On yesterday's programme we featured an interview with Mary Kenny about feminism. It raised the question of where we draw the line regarding acceptable behaviour towards women, particularly after the recent sexual harassment scandals. Could it mean an end to flirting?
Brenda Power, columnist with the Irish Daily Mail, feels that there is a "generation gap" between older and younger women in terms of feminist thinking: "I think older women are inclined to confuse what you had to put up with and what you no longer have to put up with."
"I have absolutely no patience with men who say they don't know where the boundaries are anymore - they've always known. What they are now learning is how much they can no longer get away with."
Clare Fox from the Institute of Ideas, thinks that "we're in serious danger of losing all sense of perspective and trivialising very serious assaults, rape and sexual violence when we throw it in the same pot as everything from banter to catcalls and flirting that goes wrong."
"There's a serious danger that younger women in particular are being incited to see every interaction they have with the opposite sex through the prism of abuse and violence when that's not the case."
