In praise of 'ordinary' men

A few weeks ago I was scrolling mindlessly on Instagram (my #1 favourite way to relax) when I came upon a the following quote:

“De Beauvoir told us that the reason women can’t see our oppression is because unlike other minority groups, we live lives entirely entwined with our oppressors and it all seems normal.”

I saved the post, because it is such a perfect summation of why I am not, nor ever really have been, a feminist.

By oppressors, they mean men. And I would like to go on the record and say, unequivocally, I am not now nor have I ever been oppressed by a man, or a man-specific system. Which is not to say I have never been mistreated, or creeped on, or menaced, talked down to, by men. I have experienced all of those things. But I just do not recognise the feminist depiction of the unending grimness of being female.

In cultural depictions of maleness now, men are mostly strong in a bad way, or they are weak and clueless.  In fact, the misunderstanding of men is so prevalent that it could almost be said — as my father said of misogyny — to be the common sense of society.

A caveat: the post on Instagram referred to above went on to make the point that women need women-only spaces, which is something I strongly, vocally, agree with. And I while I disagree with them on pretty much everything else, I am grateful for the crabby, disagreeable old radical feminists who have stuck to their guns while their mainstream feminist sisters sold us all down the transgender river.

And another caveat: my point is not that men are blameless actors in our current sex war. Men’s propensity to violence is not something that can be denied. The crimes men have inflicted upon women cannot be airbrushed out of history. 

My point is that besides that reality, sits a very different reality: one of collaboration, entwinement and mutual dependence and devotion. 

Where would we be without so-called ordinary men? It’s good to be reminded of the sheer weight of labour and care that many, many men carry. Mostly for their partners and children, but often for their neighbours and their communities as well. 

A few years ago, my son had a football match that ended quite late in the evening. It was a Friday, and my husband was away in Cork, about an eight hour drive from us. In the post-match excitement, my son raced ahead of me, to the car to greet the dogs. He climbed into the back seat where the dogs were leaping about like they hadn’t seen him in years. In his hand he had the car keys, which he dropped onto the backseat as he petted them. I was standing behind him, and I heard the click of the automatic door locks, then watched as he got out of the car and slammed the door, keys still on the back seat. 

We were locked out of our car, and our two dogs were locked in. It was getting dark. We are on the grounds of a high school that was about to be locked up for the weekend. I told my son’s football coach my predicament, and he and two other coaches volunteered to to help. They stayed with us for the entire time it took to find a locksmith, which ended up being several hours — the first few I called told me they had already had a few drinks and couldn’t drive out to help me. The coaches got in touch with the school groundskeeper so we all didn’t get locked in, called their wives to explain their tardiness, and threw one of the footballs at our sons so they could just keep playing. Then we just stood there in the chilly spring darkness, good-humoured and chatty.  By the time we got home that night it was close to 11pm, and my son thought we had had a fantastic night. To this day I am still touched that three men I didn’t know particularly well gave up their Friday night just so I didn’t have to be alone. It was gallantry at its finest.

Being a mother to a boy, I have seen with my own eyes that boys are born with a nurturing side. Ever since he was a toddler he has kept a watchful eye over younger kids and just intuitively knew to guide them away from possible harm. That instinct was just as innate as his more stereotypical masculine instinct to wage imaginary war against all things: the waves at the beach, trees in the forest, cracks in the pavement. I did not need to instil the caring aspect in my little boy. Social engineering was not required to grow him into a loving young man. All I had to do was let him be himself, with clear boundaries as guardrails. 

There is a selflessness to men that goes entirely unremarked upon these days, and yet it’s something almost every woman I know benefits from. Small heroic devotions that are performed each day. I saw a clip from the Netflix film Marriage Story today, in which Laura Dern, playing a divorce lawyer, delivers a monologue on how it has only been in the last 30 years that father’s have only been expected to be good. Before that they were expected to be absent, silent, unreliable, and selfish. What a deeply incorrect and uncharitable thing to say. I feel offended on behalf of human patrimony just listening to it. So all those millions men who worked their fingers to the literal bone, who endured the physical agony of a lifetime of hard labour to feed their families should be judged by our massively pampered, new standards? 

Perhaps it’s as simple as a lack of understanding. I know that in my personal relationships, my need for intense discussion, therapeutic talk and verbal intimacy is satisfied from my female friendships. From the men in my life, I get a lighter form of camaraderie. I need both to stay sane, but they don’t necessarily come in one person. Have women been demanding that their men give them the type of support that really only other women can give? Have women been judging men through the prism of their own complexity, making men look boorish and crude, when really most men are just trying to keep up with women’s multifaceted needs — both emotional and physical? 

Our throwing away of traditional sex roles has done away with some injustice, undeniably. But we have yet to refine a better system. And look at the mess we’re in now: women hating men and men doing the most sinister, grotesque pantomimes of women. Children are caught in the cross-fire: drugged, corrupted, robbed of the safety of innocence. This cannot stand. 

In the granularity of life, even in conflict-ridden relationships, there is always a baseline of men’s need for women — even if that need grows into a monstrous hatred of them. Which unfortunately it does, as all these perverts trying to get into women’s changing rooms, and their obsession with our bodily functions, show. The vampiric men who want to appropriate femaleness so much that they cut off their genitals, are harkening back to the ancient trope that a woman is just a gash, a wounded male. They are the epitome of misogyny, in the most real and darkest sense of the word. Not the many decent men who just want to live in peace with their families.