http://www.npr.org/templates/story/story.php?storyId=18482794
*note, the first is the long version, the second is the short...
Now then.
Once in a while, I see something on Fark that I care enough about to actually read. Thus I found myself reading the angry and high-handed rant of one Kay Hymowitz (and you have no idea what it takes not take a few "frat-minded" cracks at the possible permutations of that name!), a woman who is obviously literate, and who also is probably desperately alone and unable to reconcile her lesbian-icity on account of being from Texas. Before I wade in, keep in mind that I'm certain this woman's ire and ennui could be excised if only she'd do what she's accused the male population of doing. More on that later.
I suppose the most stringent objection I take is that it has somehow become wrong to like playing X-box, to like drinking, and to like hanging out. Wait, wait, I hear you say! That's not what she's talking about at all! She's talking about guys remaining in adolescence until they're nearly out of their 20's, or even past, and those things are just symptomatic of that paradigm! Right, sure.
What she's really saying, what the core, underlying message of her article is simple: A man is not a man until he's a husband and a father. She doesn't come out and say it in so many words, but the message is clear. And she cites a great deal of women agreeing with her, ie, men don't want to settle down, get married, and all the hanging out and playing of video games and drinking with buddies is somehow keeping men from achieving what Hymowitz offensively referred to as "milestones of adult life." Point: As near as I can figure, by Hymowitz's definition, Milestones of Adult Life mostly means being in irreconcilable debt for years on end, working in a dreary job that you hate in order to afford the lives of the people living in your house, and not having the freedom to chase something down that might offer you the possibility of transcendence. If THAT'S the adult milestone I'm missing, she can fucking keep it.
You know, it's entirely possible that's the very reason WHY so many SYM's (single young males, for those of you who didn't peruse the article) are spending time into their 20's and 30's playing video games and not getting married, and it sort of the same reason that GenX didn't do it either (I'm speaking from GenY's perspective). Both of our generations (GenX'rs being those who rocked to Nirvana, GenY'rs who rocked to whatever was hip when I graduated high school, and I don't remember because I was listening to TOP and Steely Dan) have more or less seen what our fathers did (for those of us who had live-in fathers) to survive and to help us survive, and while we're greatful, we're in no great hurry to pass the favor on to the next generation by fathering said generation. (I suppose the difference is that GenY is disenfranchised, and GenX is disenfranchised and totally fucking lazy... I'm the GenXer's disagree).
Hymowitz's assertion that manhood does not begin until one is married and a father sort of implies that the most noble or important thing a man can do is become a father, and any man who's not is no man at all. In fact, her massively guilt-speak article comes right out and says that the media (oh no, the MEDIA!) has made it okay for "child-men" to remain in adolesence, well into their 30's and to not take on the role of adulthood or manhood (she uses the terms interchangeably, and at times, sexistly). Well, I can think of two reasons to delay taking on those mantles.
1.) Playing video games, drinking beer, and getting laid are all really fun, and you can't do them with a clear conscience if you have a wife and a kid. At least, not all the time.
2.) And here's the serious reason: There is a contingent of men out there who think just like the young women Hymowitz mentioned in her article. You know, the ones in graduate school who want a career and don't want to get married right away because they think maybe they should get a career together first, that way when they lose their dead-end job down at the mill or the factory or the cock-suckery because of a greedy CEO with a full pad of pink-slips, they might, you know, like, still have a fucking future together. As both of my brothers can now attest (read: my YOUNGER brothers), once you have a kid, your whole life changes. I don't see either of my brothers going back to school any time soon. Not with an infant mouth to feed.
When did it become morally and ethically irresponsible and immature for men to do what they want, but somehow noble and empowering for women to do the same? What if the reverse of the article were printed: Women are too content to sit and talk on the phone and go shopping all day, and aren't really women at all until they're wives and mothers? Can you imagine gasps of horror and cries of outrage? My God, it's almost as bad as George Busch's all-but-tacet health-care policies that would instruct all women to consider themselves "pre-pregnant!" (any coincidence with Busch=TX, Hymowitz=TX? Maybe we could go ahead and never listen to what anyone from TX had to say about anything of social import, EVER AGAIN? Geez, and the rest of the country thinks Kansas is backward (for wit, we are)).
I'll admit, that was paterno-centric thinking in action for alot of years, but now, at a time when we celebrate women for succeeding at the university and the workplace, isn't it a little double-standarded of folks to chide men for not having much of an interest in getting a couple of brats and a mortgage?
And by the way, something tells me that Ms. Hymowitz would lead a happier, more fulfilled life is she moved away from Texas, spent a little less time worrying about this:
http://www.halowars.com/images/mpday002b.jpg... and a little more time trying to find this:
http://googlegirls.files.wordpress.com/2005/12/dnk-girls-kissing-1713.jpg
Wow!
