The Unreconstructed Man
"Good day folks. I've been sent here to keep you entertained for as long as I can keep it up and you can stand it. That might sound suggestive to you, but as we know, everything boils down to money and sex. I've got no money so I'll stick to what I know.
"You down in front, the guy with white hair and jeans. Have you heard of sex? Yes? Nod twice for yes, otherwise I'll think you're falling asleep.
"And you, the young lady with the toothpaste smile? Yes? Does your daddy know that you know? Oh, that's not him with you? Sorry man. Her uncle? You're her uncle? Well this is awkward. Before we all end up in family court, I suppose I should tell you why I ask about sex.
"Sex is something everyone should have, but finding the right person to do it with is as easy as solving a Rubik's cube. Of course there are rare Casanovas who can solve the thing in four seconds but what fun is that?
"Sex should be easier than a twisting plastic cube, but it seems the further along we get in time, the more complicated the puzzle gets. Sex used to have only two sides but now there are at least as many as there are in a cube. Until LGBTQ+ came along there was only MF, and I don't mean motherfucker.
"In the middle of the 20th century, feminists were loud in their insistence that women should have a voice, and I think you'd agree this is correct. As the women's movement gained traction, men stopped asking "What's a woman doing at the head of a successful company?" If a man had a brain cell that wasn't dominated by testosterone, he might see that would be as stupid as asking why a redheaded man made it to the top of the ladder. As women gained status and power, role models popped up, women as heads of state, as astronauts, university chancellors, referees, jockeys, soccer and hockey players, and soldiers. We're still waiting on the lady General who will lock up the boy's war toys until he learns how to use them responsibly.
"Women have found their feet. With their emotional intelligence, multi-tasking skills, and sense of continuity and community, they have the ability to keep things in perspective, to see the bigger picture, unless someone has stolen their parking space, and then the verbal guns come out.
"In the 20th century, while the role of women changed from wife and homemaker to tax-paying member of society, a reconstruction of the male took place. There was the Manchurian Candidate, a film about brainwashing, and a decade after that, The Six Million Dollar man, with its "We can rebuild him," tagline. Women and men were both going through changes, but women seemed to know where they were going and men only heard that they should be 'bigger, stronger, and faster' as well as modifying their social behaviour to respect the opposite sex. For a lot of men this was like stepping on the gas and the brake at the same time. Some men went shooting forward but others crept slowly forward making a lot of noise and smoke, but many men stayed where they were, spinning their wheels until their motors internally hemorrhaged. Those are the unreconstructed types.
"Enlightened women have taught their brothers, sons, and lovers to walk side by side with them or even a step behind, never in front. When a woman wants something, she expects her partner to be there to provide it, to protect her, to back her up when she needs support, and to carry at least half the weight of the household. Men have been taught that they should hold doors open for women, that it is alright to push baby carriages, buy tampons, and tell her sweet lies about her body. A man should also put the toilet seat back down when he has finished pissing all round the bowl. Reconstructed men accept this role because if they want a balanced rapport with a woman in the 21st century, they have no choice. Women have let men rule for millenia so it is high time men know how it feels to be at the other end of the stick. You men out there, have you ever thought about how it feels to be asked if the reason you are cranky is because you are on your period? You would probably snap back a hard NO, and marvel that anyone could ask you such a question. How would you feel if someone asked you if you were behaving like a bitch because you hadn't had sex in too long. Reconstructed men have been taught not to even think it.
"These recent changes in male behaviour have highlighted an existential dilemma for men. The modern man, the reconstructed man, with his happy wife, happy life submissiveness, has a counterpart who doesn't wish to be tamed. This is the unreconstructed man. This man has no restrictions on toilet seats, shopping trips, what he eats or drinks, the people he hangs out with, or that he picks his nose. Laugh. I've seen you do it.
