Men are wonderfully rational. They can find 1,001 reasons why the status quo stinks, but their rationality perpetually positions them on the wrong side of action.

Riding along in Emma West’s tram was probably at least one white man who felt similarly irritated and may have even suffered the same sort of provocation that perhaps sent Ms. West on her tirade. But at the last moment, reason’s placating tones kicked in: “I’ll get off in a couple of stops” or “There’s at least six of them—they’ll kill me” or, more pathetically, “I bloody well will say something in the Daily Mail comment box next time.” Heck, the dude might even have made up his mind to send money to the now-ineffective BNP to help pay off Nick Griffin’s legal debts.

No, to get things rolling you need the volatile chicks. The women can’t do it on their own, but once they flare up, men have a chance of losing that little bit of reason that prevents them from acting. 

Female rage spearheaded Britain’s first and proportionally bloodiest revolution in 61 AD. Faced by the militarily hyper-efficient Roman legions, British men made the common-sense decision to let the Romans get on with their road-building, taxation, and emperor worship. The male Britons preferred to live the quiet life, watching whatever their version of Sky Sports was. Prasutagus, leader of the Iceni, even made the eminently sensible decision to curry favor with the new overlords by leaving them a half share in his kingdom when he died. 

Even when the Romans confiscated the whole lot, the British men simply combed their long beards and polished their belt buckles. Pissed-off but still eminently rational, they stared off into the distance, perhaps to a remote future when anger could be harmlessly expressed on the Internet.

Things only got rolling when Prasutagus’s widow, the fearless and possibly menopausal Boadicea, gave the Roman oppressors an earload of the ancient British equivalent of “D’y’know what? Sort out your own countries. Don’t come and do mine. Britain is nothing now. Britain is fuck all. My Britain is fuck all now. Britain is fuck all. My Britain is fuck all!”

As they did with Emma West, those in power responded fiercely. They flogged Boadicea and raped her daughters, but this outrage suspended male rationality long enough for the revolution to commence.