Saturday, August 30, 2008

The Pain That Today's Man Experiences


I get many letters like this. It hurts me to read them, but probably not as much as the pain they experience.
I just stumbled upon your website, and to my amazement, I found someone who is expressing the very suffocating repression I feel on a daily basis. For over a decade now, I have felt the inequality towards men the women’s organizations, media and workplace heap upon our gender. Every night on TV, one sitcom after another, portray men as bumbling, incompetent dolts who only make it through the day because their ever oh-so-superior female counterparts exercise better judgment or intellect. Though this is supposed to be a fictional comedic show, the psychological effects are truly mind boggling. Our children, exposed to this on a daily basis begin to believe that is the way things are and should be. Society is slowly being conditioned and the effects are seen daily.

You are absolutely right, women can just lambast men, without reprisal. Were a man to make even some slightly unflattering comment about the female gender, he is targeted, emasculated, drawn and quartered, without regard to the truth of his statement.

On a note of personal experience, I had to leave my job of 18 years (oh, voluntarily, of course) because of a gender war within the office. The boss, raised by a single mother, with two sisters and no brothers, a domineering wife and two harpish and haranguing daughters, allowed the women in the office to treat the men with open hostility. Statements were made like “No one with a penis should be in charge, no one with a penis should even be working in this office, oh wait, we do need someone to change the water bottle and carry our books!” Bear in mind, this is a law office in the federal government. One male co-worker made the mistake of uttering the phrase “yappy women” when talking about an experience at an airport and was given a formal reprimand and had to make a formal apology to all female employees. Yet, when the men gathered together and went to the boss to “apprise him of the gender war” his comments were “suck it up and do your job.” Now, this is taking place within offices of our federal government. What is a man to do? How can we continue?

Thanks for letting me vent my frustration.

Bill (name changed)

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4 comments:

  1. AnonymousAugust 30, 2008 at 4:58 AM

    And if a man speaks up, he is either sexist or weak. So unfair.

    Men are portrayed as clueless idiots and women are portrayed as controlling b-tches. I just watched the movie "Ratatouille" with my young children. There is a scene where the female character (who complains of sexism) is upset and she raises her hand to slap the male character. In an earlier scene, she terrifies this male character as she threatens him with large knives. I can't believe we still allow that sort of thing -and in a family film! You would never be allowed to see a male character treat a woman this way, this, and for good reason.

    Are we that uninspired? Do we have to portray women as violent in order to show that they are strong? Is emasculation the only way we can show men as intellectual or sensitive?

    By the way, I like the addition of the photos with each post. Nice touch.

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  2. AnonymousAugust 30, 2008 at 4:59 AM

    The picture with this blog looks like the stereotypical suffering Christ. Yes, men are often crucified.

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  3. AnonymousAugust 30, 2008 at 8:02 AM

    If this is happening in a federal office with a man in charge, it makes me wonder how widespread it is and how far it goes. Can you imagine the stories we'd hear if we'd elected Hillary Clinton for president?

    This appears not to be happening at my office, at least not from me. I treat the men basically the same as the women. Sure, it's the men that fix my computer, work security, and carry the water bottles, but I treat them the same because, like women, they're HUMAN BEINGS. What a concept!

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  4. Marty NemkoAugust 30, 2008 at 9:17 AM

    For every women portrayed in the media as evil, there are 10 or 20 men. If a Martian came to earth and watched TV, read books, and watched movies, it would get the impression that men, as a gender, were much inferior to women.

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