Men can’t do anything right, and International Women’s Day proved it.

The New Zealand All Blacks marked the day by honouring women, only to be criticised for honouring the wrong kind of women.

The world’s most famous rugby team must have felt like they were doing a good thing when they used their official Twitter account to acknowledge the day.

But if the burly footballers were expecting bouquets for being tender-hearted, New Age, sensitive types – they were badly mistaken.

Like a man who has completely misjudged a woman’s mood (by which I mean every man who has ever lived) the All Blacks found themselves in the doghouse, wondering what on earth had just happened.

If women are a Sudoku puzzle, inside a cryptic crossword, surrounded by Rubix cubes, strapped to a jihadist who is screaming in a foreign language, then International Women’s Day is even more confusing.

The All Blacks’ tweet, accompanied by a photo of the players with their wives and daughters, went like this:

‘Forever grateful to all the women in our lives that allow us to play the game we love. Partners, mothers, daughters, doctors, physios, referees, administrators, and fans. Appreciate you every day.’

Nice, right?

No, it’s not nice you sexist, misogynistic, Neanderthal pig! What’s wrong with you?

The All Blacks were immediately crash-tackled by feminists furious that the tweet had failed to mention New Zealand’s female team, the Black Ferns.

‘Tone deaf!’ they screamed.

Former English rugby player Kate Merchant insisted that the All Blacks shout out to women on women’s day only served to illustrate why International Women’s Day was necessary.

‘Black Ferns are current world champions, yet this post chose to ignore their existence and instead thank the women who “allow” men to play. #dobetter,’ she tweeted.

Why is #InternationalWomensDay needed? ⬇️ this right here!
Black ferns are current world champions yet this post chose to ignore their exsistence and instead thank the women who ‘allow’ men to play. Also they used a player who has plead guilty to domestic abuse #dobetter https://t.co/TUzptCDH84

— Kat Merchant (@KatMerchant14) March 8, 2022

Of course, it’s possible that the All Blacks’ failure to mention the Black Ferns had nothing to do with toxic masculinity and everything to do with men wanting to appreciate the women actually in their lives.

But such a perspective provides no reason to claim you are being oppressed. And, in 2022, who are you if you are not being oppressed?

Indeed, when the theme of International Women’s Day 2022 is ‘break the bias’, you really must find some people to judge guilty of bias in order to be able to claim that you ‘broke’ something and so justified the day’s existence, not to mention your own part in it.

That the greatest example of bias against women in New Zealand is that a rugby team forgot to appreciate a scrum of women they didn’t know, while honouring the domesticity of women they did know, is proof of just how good women have it in the ‘Land of the Long White Karen’.

Women in Saudi Arabia would laugh at the whiny feminists screaming ‘misogyny’ over a tweet.

But on and on they screeched.

Some sarcastically complained that the All Blacks’ tribute ‘forgot to mention women in the kitchen’ and ‘read like an after-match speech from 30 years ago’.

Missing from the Woke sisterhood’s hissy fit was any allowance for the fact that not every woman wants to don footy boots, pack down in a scrum, and bash the living daylights out of other women while rushing an inflated pigskin across a white line.

Some women genuinely prefer to embrace traditional gender roles. And their families – including their husbands – genuinely appreciate it.

But caring for children, providing home-cooked meals, and providing nurture and support must be eschewed in order to encourage more women to find their true destiny as props, loose-heads, and hookers.

Predictably, the All Blacks immediately deleted the offending tweet and issued a grovelling apology; the kind of statement put out by hostages begging for mercy from tyrannical captors.

‘We are listening,’ they cried. ‘We didn’t get it right with our celebration of International Women’s Day and we apologise.’

We are listening. pic.twitter.com/CAE6EhVjFt

— All Blacks (@AllBlacks) March 10, 2022

The All Blacks went on to gush about how inspiring female players were to people right around the world, and how 2022 was a big year for women’s rugby because women would be playing rugby in lots of women’s rugby games inspiring women around the world, or something.

Proving that hell hath no fury like a woman unacknowledged on Twitter during International Women’s Day, the apology was met with ridicule.

They only apologised to limit the PR damage. They didn’t truly own their mistake. They always do this. They need to demonstrate real change, and with actions rather than words…

Hang on, that wasn’t women replying to the All Blacks tweet; that was my wife berating me last night for something she imagined six years ago. But I digress.

‘If Rugby is to be a major sport around the world our difference has to be our values and advocacy for all our communities in a leading and inclusive way. Go women’s rugby!’ wrote one woman.

Well actually Karen, no.

No one goes to an All Blacks game saying, ‘Gee I hope we see some values and a bit of on-field advocacy tonight.’

We go to the rugby to see men built like brick outhouses charge at each other with the force and ferocity of wild animals.

To expect these same men to be across the nauseating niceties and never-ending nuances of International Women’s Day is to expect the impossible.

For the first time in their lives the All Blacks would likely be thinking ‘we just can’t win’.

And they’d be right.

You can follow James on Twitter. You can order his new book Notes from Woketopia here.

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