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I don't know who Michael Buerk is, but this person has been watching too much teevee.

Future perfect: how to be a 'real' man again

Women rule says Michael Buerk, and feminism is triumphant at home, at work, even in TV ads. The woman who coined the word 'metrosexual' explains how men can reclaim their masculinity, and we publish an extract from her new book
WHO’D be one of you, eh chaps? Let’s be honest, your CV these days is hardly enviable.
Ultimately men will learn that their future is not about control as it has been in the past, it is about co- operation.

CV? Someone is going to have to tell me what that means. Nevertheless, let's take a closer look here.

Outperformed by girls at school, emasculated by women at home and at work, shockingly dislocated from your emotions and the hapless joke figure in endless TV commercials and sitcoms whose message is that females rule and men are fools.

Outperformed by girls at school? Sure. There were a couple girls that kicked my ass at the brainpower stuff sometimes. Other times, I kicked theirs.
But physical stuff? Yeah. Right.
Teevee shows and commercials serve one purpose. Make money. They are going to cater to whomever watches these shows. Lifetime network? Martha Stewart? Queer Eye for the fucking Straight Guy? Yeah, real men are going to watch that shit.

Well wise up, because apparently it’s time to say enough is enough; the ridicule of men must stop. The pendulum of power has swung too far into the female corner and you must stand up and assert your right to masculinity. Stop apologising for it, be comfortable with it, but while you’re at it try to embrace a few female traits such as compromise, communication and learning to multitask.

Reverse feminism all of a sudden?
Compromise, communication and learning to multitask? I don't see where these are female traits.
But again, this person's been watching too much teevee. Let them spend a day on the construction site instead. Let them spend a day in a coal mine instead of the corner office. They don't know what a real man is made of. They've never been one and can't possibly even guess what one is thinking.

It is called M-ness and it is The Future of Men — at least according to one particular woman who has written a book with just this title. Marian Salzman, with her co- authors Ira Matathia and Ann O’Reilly, is the American trendspotter who coined the term “meterosexual” to describe a certain breed of straight, sensitive, modern men who see nothing wrong with exfoliating and going to see a weepy film. Now she has come up with another concept to which all males must apparently subscribe if they wish to reclaim “their space, their sense of worth and even themselves”.

Indeed, she believes the revolution is already under way and that this is the “dawning of the Age of M-ness”.

So another idiot, who has nothing better to do than think she 'knows' men, needs to come up with another tag after 'Metrosexual': M-ness. Kack.
I never lost my space. I don't need to prove jack shit to anyone. I don't need to fucking exfoliate (I don't even know what the fuck that is, but I know it's something I've never needed to do). To loosely quote Popeye, "I yam what I yam."
I was raised by my mother to care about and appreciate certain things and people.
I was raised by my father to fix things, make things, earn a living, and appreciate what I had. It is a good balance.
My parents never thought I had to prove myself to anybody. They thought that by doing the best I could in whatever I did, my actions would speak louder than my clothes.

[...]
It is not just men who are fed up with male-bashing. Research shows that women, too, want men to assert themselves as confident, vital, masculine partners. They want “real” men back. But because we will never return to 1950s patriarchy — the genie cannot be put back in the bottle, thank God — men must redefine masculinity to accommodate who they are today. They must find, says Salzman, their own personal version of manliness.

Oh really? Women want 'real men' back?
Funny how just a few years ago, women were throwing bras on the bonfire chanting something like "I am woman, hear me roar!", and now they want to bitch when the door doesn't get held open for them? Like they say, "Be careful what you ask for....".

“What has happened to men over the past 30 or so years is that they have moved from defining the world . . . to having their world defined by women,” says Salzman, 45. “Men have been the butt of the joke for too long. TV is the snapshot of our everyday lives . . . there are men making jokes about men, women making jokes about men but not men making jokes about women because that would be politically incorrect.

Way too true. Can't have this sexism. Especially in the workplace. You'll get fired.

Michael Buerk, the veteran BBC newsreader, echoes these sentiments in the current issue of the Radio Times. He asserts that life is now lived according to women’s rules, that traditional male traits of “reticence, stoicism and single-mindedness” have been marginalised, that men have been reduced to little more than “sperm donors”.

The TV programme Queer Eye for the Straight Guy emblemises the problem.

“It is basically saying that no straight man knows how to dress himself,” says Salzman. “So at the top you have women and the next most refined individual after that is a gay man — and at the bottom of the pecking order you have a straight man.

Gawddammit! There we go with teevee again! Teevee is NOT reality! It is a business. A big one at that.
Gay = refined? Uh, I don't think so. Gay is gay, that's all. So a gay guy wants to dress himself a certain way and 'whoever' thinks that is chic, proper, cool, the way it should be or whatever. Big deal. It may ba a trend. It may be the latest fashion. It may be what the fashion world decides. I don't give a shit. I don't read G.Q. I don't follow the latest trends.
Like teevee, the fashion world is another big business. They're trying to sell magazines and make designers money. They're not dictating style.
Style is what everyone who doesn't adhere to fashion has. Style is personality. Style is individuality. Fashion, for men or women, is trend.

“What needs to happen is that the genders need to move closer together, not necessarily to be like each other but to respect each other . . . not be threatened by each other and achieve proper mutuality.

M-ness (also known as my-ness) is defined thus: a masculinity that defines the best of traditional manliness (strength, honour, character) with positive traits traditionally associated with females (nurturance, communicativeness, co-operation). A lifestyle that emphasises higher-quality emotional and physical pleasures, male pleasures, that come from knowing oneself and one’s potential.

The dumb shit goes on to talk about how Bill Clinton got points for apologizing and being sensitive, and how and Arnold Schwarzenegger married a democrat, blah blah blah. All that shit. We skip that part.

Salzman’s point is that you can have M-ness whether you are a happily married house-husband or a 45-year-old serial dater, a physician or a soccer coach. You must do whatever makes you happy, gives you self-respect and makes you feel whole while respecting the other gender’s right to the same. But you must be multidimensional. You must love your family, have male friends to whom you are not afraid to show affection, have one or two hobbies.

“We need to move to a place where each gender can co-exist mutually and happily,” says Salzman. “There is no society that we can learn from on this — we have never had that kind of equality.”

Typical euphorical liberal bullshit. We must not be afraid to show emotion. We can all live hapily together. Hug a tree and sing Kumba-ya. Whatever.

If the guys come over for a game of poker, I'm not going to greet them with a hug. I'm not going to give them a peck on the cheek. I will however, give the guy who kept raising me some shit when he folds. I will also expect to get some shit when I lose a hand. I will also high-five the ones I'm golfing with if they make a good shot. I will also continue to bring my wife a cup of coffee every morning as I leave for work. I will open the door for the woman going into the store the same time as I am. That's how we coexist.

But I won't be shopping for the latest fashion at Dillards, unless 501's become the latest fashion.

I may just be getting a little huffy here. I've been know to do that. But jumoin' jeezus. Where do these people come from? What the fuck makes them think they're the authority?
You don't need to answer.


Well, that's it. I'm the hell outta here for the weekend.
Sorry Rach, I probably won't post over the weekend again, but you never know.