Saving men
Feminism is destroying masculinity, according to Kathleen Parker. That’s probably why men often ask, in nervous tones, during intense conversations, if I might be a feminist myself. I’m not, particularly. My unusual strain of thinking comes from having been raised without any gender stereotypes or the assumption that not having a penis means that I’m inhibited from doing anything beyond peeing standing up. Oddly, I got on better with boys than girls growing up, and although my relationships with them – in the romantic sense – have been rather poor, when it comes to some crunch, some crisis, where I need to open my heart to somebody, I always seem to pick male friends over female. My absence from this blog, for example, has been due to a family crisis. The first person I approached for support was male, not female.
150 years ago women were the property of the nearest male relative, if not their husband. Then, we needed to right wrongs and alleviate injustice. Masculinity based on the idea that women are fundamentally inferior and should be men’s slaves, giving up their intellectual freedoms so men can have theirs isn’t right. But neither is crushing men beneath the heel of the perfect Christian Louboutin shoe. The tables have turned and indeed, men everywhere seem like limp shells. They don’t know whether they can hold the door open for you, if paying for meals is acceptable, and whether once you’re married and have kids, you won’t scarper with the lot, not just the children but their entire lives.
Women have now laid claim to a power of which they never had the right before. In divorce, they can now take 90% of their husband’s wealth, the children, levy accusations of abuse, destroy businesses and livelihoods. I find it difficult to support the right of housewives to lay claim to that much of their husband’s fortunes. In the 1970s feminists complained that housewife wasn’t recognised as a job. Now it is apparently the majority of what is contributed to the couple – you’d think from some cases that the husband’s business acumen had nothing to do with their achievement and wealth – it was all down to the fact that the wife stayed home to nurse the kids.
Masculinity doesn’t have to be built on the idea that women are inferior. It applies to any individual – if you need to build yourself up by crushing somebody else, there’s something seriously wrong with you. At the same time, feminism has fallen into the same trap. Men are crushed, made to feel worthless, used and abused, and vilified simply because they are men and strong. Of course, they do like to vilify strong women for putting them there. Feminism did a heck of a lot for women and it was needed. I feel this myself because I’d have made a truly dreadful housewife, and I pity the poor fool of a man who’d have had to put up with my cooking and (lack of) cleaning for much of his life. Without the ability to fulfil the only acceptable role for a woman in the society of a hundred or so years ago, I’d have to hope I was born wealthy enough to sidestep all those prejudices and live independently.
It would be good to see the sexes get along. I’ve never liked the routine men-bashing that attends relationship break-ups. They’re always so hypocritical: men are bastards, we don’t need them – but damnit girl you’d better get out there and find yourself another one or you’ll have to face the dreaded prospect of being single. Women are still recovering themselves and at the same time as our self-esteem has not quite left the days of being chattels and physical property, we cover for it by crushing men into the dirt. We are doing to them what they did to us. But that doesn’t make it right.
In the end though, men should find something to rejoice in feminism: they need no longer charm and woo women only to marry them and find that the only thing they can cook without creating something that resembles the aftermath of a nuclear holocaust is strawberry trifle. Those of us who are as about as useful in a kitchen as Jamie Oliver’s lisp can now turn ourselves to places where our talents are better expressed.
