sweetnpetite
Intellectual snob
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Future perfect: how to be a 'real' man again
Carol Midgley
WHO’D be one of you, eh chaps? Let’s be honest, your CV these days is hardly enviable. 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.
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.
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”.
What’s that being shouted from the bar of the Ferret and Firkin? “What a load of bollocks”? Undeniably there will be plenty of men who will laugh into their pints at the very idea. But Salzman, an executive vice-president at the advertising agency J. Walter Thompson, has serious points to make about where men go from here. Society has changed for ever, she says, so males must adapt if they are to reassert themselves in a world increasingly defined and dominated by femininity.
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.
“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.
“We used to worry about teenage girls losing their voice . . . but now I’m feeling very worried for 15-year-old boys. Where do they feel they fit in any more?” She believes the young working-class male is most demoralised in the new, female-orientated society, having, outside sport, few strong role models to admire.
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.
“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.
Confused? Well, according to Salzman, a classic example of M-ness man is Guy Ritchie. He is the alpha male tough guy who married an even tougher woman. But have his masculinity and identity been diminished by Madonna, arguably one of the biggest female icons in the world? No, says Salzman.
If anything they have been enhanced because Ritchie is so comfortable in his own skin. Here lies the essence of M-ness.
Ditto Bill Clinton, believe it or not, who scored M-ness points for apologising publicy for his infidelity (admitting you were wrong is a very feminine trait) and has not been threatened by taking a back seat to Hillary. See also the Republican Arnold Schwarzenegger, who, in marrying Maria Shriver, a famous Democrat, showed simultaneous respect for her beliefs and absolute confidence in his own. You could argue that Sir Paul McCartney demonstrates M-ness in his support for the career of his wife, Heather Mills. And might there not have been a touch of M-ness at the heart of Sir Denis Thatcher, whose sense of self was never compromised despite being married to the most macho female in living memory?
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.”
Ultimately men will learn that their future is not about control as it has been in the past, it is about co- operation.
Men - and women- are fed up that men are the butt of every joke
SO WHAT does the future hold for men?
read the rest of the article here:
http://www.timesonline.co.uk/printFriendly/0,,1-7-1737856-7,00.html
Carol Midgley
WHO’D be one of you, eh chaps? Let’s be honest, your CV these days is hardly enviable. 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.
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.
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”.
What’s that being shouted from the bar of the Ferret and Firkin? “What a load of bollocks”? Undeniably there will be plenty of men who will laugh into their pints at the very idea. But Salzman, an executive vice-president at the advertising agency J. Walter Thompson, has serious points to make about where men go from here. Society has changed for ever, she says, so males must adapt if they are to reassert themselves in a world increasingly defined and dominated by femininity.
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.
“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.
“We used to worry about teenage girls losing their voice . . . but now I’m feeling very worried for 15-year-old boys. Where do they feel they fit in any more?” She believes the young working-class male is most demoralised in the new, female-orientated society, having, outside sport, few strong role models to admire.
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.
“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.
Confused? Well, according to Salzman, a classic example of M-ness man is Guy Ritchie. He is the alpha male tough guy who married an even tougher woman. But have his masculinity and identity been diminished by Madonna, arguably one of the biggest female icons in the world? No, says Salzman.
If anything they have been enhanced because Ritchie is so comfortable in his own skin. Here lies the essence of M-ness.
Ditto Bill Clinton, believe it or not, who scored M-ness points for apologising publicy for his infidelity (admitting you were wrong is a very feminine trait) and has not been threatened by taking a back seat to Hillary. See also the Republican Arnold Schwarzenegger, who, in marrying Maria Shriver, a famous Democrat, showed simultaneous respect for her beliefs and absolute confidence in his own. You could argue that Sir Paul McCartney demonstrates M-ness in his support for the career of his wife, Heather Mills. And might there not have been a touch of M-ness at the heart of Sir Denis Thatcher, whose sense of self was never compromised despite being married to the most macho female in living memory?
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.”
Ultimately men will learn that their future is not about control as it has been in the past, it is about co- operation.
Men - and women- are fed up that men are the butt of every joke
SO WHAT does the future hold for men?
read the rest of the article here:
http://www.timesonline.co.uk/printFriendly/0,,1-7-1737856-7,00.html
