One Man’s Response

 

Recently fellow Ricochetti @Sawatdeeka wrote a lovely post, here, that enumerates a few of the things she enjoys about being a woman. She wrote her piece while I was sitting at my desk, staring at my screen, trying to express my frustration with the sad state of manliness in our culture and the problems that spring from it. My own post was taking on the quality of a rant. I’m not averse to penning rants, of course, but I’m really not in a ranting mood at the moment, and so it wasn’t coming out just like I wanted.

Though we were in a sense both doing the same thing, Sawatdeeka did what she did better than I was doing what I was doing. And so I decided to try to say what I wanted to say in a positive way, rather than a negative way.

So, with a nod of appreciation to Sawatdeeka, I will start again.

Why I am glad that I’m a man.

I like being physically strong. I like being called on to lift heavy things and do physically demanding tasks. When I’m handed a jar to open I make a point of passing it to any nearby boy, in hopes that he can demonstrate his own manly strength, but I always half hope that I’ll be the one who’s finally called upon to open it.

I like knowing stuff about electricity, plumbing, cars, science. Women find it boring, but they appreciate a working garbage disposal or an unstuck drain, a rewired outdoor light, or having the oil checked in their cars. I think they feel loved, when things are taken care of for them. Men who don’t understand that are missing out.

I like guns. I like handling them, understanding them, using them. Knowing how to use them well. They provide a kind of security  and independence that few other things do.

I like disciplining children. I like their respect, their quick obedience, their willingness to conform to the expectations of a responsible adult. Again, men who don’t know how eager children are to be given clear boundaries and to live within them just don’t know what a joy well-behaved children can be.

I like explosions. Women have no idea how much men enjoy blowing things up, imagining things blowing up, watching things blow up. I could tell stories… but then, most men can tell stories.

I like women.

I like male banter, guy humor, the inconsequential back-and-forth of men who respect each other.

I like living a drama-free life.

I like being able to focus on one thing, to put everything else away in a tidy little box for as long as necessary to get one thing done.

I like the simplicity of being male, of having a simple rugged body and a simple unsubtle mind, of thinking I always look okay and being able to wear the same exact outfit (black shirt, blue jeans, boots) every. single. day. for the rest of my life.

I like protecting the people I love.


I think America needs a rebirth of both masculinity and femininity.

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  1. Charlotte Member
    Charlotte
    @Charlotte

    Sigh. Lucky.

    Lest anyone get the wrong idea, I one hundred percent do not have gender-identity issues (even though that would make me fashionable!), but I’ve always thought dudes kind of have an awesome thing going. Most of the things on your list are more appealing to me than those on @sawatdeeka‘s list.

    Three cheers for men.

    • #1
  2. Henry Racette Member
    Henry Racette
    @HenryRacette

    Charlotte (View Comment):

    Sigh. Lucky.

    Lest anyone get the wrong idea, I one hundred percent do not have gender-identity issues (even though that would make me fashionable!), but I’ve always thought dudes kind of have an awesome thing going. Most of the things on your list are more appealing to me than those on @ sawatdeeka‘s list.

    Three cheers for men.

    Men have it easier. I’ve never doubted it.

    • #2
  3. Jerry Giordano (Arizona Patrio… Member
    Jerry Giordano (Arizona Patrio…
    @ArizonaPatriot

    Hank, great post.

    I like competition, because I like winning. I don’t mind losing too much, because the stakes usually aren’t that high.

    Strangely, my preferred outfit is exactly. the. same as yours, though I don’t wear it every single day.

    • #3
  4. sawatdeeka Member
    sawatdeeka
    @sawatdeeka

    I wish I had thought of some of the items you have here. For example, I could have said “I like men” in a concise manner.

    Also: I like women’s version of friendship, the meeting for coffee and getting neck-deep in one-another’s lives.

    And hey, the details of technical stuff aren’t boring–it all depends on how they’re explained. I appreciate how men seem to have a deep, intuitive grasp of these things and are able to explain them with such precision. The explanations for the laypersons are best, with the topic set out step by step and connected to other ideas that matter to us.

    • #4
  5. Henry Castaigne Member
    Henry Castaigne
    @HenryCastaigne

    Again, I don’t get the desire to be human. To be complete we need a partner. I resent this. I am reminded of a passage from Plato that laments such inescapable longing. 

