Rick's January Tirade
What's Left for Men?
Men are in trouble. The signs are subtle, like an afternoon sun
sliding almost imperceptibly toward the western horizon. But signs
are signs, and the sun seems to be hanging a little lower in the sky
for men these days. Our generation is witnessing the slow descent of
the bearded ones, those bold and brawny toolmakers who wear their
reproductive organs on the outside and never stop to ask for
directions.
I've long suspected that all was not well in the fraternity of
men. What finally convinced me was the release of three separate
studies that reveal just how disadvantaged a minority we've become.
One report discloses that women now significantly outnumber men
at U.S. institutions of higher learning. Despite marginally higher
standardized test scores, men have been shying away from academia
like vampires from sun-lamps. It might be true that union
bricklayers earn more than teachers and White House interns, but
bricklayers don't influence the course of society or read Salon
magazine. These practical young men are selecting themselves out of
our culture.
Male liberal arts students are scarcer today than honest
politicians. Women will be carrying the torch of learning into the
new millennium, much like the medieval monks who copied the works of
Plato and Aristotle while the rest of us burned peat to warm our
huts and backsides. Just as important, women will be deciding whose
work is worthy of perpetuation. I think it's safe to predict that,
given the current biases of our scholars, future generations will be
reading more Toni Morrison and less Jonathan Swift.
The second report — a study of work habits — shows that women
are more inclined than men to toil steadily over long stretches of
time. Men, by contrast, expend their energy in short bursts and need
regular breaks to recover their senses.
What this study suggests, of course, is that women are better
adapted to the modern corporate environment, where a cheerful
acceptance of monotony and long hours significantly boosts one's
survival odds. As a grudging participant in corporate life myself,
I've noticed that women seem to fit the mold more readily than men.
They're relentlessly organized, always pointing to the facts in
their little portable planners. Unlike most men, they're willing to
accept the realities of the tribal hierarchy; they don't fume
excessively and curse their stars for being mere middle managers.
They're neat and hygienic. They communicate effectively, especially
when they want something. They leverage their superior social skills
by forming alliances with people who can yank them up the ladder.
They're nimble, efficient and maddeningly productive. And, of
course, they're able to tolerate nine or ten hours of the most
stultifying work, day after day, and make it seem like so much
needlepoint. A woman's true place is in the office.
The third study compares men's and women's physiological
responses to shopping, and (no surprise here) finds that men's blood
pressure is more likely than women's to shoot skyward during the hot
pursuit of merchandise.
The significance of this finding is twofold: that men are more
sensitive to stress, and that one man's stress is a woman's reason
for living. Shopping excursions, typing, two-hour phone
conversations, church socials, obligatory visits with neighbors and
in-laws, catered parties and even, for God's sake, WEDDINGS — you
name it, women revel in it. Not only do these activities NOT raise
their blood pressure, they probably send a euphoric wave of
endorphins coursing through their lithe bodies. For men, such
activities only serve to hasten death.
Let's look beyond the trio of studies for further evidence that
men are an endangered sex:
- The traditional male role of breadwinner is already a lost
legacy as women close the pay gap and exhibit an alarming
fanaticism for work.
- Women no longer require the brute strength of males for
protection against large carnivorous mammals and club-wielding
foes; they simply need to pack a semi-automatic.
- Despite several documented cases of men outliving women, males
in general are statistically more likely to perish from
virtually every affliction known to our species — including
suicide, overwork and driving into telephone poles.
- Men are chronically overrepresented among the ranks of idiots
and psychopaths. Whenever you hear about a serial killer who
stashes body parts in a basement freezer, you can reasonably
assume the perpetrator is a lifter of toilet seats.
- Male politicians are a public disgrace, leaving the door open
for any female candidate with a halo and wings.
- Male clergymen, once the spiritual leaders of our communities,
have shown a lamentable penchant for dallying with choirboys and
loose women. By contrast, female clergy tend to project an
admirably sexless aura.
- What few remnants of moral authority men haven't squandered
through their own stupid behavior, hard-line feminists have
stripped away during their equally stupid thirty-year assault on
"phallocentric" institutions like sex and grammar.
- Men have been forced to give up their exclusive colleges and
clubs, including Yale, Princeton and the United States Marines.
- Viagra has robbed male sexual performance of its macho
bravado; any retired male librarian can achieve the same effect
now by popping a pill.
- New Age culture is essentially a celebration of passive,
spiritual, non-invasive, quiescently vegetarian (i.e.,
anti-male) values. No arterially clogged beefeaters need apply.
Men must wear sandals and smell of incense at all times.
- Political Correctness has served primarily to curb the natural
male impulse to accost attractive women and mock the
unfortunate. Where will men find their merriment now?
- The so-called Men's Movement was an abortive comedy:
clandestine pow-wows in the woods, participants wearing antlers
and beating drums, and the ghastly sound of grown men sobbing
over their lost Cub Scout uniforms.
- The widespread use of artificial insemination has reduced the
need for biological specimens of manhood in the population,
other than an occasional shirtless gardener or movie stud to
whet a woman's fancy. The rest of us could be culled like young
roosters. As a wise cynic once said, men have planted the seed
of their own obsolescence.
What's left for men, then? The golden orb is descending ever
lower in the sky, taking on the bloody hue of sunset. Men have been
deconstructed, devalued and debunked. We've been toppled from our
venerable position of provider/protector/inseminator. Sisterhood
outsells brotherhood in the bookstores and magazine stands. Rude
jokes about male members are mouthed by sarcastic actresses on
evening sitcoms. Where will it end? The former tribe of
spear-carriers and master-builders appears to be headed for a
prolonged and depressing eclipse, if not outright obsolescence.
