IN 2018, THE University of Oxford ran an essay competition that asked, ‘Are Men (Still) Beasts?’ Students were prompted to respond to an early twentieth-century essay, ‘Aren’t Men Beasts’, by feminist author Rebecca West. They were also asked, in the context of #MeToo, whether woman had become too censorious, imposing her own ‘restrictive conventions’ on the ‘natural’ tendencies of man and thus unfairly demonising him.

My reaction to these questions was visceral. I recoiled like a sea creature into its shell; I felt swallowed by an ocean. The natural tendencies of man?