    As a punishment for defying the Olympian gods. Zeus cut them in two. Previously, the vast majority of people were made up of two headed creatures with four arms and four legs. Most had a female half and a male half which is why most people are heterosexual. Some were made up of two women-halves or two men-halves and these are why some people are homosexual according to the story. 

    Both men and women are incomplete on their own. Masculine and feminine natures are meant to be complementary. Men are too violent and uncaring on their own and women are too gossipy and dramatic. We are eusocial organisms meant to be part of a collective.

    I would rather be a thing complete in and off myself. An Abraxas that is whole unto itself. 

    Why do so many like their innate physical and mental nature? 

    • #5
  6. Saint Augustine Member
    Saint Augustine
    @SaintAugustine

    Henry Castaigne (View Comment):

    Again, I don’t get the desire to be human. To be complete we need a partner. I resent this. I am reminded of a passage from Plato that laments such inescapable longing. 

    As a punishment for defying the Olympian gods. Zeus cut them in two. Previously, the vast majority of people were made up of two headed creatures with four arms and four legs. Most had a female half and a male half which is why most people are heterosexual. Some were made up of two women-halves or two men-halves and these are why some people are homosexual according to the story. 

    Both men and women are incomplete on their own. Masculine and feminine natures are meant to be complementary. Men are too violent and uncaring on their own and women are too gossipy and dramatic. We are eusocial organisms meant to be part of a collective.

    I would rather be a thing complete in and off myself. An Abraxas that is whole unto itself. 

    Why do so many like their innate physical and mental nature? 

    Aristophanes’ speech in praise of Love in Plato’s Symposium.

    Well, G-d did design me to not be complete by myself.

    But being complete in and of myself also seems like it might be more boring.

    • #6
  7. Henry Castaigne Member
    Henry Castaigne
    @HenryCastaigne

    Saint Augustine (View Comment):
    But being complete in and of myself also seems like it might be more boring.

    I like boring. It is suffering and strife that makes for great plays and books. I’d rather live in peace and prosperity and read books about wars and plagues and such. 

    • #7
  8. Saint Augustine Member
    Saint Augustine
    @SaintAugustine

    Henry Castaigne (View Comment):

    Saint Augustine (View Comment):
    But being complete in and of myself also seems like it might be more boring.

    I like boring. It is suffering and strife that makes for great plays and books. I’d rather live in peace and prosperity and read books about wars and plagues and such.

    I’d prefer almost anything to a boring life.

    want life to be a good story.

    • #8
  9. Phil Turmel Inactive
    Phil Turmel
    @PhilTurmel

    Henry Racette: I like explosions. Women have no idea how much men enjoy blowing things up, imagining things blowing up, watching things blow up.

    Oh, yeah, baby!

    • #9
  10. Stad Coolidge
    Stad
    @Stad

    I was going to write a post “Why I Like Being Old”.  However, I sat at my keyboard for hours and couldn’t think of anything . . .

    • #10
  11. She Member
    She
    @She

    Charlotte (View Comment):

    Three cheers for men.

    Amen.  (I’m not one of those who feels obliged to say “Awomen” too, although I have wondered, from time to time, in a strictly non-woke, non-intersectional way) if it would be more grammatically correct to say “Aman.”  Or, perhaps, “Afewmen.”

    I love men.

    I love building things, too.  Herewith, the current state of my latest project, the world’s sturdiest chicken coop, built mostly from leftovers I have lying around from other projects and found objects from my graveyard of old windows. I’ll be taking shelter there in the event of a nuclear attack, as it’s probably the most bombproof structure on the property:

    Full disclosure: I loathe digging postholes and setting the posts in concrete.  I’d have been happy to turn that part over to a guy.  But the rest of it?  I’m having a blast. (It’s inspired by several plans, suggestions, and ideas I saw on the web, but the design is my own.)

    Mr. She and I made an excellent team.  He was really good at the big picture, vision thing. Not so good at the fiddly details; that was my department.  He was really good at demolition.  I hate the demolition part (heavy, dirty), but adore power tools, and love the construction part. He liked electrical projects and wiring.  I hate electrical projects (don’t like the idea of messing with something I can’t see that could kill me, the instant I make a clumsy move), but I love plumbing (same sort of thing, really, only coarser and visible and (as long as the electricity and plumbing projects don’t get mixed up) generally non-lethal). In his younger days, Mr. She liked to sew, and had designed his own tents, outdoor gear, and sleeping bags for the kids.  I like to sew, too.

