Womensplaining - Men

The other day I was talking to a guy friend, and I promise you, this one isn’t as bad as the others, and I told him that my girl friend and I had come to a conclusion: the so-called “male loneliness epidemic” is nothing more than natural selection at work. Naturally, he laughed. And because he isn’t quite as hopeless as the rest, he asked why I thought so.

I didn’t even need to think twice. Given the chance, I launched into a quick history of womanhood — how for centuries we were forced to marry and breed like mares, often with revolting men, and how, only recently, with this newfound power of choice, we finally gained the right to cast the odd ones out.

Of course, he laughed again, not mockingly, as one might expect, but with genuine amusement at the conviction with which I made my case. He’s a curious man, that one, so he pressed further. What, he asked, was the foundation of my girl friend’s and my theory? “Simple,” I said, “it’s a matter of physical, emotional, and mental attributes — sometimes separate, sometimes combined.”

Quick-witted as ever, he then asked if I wasn’t also a victim of this natural selection, since he knows me well enough to call me both a cynic of romance and a certified man-hater. And I won’t lie to you, my dear readers, I don’t take you for fools, yes, all of that is true. But let it be known that if I wanted a partner, I could have one. Not because I’m the most beautiful or fascinating, but simply because men will fuck goats and chimps, and as I still consider myself a lady, I remain well above those beasts in the “market.”

That said, as you might gather from my tone, I am quite exhausted by the gender opposite mine. He knows this, of course, and never misses the chance to tease me about my impatience and disdain toward his kind — even when I speak with venom and condescension. Still, he’s patient, that one. And though I won’t pretend that my contempt for his peers doesn’t sometimes colour how I see him, I can’t help but notice the resemblance between him and the very men who, like him, insist on calling themselves “man.”

Nonetheless, since men have always reserved the right to decide which women are worthy of value and respect, and because I am not any better than a man — merely human, after all I, too, shall claim that same privilege. I will group them all together until the rare ones stand out on their own. After all, it’s only fair. They insist that we have the same rights now, that feminism is obsolete, so surely I may also indulge in their habits of micro and macro aggression, prejudice, and hate. Ultimately, I am just a girl and girls will be girls.

This is to say: my friend — the one we are permitted to like, for he is not as dreadful as the rest — stands in stark contrast to another man I once met. That one told me pregnancy was a blessing, that motherhood was the purest fulfilment of womanhood, and that I would “change my mind in due time.” I was, apparently, too young to think otherwise — though, curiously, he was the one who brought the theme up. For that, I sincerely wish him the experience himself: may he become pregnant and deliver a fine brood of children.

And as for the men now suffering from the so-called loneliness epidemic — victims, they claim, of women’s cruel power of choice — well, they’ll soon need new carriers for their precious offspring. They seem to believe themselves the sacred vessels of humanity’s continuation, after all. So, by all means, let them carry the species forward.