I think that decrying the “war between men and women” is tilting at windmills. That we are mutually at least partially incomprehensible to each other has been the source of comedy and terror since time immemorial. One only need look at Aristophanes’ Lysistrata, written in 411 BC:
O these dreadful old men
And their dark laws of hate!
There, I’m all of a tremble lest I turn out to be too late.
I could scarcely get near to the spring though I rose before dawn,
What with tattling of tongues and rattling of pitchers in one jostling din
With slaves pushing in!….
I don’t think it’s the “male bashing” that’s the problem, any more than it’s “female bashing” when guys get together and talk about the perversities of the female sex. I think that the problem is that it is getting too one-sided. People need to vent, and they need to deal with the fact that men and women are different in ways that both entrance and infuriate each other. It’s wonderful and it’s aggravating, and it’s one of the amusing mysteries of being human.
It’s clear that there’s a point where “male bashing” is just expressing what has been expressed since Eve told Adam to pick up his damned fig leaf and put it into the dirty clothes hamper for the 150th time — and there’s a point where it expresses real hate. It’s only the *latter* we must worry about; the former is part and parcel of humanity. And, of course, the converse is true. It’s not so much that “male bashing” is so bad; it’s that “female bashing” is being censored too heavily — and neither is being done with appropriate humor and love.
The bottom line is that it’s not that men are being treated so badly. Women are taking themselves much too seriously. It’s the mix that works, and always will.
What we need is not to try to squash it, but just to note that it works *both ways.*
billo
