facebook post that went viral. She is correct on two counts. It was indeed sexist for the doctor to presume that Jessica’s mother would be bringing her in, and ridiculous to heap praise on her father for doing so. The assumption that childcare is de facto women’s work, and that any man who lifts a finger to care for his own offspring is acting heroically (OED definition of “manful: “Brave and resolute, especially in a difficult situation”), is one of the most persistent irritants of modern parenthood.

Both sexes are often guilty of this unconscious bias, and both are demeaned by it. So the Martins are right to protest. The issue is, how. It’s easy to forget this, now that social media has put into everyone’s hands a gigantic sledgehammer with which to crack each other’s nuts, but not every problem needs to end in public outrage.

People sometimes give offence without meaning to, because they are inept, or old-fashioned, or unschooled in the rules of “woke” discourse. What the doctor said was gauche and annoying. But “terrible”? Worthy of a public shaming, and a formal apology from the hospital? Nobody died. Rather the reverse, in fact.

Both sides of the culture war now seem to operate in a state of permanent hyperbole. The Freedom Association – a Right-wing “libertarian” pressure group – had an attack of the vapours this week because of an advent calendar produced by Greggs the baker, which features a sausage roll lying in a manger. This image is “sick” and offensive to Christians, say the libertarians, who are, without irony, demanding a boycott. When free speech has friends like these, who needs enemies?

At Liverpool University, meanwhile, students have demanded that Gladstone’s name be removed from their hall of residence, because his family were slave owners. “We were horrified to find out we had been living in a building named after such a figure for a whole year without realising,” said one former resident. I am intrigued as to how she failed to spot his name in her address; or did the name of the four-time Liberal prime minister just fail to ring any bells?

But no matter, because her offendedness was swiftly outflanked by that of a spokesman for the Lib Dems, who spluttered with indignation at this “tokenistic” attack, and pointed out that we should all be grateful to Gladstone for laying the foundations of the welfare state.

Weaponising offence – whether it is to exact revenge, soothe your own hurt feelings or score a political point – might feel righteous in the moment. But it creates a society in which everyone is armed to the teeth with indignation. Soon we will be stuck in a permanent Mexican stand-off, all aiming our grievances at each other, and no one brave enough to put down the gun.