    It was a great system, we were a great team, and I miss him.  And it’s from this sort of personal, practical experience, rather than from deep and thoughtful philosophical musings, that I understand that although it’s possible to “go it alone,” each of us really is most complete when paired with our complementary other.

    I just don’t think the fact that he liked to sew made him less manly (quite sure he’d have taken the proverbial bullet for me, should the need have arisen).  And I don’t believe the fact that I can construct a level platform on uneven ground and wield a circular saw with the best of them (and that I enjoy doing both of those things) makes me less of a woman.  I think most of the folks who know me, and who knew him, would agree with both those statements.

    There’s horses for courses, as they say.  And sometimes true love strikes, even for a filly as eccentric as I.  I’m glad I didn’t have to pretend to be other than who, or what, I am for that to happen.

    • #11
  12. Stad Coolidge
    Stad
    @Stad

    She (View Comment):
    I loathe digging postholes and setting the posts in concrete.  I’d have been happy to turn that part over to a guy.

    We do too!  That’s why we’re having our contractor rebuild our back deck . . .

    • #12
  13. She Member
    She
    @She

    Stad (View Comment):

    She (View Comment):
    I loathe digging postholes and setting the posts in concrete. I’d have been happy to turn that part over to a guy.

    We do too! That’s why we’re having our contractor rebuild our back deck . . .

    Yes, I contracted that out last year too.  (I do know my limitations.) The whole thing, which was in poor shape before, subsided and became even more wobbly after the coal mine came through underneath us.  Joey did a wonderful job.  I also contract out drywall (Dave).  

    • #13
  14. JoelB Member
    JoelB
    @JoelB

    Phil Turmel (View Comment):

    Henry Racette: I like explosions. Women have no idea how much men enjoy blowing things up, imagining things blowing up, watching things blow up.

    Oh, yeah, baby!

    Many years ago, our Pastor took me along to visit a 90+ year old man in a nursing home. The Pastor asked “Charley, with all the different jobs that you had over the years, which did you enjoy most?” Charley’s immediate answer was “Dynamiting stumps in Colorado.”

    As for me, I can concentrate on one job at a time well enough, but I still can’t find that neat little box for all the other stuff that Hank wrote about. It must be in one of those piles somewhere. :-)

    • #14
  15. Henry Racette Member
    Henry Racette
    @HenryRacette

    She (View Comment):

    Stad (View Comment):

    She (View Comment):
    I loathe digging postholes and setting the posts in concrete. I’d have been happy to turn that part over to a guy.

    We do too! That’s why we’re having our contractor rebuild our back deck . . .

    Yes, I contracted that out last year too. (I do know my limitations.) The whole thing, which was in poor shape before, subsided and became even more wobbly after the coal mine came through underneath us. Joey did a wonderful job. I also contract out drywall (Dave).

    I spent a couple of summers in high school putting in barbed wire fences under the New Mexico sun. Mostly that’s driving metal tee-posts, but the corners always required three wooden posts, and gates took two more. I could drive tee-posts all day long, but I particularly liked digging the post holes. Sometimes we had to use picks to break through the caliche clay.

    The summer I spent putting in a vineyard in the Rio Grande valley I had to plant dozens of railroad ties to serve as end-posts for the rows. That was harder, because the holes were bigger and deeper, and once you dropped a tie in it was a job to pull it back out if you had to tidy up the hole.

    I miss that kind of work (and, okay, the youthfulness that went with it).

    • #15
  16. RightMidTX Inactive
    RightMidTX
    @RightMidTX

    “I like being able to focus on one thing, to put everything else away in a tidy little box for as long as necessary to get one thing done.”

    You have no idea how much your perfectly-stated comment has been on my mind lately.  On Saturday I walked around my 23 yr old house and catalogued the tasks and projects I need to get done.

    After ten minutes I was exhausted and overwhelmed. Where to start? Which one do I do first? I know all the typical responses: Pick the easiest one to get a quick win; Just pick one and get momentum built; Prioritize based on urgency (fix leaky roof, fire hazards, eyesores for the neighborhood first), etc. 

    I told my wife last night that I might have to hire someone to do some of those projects vs doing them myself. I felt embarrassed.

    She smiled and said “Yes, and that would be a good thing.” 

