Every time there’s an American election, we’re told it will be the most important election of our lives. And we all think to ourselves, here we go again. But I will say this time around, it seems true. This election’s outcome will affect the lives of countless American women, which is something men should be taking rather seriously.
After all, when a ship is sinking, women and children are the first into the lifeboats. Unless you are Billy Zane’s character in Titanic, whose coldness and villainy rivaled even the iceberg. (Also, how can one man’s face be so punchable?)
There seem to be a lot of men around these days who would toss women into the icy waters. It’s like they misunderstand what masculinity even is. They have this idea of male supremacy that is little more than a fantasy for weak and inconsequential men.
Growing up in Australia, my mother, sisters and cousins seemed like a powerful tribe of Amazons. My sisters stand about six-feet in height, and I think both of them routinely swim about twenty kilometers a day. They can be a little intimidating when they want to be. My nieces are the same. We’ve seen multiple generations of strong women.
The last time I saw my sister, she was talking about how she almost got into a fistfight with an Australian Trump supporter. (Which exist, apparently.) My opinion of my sister’s opponent? Well, if that guy couldn’t recognize the physical danger he was in, that’s on him, that’s his problem. Narrowly dodged a Darwin Award, if you asked me.
Some men seem to act like they’re being protected by a Bronze Age deity. Personally, I think their deity would have stood off to one side and watched (possibly while eating chips) as my sister beat a man to pulp. I mean, that’s what I would have done. I mean, I do like chips.
One time, during an argument about capital punishment, someone said to me, ‘Kris, what would you do if someone assaulted your sister?’ And my reply was, ‘I’d try to stabilize the guy’s wounds until the ambulance arrived.’
But all this reminds me of a conversation I had with one of my wife’s male relatives. He lives in the American Midwest and also believes that a Bronze Age deity has granted upon him authority over womenfolk. Oddly enough, superiority does not seem to waft from his being in any noticeable way. He does not lightly resemble Conan the Barbarian, one might say. In fact, he looks like a man who fought only one fight in his life, and that was with carbohydrates. And he’d lost.
So, a few years ago, this man, my wife’s relative, took me aside and gave me a sermon about gender roles. Took me a while to figure out what he was yapping about, if I’m being honest. He was taking me to task, apparently. He was admonishing me, in the guise of an older father speaking to one who was younger and less experienced.
He was solemn; I remember. His primary concern was that my daughters were becoming too willful and wayward for his liking. They were spirited and confident and loquacious, and countless other positive adjectives. Young ladies, he explained with a gravitas I cannot help but smile to remember, should be meek and quiet. Above all else, they should learn to listen to the men in their world.
Yes, he said that. Then he said worse. I tuned out after a bit, distractedly thinking of my sisters. You might say I was picturing forensic investigators studying the blood spatter patterns on the surrounding walls.
Anyway, in summary, the old goat had this to say. ‘The subjugation of women starts when they are small, and if we don’t do it, civilization will crumble.’ There was some mention of a Bronze Age god, but it was too silly to repeat here.
When he was finished speaking, I looked at him and said: “My problem, in this specific instance, is that you’re too old to punch in the face.”
“Eh?” he said.
So, as tactfully as I know how, which admittedly is not very tactful because I was, after all, raised under the tutelage of my mother and sisters, I explained I was not raising my daughters to obey the sort of pompous dingbat whose sole authority stems from his Y chromosome.
“My nightmare,” I admitted with heartfelt sincerity, “is that one day my little girls will have to spend their days tiptoeing around the egos of fragile males. What a wretched existence that would be.”
I had quit my job at Harvard to raise those little monsters. I didn’t do that just so they could one-day fall under the stern jurisdiction of some Bible-thumping martinet.
“I worry about them,” I added. “I worry that something bad will happen to me, and they wind up become the obedient domestic servant of some suburban douchebag in a baseball hat.
“No offense,” I added, because, though we dislike each other, I see no reason to be impolite.
But I was cross, I seem to recall. Then again, if I’m allowed to be angry at anything, it’s this determination of half-wits to dominate the lives of others. Why can’t they just shut up and let people live their lives?
I didn’t know, then, that Legions of weak men were organizing politically against women. You might say it’s because I’m privileged. I move in different social circles and this really was the only encounter I’ve had with that sort of ideology. I have since learned that these ‘little men’ exist in greater numbers than I suspected. I don’t know why they’re like this. I can’t seem to wrap my mind around this weakened concept of male identity.
But that relative of my wife’s, he was naïve to say those things to me. Telling me I should raise my daughters to be meek and subservient sounded to me like a declaration of war against them.
Next week, there’s an election and one of candidates for Vice President remind me strongly of Billy Zane on the Titanic, right down to his bold overuse of eyeliner. And as for Trump, everything we need to know about his character can be learned from the way he speaks about his daughter.
I do not trust them, Sam I Am. I would not trust them near my girls. I do not want them in my house, for all they seem to do is grouse! I do not like the words they say. They only want to be obeyed! I hate them, make them go away!
Besides, even if you disagree with her politics (and I do, if you want to know), then you still need to ask yourself whether you want your daughters to grow up seeing women as future leaders, or as handmaidens? For any father — well, for any decent father, that is — our primary concern is always the well-being of the young ones. When food is scarce, they eat before we eat. They go into the lifeboats first, while we wait behind. We sacrifice so they can chase their dreams. What’s it like to be a father? It’s great; you’re just not the center of your universe. Your decisions are oriented around the well-being of others, and frankly, you wouldn’t have it any other way.
Everything boils down to this: if you’re a dad, and your political views do not prioritize the well-being of the women in your life, then … what are we even doing here? It’s like there’s a giant octopus attacking the ship, and we are sitting in one of the lifeboats, staring at the terrified faces of the women and children being left behind. If we sit here, we’re not the heroes of the story.
Of course, there’s some obvious irony in all this for me. If my family was on the Titanic, my sisters would have beaten up Billy Zane, stolen his lifeboat and, after telling me to ‘man up’, left me to drown. It’s a raw deal, being a man some days. But at least we get paid more.
