CROSS THE LAND, THE MANTRA IS REPEATED: My husband left me because I'm fat. I can't get any dates because men like girls, not women. Well, I'm sorry but I'm not going to dress like a slut, no matter what the magazines are saying. I dress for me, not some guy who's out for what he can get. Did I tell you that my boss smokes a cigar? He's a pig, but you know what? The 20th Century is almost over and I don't think the male pig is going to survive. They're going the way of the woolly mammoth, then we'll see who's whistling now. What can I tell you? Same old story. Men are all after one thing. And you know what? I've finally figured them out. They don't really like sports, they just watch TV as a way of avoiding women. And why do they always leave the toilet seat up? Such a simple thing, but no matter how many times you say it, you can't drum it into those little brains of theirs. Of course, you know where their brains really are. In their pants. That's where a man does all his thinking. Down there, but it's not his fault. That's the way nature made him. Haven't you figured that out by now? By the way, have you ever thought about what would happen if men got pregnant? You better believe they'd find a way to get rid of labor pains. They are all a bunch of babies anyway, couldn't possibly t ake care of the real thing. Hey, no wonder the country's such a mess. Liberty and justice for all, yeah, right. Ever check out the population of Capitol Hill? In case you haven't noticed it's the mother of all men's clubs. Maybe I should say father. You know what I mean. By the way, just for the record, I believe Anita Hill. Lock him up and throw away the key! But, of course, that's not what happened. Well, you know what? Why should women have to put up with filth in order to make money and have a lot of credit cards? I guarantee you, men never had to. That's because they have the buddy system. Spelled B-U-D-D-Y, which is a man's name of course. How come women don't have the Shirley system, I ask you? Well? Good question, right? Hey, the dice are loaded and the dealer works for the house, is the answer. That's why I Betty Broderick. That's why I'm writing in Lorena Bobbitt for President. Whoops, I forgot, Hillary's already got the job. Thank the Goddess! She's a lot smarter than that dim-bulb hubby of hers. Did you hear Gennifer Flowers is writing a book? At last the world will know--the most powerful man in the world is an SOB! By the way, my heart goes out to Mary Jo Buttafuoco. Too bad she didn't have Joey whacked . . . .
The Trouble With Male-Bashing : It Used to Be a Political Statement, But Now It's Just Name-Calling. The Open Season on Men Is Unfair, Ineffective, and, Well, Boring.
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FRANKLY, IF I WERE A MAN AND HAD TO LISTEN TO THIS STUFF all the time, I'd probably (a) get into serious substance abuse; (b) take hostages in a fast-food restaurant, kill five, then self; (c) never ever think of not leaving the toilet seat up, or (d) run away and join the circus. As it is, I'm a woman, and although, with the exception of (c), I've connsidered the previous options for different reasons and often am drawn to (d) because I think being shot out of a cannon would be a lot of fun, I am disheartened by the wave of male-bashing that continues to wash across the land, building in its fury as each day passes.
What's driving this gale-force emotional tsunami? The foul, prevailing winds of our time: television talk shows featuring discussions that require angry and resentful people who can communicate only via microphones; carpetbagging experts on the self-help circuit who exploit gender differences in order to peddle facile opinions (often involving never-the-twain explanations for male and female behavior, such as the recent, cute and best-selling Men Are From Mars/ Women Are From Venus origin theory), and the popular modern religion--blame thy neighbor. (In the '80s, a corollary of the latter phenomenon was "blame Ronald Reagan," which I suppose was a particularly rarefied form of male-bashing, although plenty of men indulged in it as well. Personally, I'm still blaming my parents, but as far as I remember, they didn't molest me, so I haven't yet killed them).
But back to the matter at hand. Before you say, "Why isn't \o7 feminism \f7 on this list?" let me explain why it's not. As far as I'm concerned, the term has been rendered useless over the years, pounded into oblivion by those who have managed to make vast numbers of people believe that it means the female version of the Third Reich (as in human air bag Rush Limbaugh's use of the term \o7 feminazi\f7 ), or "weird, anti-male philosophy espoused by disgruntled, non-orgasmic women with no sense of humor." (Incidentally, why doesn't anybody ever criticize other disgruntled and possibly non-orgasmic groups, such as the NAACP or Republican Party for not having a sense of humor?)
- The Violence Against Women in Darfur
September 19, 2004
