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June 19, 2003 I read the other day that the University of Massachusetts is trying to find a new mascot for their sports teams, the minutemen. The mascot at present is a minuteman, which seems logical, but school officials are trying to change that because the minuteman is holding a (gasp) firearm and he appears too male. First off weren't the minutemen, well men? Is UMASS going to change the name of their sports teams to something original like bears or tigers or something that nobody can understand like maybe Aggies or Hoyas? My next question gets to the gritty nitty of this article. What so bad about being male? I'm saying not that it's solely a man's world anymore if it ever has been. Nor am I implying that women should not be held in the same regard, paid more money, given the same chances, blah blah blah, but is it necessary to stomp out every last molecule of masculinity from the world? I mean good grief it's getting to where you can't play a round of golf with the guys anymore. Just kidding, I don't play golf and have never been interested in the sport. I do, however, think that Martha Burke was more interested in getting her mug on T.V. than standing up for the rights of women everywhere. Martha didn't get in, and from what I hear, neither do a lot of the men who apply, but the gender wars of golf didn't end there. Annika Sorenstam with much fanfare and ballyhooing became the first woman since Babe Zaharias to play in a PGA event when she qualified for the Colonial. You have to have a lot of respect for Annika because she didn't call unnecessary attention to herself, as if she needed any, she didn't ask for any favors and when she didn't make the cut, she didn't give any excuses. On the other end of the spectrum you have Heather Sue Mercer who sued Duke University because she was cut from the football team. The stupid thing was that she was awarded 2 million dollars. Ms. Mercer who was a place kicker stated that she thought her dismissal was unjust and that her longest field goal was 38 yards. I hate to tell her but even at a perennial football turkey like Duke 38 yards should be a chip shot not your longest and let's face it Duke's football team plays like a bunch of women anyway without having one on the team. I just don't see what's so wrong with separating the sexes in instances like sports teams, colleges, health clubs etc. I'm sure that there are times that one gender wants to get away from the other I know there are occasions when I do. What really chaps my hide is the fact that a lot of the men only organizations are falling by the wayside and the women only organizations are remaining women only. Not that there are a lot of men who want to join such organizations but it just doesn't seem fair. For example I used to belong to a gym that had two sides, a men's side and a women's side. Okay that's cool but then it was changed to half women's side and half co-ed side. The justification for doing away with the men's only side was that more women went to the gym then men. The owner, however, who was a woman, didn't want to make both sides co-ed because it seems that some of the women didn't want to workout with the men because it seems that all of us, without exception, leered at them when they were trying to workout. There's nothing like being stereotyped as being a pervert and nobody mentioned the annoying habit that a lot of women have where they park themselves on one of the nautilus machines, refusing to move, and have a good three hour conversation. I think that the best examples of the wrongful stereotypes of men can be seen every night on network T.V. One of the reasons that I'm finding it easier and easier to turn off the idiot box and read a book is that I'm tired of the same old situation in situation comedies. You have a loveable but stupid father who can't tie his shoes much less run the household. That's done by the wife who's this angelic paragon of perfection who takes care of everything including the smart mouthed kids who would be vastly improved by a visit to the wood shed. The wife does everything and the husband sits around with his mouth hanging open, drinking beer and making idiotic statements. Either that or he's running around on his wife with the first woman who comes along. Every time I complain about this to a woman the response that I get is: "Well that's to make it realistic." No, that doesn't make it realistic because I know a great deal of men who are loyal, competent, hard working people and do their share of managing the household, me included. I also know some women who would definitely be qualified in the few fries short of a happy meal category, but it remains the man who is portrayed as the idiot, in real life as well as on television. Statistics now say that when a couple gets divorced that it is usually the woman who initiates the proceedings. It is also going to be the woman, no matter how fit a parent, who gets custody of the children and the father who has to wait until the weekends to see his kids. I would love to see a television show for a change that plays the woman as the moron, or like Married with Children who played them both as idiots. I would be willing to guarantee that if you did make the woman the butt of the joke that you would have Gloria Steinem or some other femi- nazi out in front of your house before you could say the word estrogen. My wife and I have been watching Burns and Allen which comes T.V. Land on Sunday mornings and it's sort of a breath of fresh air, which is unusual for a show almost fifty years old. This time the woman plays the goof, and does it well. The difference in the way that Gracie Allen did it and the way men are portrayed these days is that it wasn't disrespectful or degrading back then. It was sweet and the way she did it was down right brilliant. She was supposedly a very intelligent woman and in these ramblings that would leave George Burns sucking on his cigar she's still articulate in her babbling. You had to think a little bit to get the joke part of the time, sort of like joke grenades. I hope we get the chance to see some more Burns and Allen and I've made a note to try and find the radio shows, which are on cassette and CD now.
I can pretty well predict what women's
response to this article is going to be
something along the lines of: "Well we were
played as the helpless idiots for the first
thousand years now it's your turn." My response
is why does there have to be turns? Why can't we
all take advantage of the same opportunities,
make the same sacrifices, play our sports and
take our showers separately, then come together
and take turns playing the fool? Maybe we can
both go a long way baby.
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