"The unreconstructed man has not been tamed or feminized and if he finds a partner, the relationship is adversarial. This man is number one in his world. He doesn't take his shoes off in the house and doesn't iron clothes. He doesn't change the toilet paper, clean the sink, or put the cap back on the toothpaste. He pretends he hasn't heard of recycling and throws his beer cans in the trash along with pizza scraps and coffee grounds. He whistles at women from the window of his truck, and sings out dulcet phrases to them like “Hey baby I want to f*** the lips off you.” There are many ways for this man to send the message to women that they are there for his pleasure. This man likes his women bountiful, not skinny, unless they have big tits and then he will forgive the rest of the body. He sees his women as sex cushions, then baby makers, then mothers who will look after his every need. He engages in slut shaming, not seeing that his own behaviour is worse than those he criticizes. Hands up you men who have been guilty of this. Nobody? Well then you're all remarkable specimens, gentlemen. If only we could believe you.
"Unreconstructed men are xenophobic and racist because they don’t trust anyone who isn't like them. They exhibit a tribal instinct that prevents them from trusting strangers, even if they are from the next village, no matter the colour of their skin. The stranger is different, unknown, and potentially dangerous. They're like dogs circling around each other baring their teeth. It's not a coincidence that most unreconstructed men are straight white males who had submissive mothers. Any of you out there who had mothers who said "No damn way," to being put in her place, are the lucky ones, and will probably find a chair at the table in the next century. The throwbacks will be left peering through the bars, fighting over scraps, too stuck in the gumboots of their forefathers to understand what they are doing wrong. They will put on the guilty and sorry look of a dog caught shredding rubbish all over the kitchen floor. "Did you do that?" "Yes mum." "Why?" "Something just came over me." "Bad dog!"
"Unreconstructed men make inappropriate jokes, while reconstructed men don't tell jokes because all humour is at the expense of someone. Unreconstructed men use swearing as their first choice of self expression, while reconstructed men swear only in private and try not to use religious or sexist epithets. Unreconstructed men don't know the difference between their inside voice and their outside voice while reconstructed men often have to be told to speak up. An unreconstructed man doesn’t read instructions or ask for help, not even when his Ikea table is upside down. He uses climate destroying aerosol in the bathroom and doesn't close the door when he is on the toilet. He prefers his women barefoot, pregnant, and indoors, carrying out their gender assigned duties.
"An unreconstructed man wants sex when and how he wants it, usually at 5am when every male gets a dream boner. His preferred position is anything dominant. He refuses to give up his addictions but prefers that women in his orbit don't have any. When he is ill, he thinks he is dying and never takes a basin to bed because he is not the one who will clean up afterwards. He prefers to get into a made bed but he never makes it himself.
"The unreconstructed man is a hunter by instinct. If he has nowhere to indulge this urge, he will play video games, often ones where he is the first person shooter. Pow, pow, pow. The unreconstructed man laughs at his own jokes. He has learned the basics of computers and smartphones, and feels compelled to make comments, but he is intimidated by critics who make fun of his spelling, so when he has something to say, he expresses it in phonetic form, like "aaiiyyaaah!" or "oooffaahh!"
"Some are threatened by this refashioning of social norms because they believe that gender roles are fixed. Anthropologists, those professional people watchers, tell us that these apparently inborn traits are not permanent and have constantly evolved to help us survive in varying climates and societies. But even with the advances women have made in the 20th century, we still live in a patriarchal society. If an unreconstructed man denies this fact, he should turn the tables and ask himself what a matriarchal society would look like and what would his place be in it. In short, he will not be at the top of the totem pole or at the bottom. Matriarchies have existed in the past and may exist again, and their resurgence would send a host of unreconstructed patriarchal Neanderthals running for cover like vampires fleeing from sunlight. There will be holdouts in the new order, throwbacks who will be recorded in history as maladapted dinosaurs. So men, get your nurturing papers in order, because when women realize they have to take up arms to root out the last obstacles to progress, to beat the patriarchs at their own game, there will be some serious homemaking skills to be learned. But women should also be wary because as a threatened species, unreconstructed men may go to ground and claim they are fighting for their survival, which though true, is a lost cause. Unreconstructed men will be consigned to that crowded place, the wrong side of history, in the illustrious company of Mussolini, Hitler, Pol Pot, Idi Amin, Gaddafi, and Donald Trump.
"So to any men out there who have a strong strain of the caveman in them, it's time to reconstruct yourselves so we can create a more balanced society for the next generation to inherit. Put down the PlayStation and be a man, a real man, a he-man, a man who shoulders his share of the sky.
