I have probably relayed this story in a previous post but . . .
Several years ago, a co-worker and I were chatting in the lunchroom. His only mode of transportation was his motorcycle. He mentioned that, for obvious reasons, he and his girlfriend always took his girlfriend’s car when they went out.
I then said it was the same when I was dating my husband. He had a motorcycle and Ford F-100 three-speed, column shift truck with no power anything. So, I always drove.
He quickly retorted, rather indignantly, that he always drove.
Okay then.
I was quite taken aback by his indignation, the idea that I somehow belittled his manhood by suggesting a woman drove him around. I didn’t say anything. I probably should have.
It is no secret our young men are struggling with their place in the world (for related posts, see my Liz’s Luncheonette Boys Will Be Boys and Refracting Lens Hubba-Hubba Momoa). Women are struggling, too. The difference is women know where they want to be (e.g., equal opportunities, equal pay for equal work). The same isn’t true for men.
Women are going to college at a significantly higher rate than men. Women are challenging traditionally gender roles as well as traditional male industries. They are taking on businesses/corporations who discriminate against them. Women are working to effect change.
What men want is for things not to change. And they aren’t working just to stifle change. They are actively working to effect a regression in women’s rights. Overturning Roe vs. Wade was a huge one.
Going back in time is not just an unrealistic expectation. It is simply not going to happen. Sure, you’ve got your tradwives – and the movement is big. But it is not a mainstream movement. The only way women are going back to servitude is to be forced into it – think The Stepford Wives.
Instead of accepting that times change and working to find their place in a new world, men are spinning their wheels fighting it tooth and nail with exercises in futility. The really sad part in this is men have no idea what they are giving up by caging themselves in their fear and traditional male ideology.
Watch Billy Elliot.
Real men dance. Real men cry. Real men aren’t afraid – and by that I mean they aren’t afraid to be who they are, not to play football, show compassion, to let a woman drive, to just be afraid. They don’t need to hold others down to lift themselves up.
If I sound unsympathetic, it’s because I somewhat am. I don’t have a lot of sympathy for anyone who has the power to improve themselves and chooses not to do so. Men have had an undeniable advantage over women for all of time. They could do whatever they wanted. Instead of doing that, they boxed themselves into a corner of machismo and complain about being in that box.
I am not a man-hater. I am married with two grown sons – all of whom I deeply respect as men – partly because they aren’t afraid to be real men. More importantly, though, I respect them as human beings because they aren’t afraid to be real people. We can’t be our best selves unless we are our real selves.