Granted, men will continue to dominate selected fields of
endeavor; the lumber business, strip-mining and metallurgical
engineering seem safe for the moment, as do the Mafia and model
railroad clubs. Women will always require the services of men to
move furniture and extract dead rodents from roof-gutters. No woman
will ever whack seventy homers in a season against major league
pitching — unless the pitchers are women.
But aside from performing prodigious physical labors with our
rippling muscles, what can we men do to reverse our sickly decline
into a second-rate sex? We can take pride in our past, for one.
Look upon the achievements of our fathers, O ye men, and rejoice!
It was men — yes, my friends, MEN — who built such memorable
monuments as the Step-Pyramid of King Djoser, the Baths of Caracalla,
the Woolworth Building and the first Wal-Mart. MEN composed
Pachelbel's Canon and all of Beethoven's string quartets. It was a
MAN who penned the immortal lines, "Hail to thee blithe spirit,
Bird thou never wert!" MEN wrote the popular songs "Massa's
in de Cold, Cold Ground" and "Yes, We Have No
Bananas." A MAN invented the lightning rod, bifocals and the
Franklin stove. The Battle of Hastings was fought primarily by MEN.
And look at the great names we've bequeathed to civilization —
names like Samuel Gompers, Rutherford B. Hayes, Pericles, Enrico
Fermi, Canute the Dane, Calvin Coolidge and Kenesaw Mountain Landis.
All of them MEN.
MEN have discovered and named many fine places, like Hispaniola
and the Bay of Fundy. We're more proficient than women at
arm-wrestling, fresco-painting, ice hockey and particle physics. We
make better cabinets, sun decks and booster rockets. We know how to
read a map. In the movies, most Westerns and martial arts films
would be poorer without our presence.
We may die younger, on average, but we tend to enjoy ourselves
with greater gusto during the heady years that count — driving
fast, chugging beer by the six-pack and dropping water balloons onto
unsuspecting pedestrians. This is life as it was meant to be
lived... the good life as delineated by Socrates, Epicurus and the
other great moral philosophers — most of whom were MEN, by the
way.
So let's renew our male mission and wear our antlers high on our
heads. Let's stand up straight, aim well, and exercise our
prerogative to leave the seat up. After all, we're MEN, and we hold
a proud heritage in our hands.
Here's the complete archive of Rick Bayan's immortal tirades for your reading pleasure:
December 2002 — Hello, I Must Be Going
November 2002 — A Raving Moderate
August 2002 — Is Western Civilization Worth Saving?
July 2002 — To Scam or Be Scammed
June 2002 — I Read the News Today, Oh Boy
May 2002 — Speechophobia
April 2002 — Fanatics on Parade
March 2002 — The Prestige Gap: A Lament
February 2002 — On Becoming a Dullard
January 2002 — Art for Slackers
December 2001 — An Unsolicited Christmas Card
November 2001 — A Tale of Two Tribes
October 2001 — On the Fallen Towers
August 2001 — Why Do We Bother?
June 2001 — Notes from a Doomed Planet
May 2001 — The Museum of Discarded Names
April 2001 — Indecision
March 2001 — A Slight Case of Insanity
February 2001 — Letter to a Conscientious Critic
January 2001 — The Cynic's Inaugural Address
December 2000 — The 50th Tirade
November 2000 — Travel Advisory
October 2000 — Beyond Work
September 2000 — More Work
August 2000 — Work
July 2000 — The Doves' Nest
June 2000 — Great Affectations
May 2000 — Tale of a Virtual Village
April 2000 — The World Is My Obstacle Course
March 2000 — A Living Heck
February 2000 — On the Treachery
of Time
January 2000 — A Letter to the
Future
December 99 — Rare Bird
November 99 — Not Just Another
Obscure Ethnic Group
October 99 — Extinction Reconsidered
September 99 — Good Life, Bad
Life, Better Life
August 99 — Household Relics:
An Elegy
July 99 — A Meditation on Profanity
June 99 — In Praise of Sloth
May 99 — A Bug's Death
April 99 — Obligations!
March 99 — The Courage to Be Ordinary
February 99 — A Grave Story
January 99 — What's Left for
Men?
December 98 — On the Uses of
Friends
November 98 — A Cynic's Thanksgiving
October 98 — Grand Illusions
September 98 — Filth
August 98 — Will the Real God
Please Stand Up?
July 98 — Adventures in Downsizing
June 98 — Lady Longevity
May 98 — Uniquely Human, Uniquely
Clueless
April 98 — The Mathematics of Excess
March 98 — Humbuggery
February 98 — Love and the Single
Cynic
January 98 — By the Sweat of
Your Brow
December 97 — Is Suffering Unfashionable?
November 97 — The Tao of Housekeeping
October 97 — The Sensory Deprivation
Blues
September 97 — Down with Natural
Selection!
August 97 — Noise
July 97 — On Eating Our Fellow Creatures
June 97 — Trouble in Book-Land
May 97 — Interview with an Unemployable
Man
April 97 — The Cynic's Dream
March 97 — Inequalities
February 97 — Flesh and Mortality
January 97 — How to Be a Success
December 96 — Why I Can't Hate
Christmas
November 96 — How I Became a Cynic