    • #16
  17. She Member
    She
    @She

    Henry Racette (View Comment):
    I miss that kind of work (and, okay, the youthfulness that went with it).

    Mr. She and I installed the concrete block foundation wall, after the professionals has been in and dug and poured the footers.  The house is built into a hill, so the foundation is stepped, about eight feet high in the back, and only a couple of feet high at the front.  We used dry stack block, then put in rebar and filled the whole thing solid with concrete.  Not only did it survive the undermining, we’ve had nary a single leak or damp spot in 36 years.  (I attribute that last fact to the several coats of that horrible sticky, rubbery tar-smelling stuff you paint on with a stiff brush, and Bituthene.  It took weeks to get all the residue from both those things off our skin.

    While I do miss the youthfulness (I was in my early 30s), I do not miss that kind of work, and I’ve gone to great lengths to limit, as much as possible, any contact with block, brick, and concrete ever since.  My standard approach for anything other than the smallest of jobs is “Let Mike do it.”

    • #17
  18. Bryan G. Stephens Thatcher
    Bryan G. Stephens
    @BryanGStephens

    Henry Castaigne (View Comment):

    Again, I don’t get the desire to be human. To be complete we need a partner. I resent this. I am reminded of a passage from Plato that laments such inescapable longing.

    As a punishment for defying the Olympian gods. Zeus cut them in two. Previously, the vast majority of people were made up of two headed creatures with four arms and four legs. Most had a female half and a male half which is why most people are heterosexual. Some were made up of two women-halves or two men-halves and these are why some people are homosexual according to the story.

    Both men and women are incomplete on their own. Masculine and feminine natures are meant to be complementary. Men are too violent and uncaring on their own and women are too gossipy and dramatic. We are eusocial organisms meant to be part of a collective.

    I would rather be a thing complete in and off myself. An Abraxas that is whole unto itself.

    Why do so many like their innate physical and mental nature?

    It is called good mental health. 

    We are the way we are, and there are things we cannot change. Acceptance is part of facing reality. 

    • #18
  19. Vince Guerra Inactive
    Vince Guerra
    @VinceGuerra

    Henry Racette:

     

    I like explosions. Women have no idea how much men enjoy blowing things up, imagining things blowing up, watching things blow up. I could tell stories… but then, most men can tell stories.

    My little boys and I have taken to watching a few short videos at bedtime, right after bedtime story and prayers. The five year old often wants to watch some “grenade videos,” and I’m happy to comply. 

    Whenever he hears it, my fifteen year old rushes over and sits beside us because, boys, and explosions. 

    • #19
  20. Eugene Kriegsmann Member
    Eugene Kriegsmann
    @EugeneKriegsmann

    Back in the mid 1970s I had an experience which I think speaks well to this topic. I had gotten married in 1969 to a really exceptional woman in my experience. She was 5 years older than I was and had experienced a very different life than I had. She had taught in the Army Dependent Schools in Germany after getting her Masters Degree. While there she had travels extensively through all of Europe, Eurasia, and Africa, camping most of the time. For my part, I was pretty feral. I had attended college, served in the military as a combat officer, but lacking some pretty basic skills, like balancing a checkbook, owning a home, being civilized in a manner that men who live with women generally are. She civilized me, polished the rough edges, of which there were many. We left New York where we had met and married and came out the Pacific Northwest, actually deciding between San Francisco and Seattle somewhere around Chicago. 

    When we arrived in Seattle on Friday afternoon with our U-Haul 26′ truck we didn’t have clue about where we wanted to live or how we were going to earn a living. She called the Special Education Department of Seattle Public School that afternoon and made an appointment to meet with head of Special Education on Monday morning. The next day, Saturday, we found a beach front apartment and moved in that afternoon. Monday she was hired by Seattle Schools, and when she came out from her interview she told me that the director wanted to meet me. I was hired the same day. 

    From then on we did just about everything together. She had done some sailing when she was in graduate school at San Francisco State, so we bought a sailboat and I learned to sail it. I had done quite a bit of climbing when in high school, so we joined an expedition to the Nuristan area of Afghanistan. We joined the Seattle Mountaineers and took their climbing course. After completing that she became pregnant. I was desperate to keep climbing. I had a talent for it and an addiction to adrenaline which it fed. 

