New-age man, or new-age dud?
I wonder what he's hiding?
I like to think of myself as a new-age man. I cried as the Titanic sank. I sobbed as Sam’s daughter was wrestled away from him. I cheer for women’s rights whenever it’s warranted, and discuss gender inequality with my partner in a pragmatic manner. I can cook, clean, and do the laundry without batting an eyelid, and still manage to hold my own in the home-repairs department. So, you see, I have no problem with the ‘sensitive’ part of the new-age maxim. It’s the ‘macho’ part that I don’t get.
Most of modern man’s existence is spent in humble obeisance to the norms of his or her expected role in society. Historically and culturally, we are taught that at different periods in time, men and women played different parts in the fabric of civilization. And right now, men and women seem to be expected to play the role of equals: neither should function any differently than the other. Both accept the same responsibilities, treatment and privileges. The only thing that doesn’t change is that a woman will bear children, and a man will bear his shameless stupidity.
But as with everything else with the world: where’s the justice? In an ideal world of idyllic paradise islands where ideal men and women make ideal babies, a world with this equally ideal balance between manliness and femininity would be perfect. However, since the laws of man and nature are not the same, we fumble around looking for that equilibrium, and make adjustments to our present characteristics over our decades-old make-up: Men used to be hard-nosed creatures with an appetite for only sex and violence. (Some may argue that we still are). Now, we’re trying to fulfil our inherent need for the macho whilst acknowledging the ‘new-age’ orders-of-the-day, such as knowing the difference between frill and lace. It’s a tough time to be a chauvinist, male or female.
On the one hand, women seem to like my sensitive, soft-hearted core. They think it’s sweet. On the other hand, I’m a weakling; a limp, spineless, pathetic little boy who hides behind a grizzly chin and corporate tie. While I try to maintain a gruff, disinterested arrogance for household utensils and ladies’ clothes departments, I still take an active role in home décor and lingerie. But with every soppy love-story I watch, waiting for the good guy to whack the bad guy over the head with a baseball bat, I get more confused. I mean — seriously now — is there really such a thing as a New-Age guy?
People tell me it is so, but I have my reservations. If men have our ‘basic instincts’, and lust for women and protector-like roles, then surely women have their primitive needs for strong, able-bodied men, that would throw any man who looks at her wrong a good right hook. The last time a companion of mine came under attack, I calmly withdrew from the situation, taking her with me. My rationale was simple: suppress my first instinct to punch his nose and run, and instead leave the vicinity under the guise of “a matured defence to a threatening assault”.
Unfortunately, her response was, “Why didn’t you kick him in the you-know-where?” No wonder Paula Cole sang, “where have all the cowboys gone?”
Oh, all right, so maybe that was an isolated incident. But that still doesn’t explain why we’re expected to ‘keep things together’ in the family way when they start to fall apart, and — my all-time favourite — to be ‘the rock to lean on’, and heaven knows how many other clichéd ‘good old-fashioned cowboy’ roles that need filling any time a situation that calls them. It’s downright unsettling.
So, I remain swaying between the modern and the primeval. Caught between my good-natured, willing-to-please-my-woman side; and my other, gloriously testosterone-crammed, Who-Is-The-Man? one.
I suspect that the New-Age Man might be our generation’s inverse Galatea: a statue carved by King Pygmalion, so dissatisfied was he with the feminine race, and brought to life as The Perfect Woman. But purely mythological. Fictitious. Make-believe. A product of exceptional imagination. So it is with the New-Age Man.
I’m no New-Age Dude. Anyone care for a New Age Dud?
