Neil Lyndon

Neil Alexander Lyndon (born 1946) is a British journalist and writer. He is known for his book No More Sex War: The Failures of Feminism (Sinclair-Stevenson 1992), which he claims was "the world's first egalitarian, progressive, non-sexist critique of feminism in its own terms".^[1]

Early life

Born in 1946, Lyndon grew up in the Sussex Weald, a rural area.^[2] He attended Collyer's school, Horsham.^[3]

According to a newspaper article written by Lyndon, he became, in 1965, the first student from a comprehensive school to be awarded an unconditional place at Cambridge University. At university he took a job in a scrap yard and later in light engineering.^[4] Having flirted with communism as a teenager and having been a committed member of Campaign for Nuclear Disarmament, he rapidly became involved with radical left-wing politics at Cambridge. He took part in many demonstrations and sit-ins and after his graduation he co-founded of The Shilling Paper, a radical weekly.^[5] In 1969, he joined the editorial board of the underground paper The Black Dwarf.^[6] Years later, in 2007 he wrote in The Sunday Times of his shame at how he had "once toasted mass murderers, torturers and totalitarian despots", particularly as he had distant relatives in Czechoslovakia.^[7]

Career

Lyndon was a journalist in the 1980s, writing for the "Atticus" column in The Sunday Times, as well as for The Times, The Independent, the Evening Standard and others. He wrote columns, profiles and feature articles covering a wide variety of issues such as politics, sport, music and books^[8]

On gender issues

Lyndon first focused on gender issues in a 1990 essay for The Sunday Times Magazine entitled "Badmouthing". The 5,000-word piece argued that, in advertising, entertainment, the news media, family law, education and health research, "an atmosphere of intolerance surrounded men", blaming this intolerance on "the universal dominance of feminism".^[6] It later emerged that, according to an article published in a satirical magazine, female writers at The Times had allegedly made an unsuccessful attempt to have Lyndon's article censored, so the women instead wrote a derogatory article about Lyndon in the Sunday Times Magazine's "Style" section.^[9]

No More Sex War

The following year he wrote his book, No More Sex War: The Failures of Feminism,^[10] published in 1992, in which he expanded on these arguments.

Reception

The work received a large amount of attention in the media,^[11] some of it hostile and abusive, vilifying Lyndon.^[12]

Rather than addressing the issues and arguments raised by Lyndon, many critics instead chose to make verbal personal attacks. They suggested he was sexually inadequate, questioned the size of his penis, his masculinity, his ability to attract women and even the smell of his breath.^[12] Almost two decades later feminist writer Julie Burchill continued the verbal personal attack, suggesting he was a "sad-sack" and "the opposite of a man".^[13] According to Lyndon, in one review of books of the year, Helena Kennedy refused to even discuss the publication, simply instructing people not to buy it.^[12]

Impact

The book sold few copies and Lyndon's work in journalism dried up. In August 1992 he was declared bankrupt.^[14] Before the publication of No More Sex War, Lyndon's marriage had broken up and his wife had taken their child to Scotland where, according to Lyndon, she obtained an order of custody without Lyndon knowing the case was being heard.^[6] Also according to Lyndon, in the subsequent divorce, his media notoriety was used against him in court, and he lost all access to his son. He rebuilt his career in journalism during the 1990s, and was later reunited with his son, who lived with him in Scotland before going to university.^[7] Lyndon also claimed he was assaulted at Heathrow Airport because of his book.^[12] He claimed in 2000 that at Cambridge university, his alma mater, a president of Cambridge Union encouraged members to burn his writings, and that a university don told her students that she would like to see him shot.^[8]

Eight years after the controversy, Lyndon revisited some of the issues in his book and discussed his story. He highlighted the issues in relation to "the treatment of dissidents in what is supposed to be an open society". Whilst not comparing his plight to the coetaneous case of Salman Rushdie, he suggested it was "paradoxical that many of the people who defended Rushdie's right to write whatever he wanted should be so censorious and destructive about wanting to limit my freedom to do the same".^[12]

Personal life

Lyndon is married to Linda, they have two daughters and live in Fife, Scotland. Lyndon also has a son from a previous marriage.^[15][16]

Publications

• No More Sex War: The failures of feminism, by Neil Lyndon, 1992, Sinclair-Stevenson Ltd ISBN 978-1-85619-191-3
• A Boyhood in the Weald, by Neil Lyndon, 1998, Pomegranate Press ISBN 978-0-9519876-8-1

Lyndon has also co-written a musical, Hail to the Chief, now renamed "Men of Respect", about America between the inaugurations of John Kennedy and Richard Nixon.^[17]

References

See also

• Warren Farrell
• David Thomas