    For the first time we couldn’t do things together. I got involved with a group of fellow climbers, and went away for a weekend of rock climbing, being away from my wife for the first time in five years. That weekend was a revelation. I loved my wife, but the raucous conversation as we drove over Stevens Pass to Castle Rock and Leavenworth to do some serious rock climbing routes was better than sex, or at least it seemed so at the time. My wife and I had gone rock climbing together, and I have climbed with a lot of women since those days, but it simply never compared to the companionship of men, particularly when we were sharing danger. The brotherhood filled a space nothing else could. Men need the company of men.

    • #20
  21. Full Size Tabby Member
    Full Size Tabby
    @FullSizeTabby

    Vince Guerra (View Comment):

    Henry Racette:

     

    I like explosions. Women have no idea how much men enjoy blowing things up, imagining things blowing up, watching things blow up. I could tell stories… but then, most men can tell stories.

    My little boys and I have taken to watching a few short videos at bedtime, right after bedtime story and prayers. The five year old often wants to watch some “grenade videos,” and I’m happy to comply.

    Whenever he hears it, my fifteen year old rushes over and sits beside us because, boys, and explosions.

    Interesting choice for final pre-bedtime routine. We were usually trying to find calming things to finish the day. 

    • #21
  22. Vince Guerra Inactive
    Vince Guerra
    @VinceGuerra

    Full Size Tabby (View Comment):

    Vince Guerra (View Comment):

    Henry Racette:

    I like explosions. Women have no idea how much men enjoy blowing things up, imagining things blowing up, watching things blow up. I could tell stories… but then, most men can tell stories.

    My little boys and I have taken to watching a few short videos at bedtime, right after bedtime story and prayers. The five year old often wants to watch some “grenade videos,” and I’m happy to comply.

    Whenever he hears it, my fifteen year old rushes over and sits beside us because, boys, and explosions.

    Interesting choice for final pre-bedtime routine. We were usually trying to find calming things to finish the day.

    We watch symphonies sometimes as well, or as they call it, pretty music. But five nights out of ten they’ll ask to see Edwin (Sarkissian) or Dustin (Smarter Every Day) shoot or blow something up…in the name of science. Boys.

    • #22
  23. Henry Racette Member
    Henry Racette
    @HenryRacette

    Vince Guerra (View Comment):

    Full Size Tabby (View Comment):

    Vince Guerra (View Comment):

    Henry Racette:

     

    I like explosions. Women have no idea how much men enjoy blowing things up, imagining things blowing up, watching things blow up. I could tell stories… but then, most men can tell stories.

    My little boys and I have taken to watching a few short videos at bedtime, right after bedtime story and prayers. The five year old often wants to watch some “grenade videos,” and I’m happy to comply.

    Whenever he hears it, my fifteen year old rushes over and sits beside us because, boys, and explosions.

    Interesting choice for final pre-bedtime routine. We were usually trying to find calming things to finish the day.

    We watch symphony’s sometimes as well, or as they call it, pretty music. But five nights out of ten they’ll ask to see Edwin (Sarkissian) or Dustin (Smarter Every Day) shoot or blow something up…in the name of science. Boys.

    Elephant toothpaste is always fun, too. That’s one I’m actually tempted to do. 

    • #23
  24. She Member
    She
    @She

    Eugene Kriegsmann (View Comment):
    The brotherhood filled a space nothing else could. Men need the company of men.

    I think that’s true, and in reverse as well, and that women need the company of women.  

    • #24
  25. John Racette Inactive
    John Racette
    @JohnRacette

    Men also like knives and axes. I’ve carried the same Buck 110 for over 25 years. 

    Also camping. Particularly eating charred meat without a side of vegetables.

    • #25
  26. Vince Guerra Inactive
    Vince Guerra
    @VinceGuerra

    John Racette (View Comment):

    Men also like knives and axes. I’ve carried the same Buck 110 for over 25 years.

    Also camping. Particularly eating charred meat without a side of vegetables.

    I’m okay with throwing a few serrano peppers on the fire to roast along with it. 

    • #26
  27. Flicker Coolidge
    Flicker
    @Flicker

    Vince Guerra (View Comment):

    John Racette (View Comment):

    Men also like knives and axes. I’ve carried the same Buck 110 for over 25 years.

    Also camping. Particularly eating charred meat without a side of vegetables.

    I’m okay with throwing a few serrano peppers on the fire to roast along with it.

    But Alaska’s so cold.  Will fire burn up there?

    • #27
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