In the early 1990s, an underground organisation was launched called the Barbie Liberation Movement (BLM). Its mission statement was a ‘commitment to challenging malign systems’, by which it meant the patriarchy.

The BLM was inspired by a talking Barbie doll, launched in 1992, who had 270 platitudes, one of which was ‘math class is tough’. Outraged feminist groups forced Mattel Inc, the makers of Barbie, to remove what they described as a sexist slur.

Now, though, may be the hour for the Barbie Liberation Movement to reform and once more fight the patriarchy. This time, however, the patriarchy is different. It no longer consists of ageing white men with their outdated views that science and maths are subjects best left to boys; it’s Islamists, whose view on women make the men of Mattel in the early 1990s seem positively progressive.

The Islamists haven’t mellowed since 2016. Quite the opposite

Last week, an Islamist mob forced the mayor of Noisy-le-Sec, a Parisian suburb run by the Communists, to cancel a screening of Barbie, the Hollywood blockbuster starring Margot Robbie and Ryan Gosling. They liked neither the feminist nor the homosexual elements in the film and threatened the mayor that there would be trouble if the open-air screening went ahead.

The mayor succumbed to the threats, provoking an angry backlash among France’s political class. Aurore Bergé, the minister for gender equality, said it was more than just a thuggish threat from a group of young men: it was an attempt by Islamists to ‘infiltrate’ society and impose their values at the expense of the........

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