What A Piece of Work Is A Man?

Let’s face it: women were hogging all the fun.

Employment equity. Abortion. Rape. Wife battering. Eating disorders. Sexual harassment. Lesbian rights. Journeys of self-discovery. Sex role constraints – women had been blessed with a host of issues around which they could rally.

Men, being men, looked at women’s support groups, their political organizations, their health centres, their growing sense of sisterhood, and said, “We shouldn’t have to miss out on all of this great stuff just because we haven’t been oppressed for millenia!”

“Look at us!” men, being men, started to shout. “We can redefine our gender-determined social roles like nobody’s business!”

It’s not hard to feel sympathetic. Men had dominated the world for thousands of years, taking whatever they wanted to use in any way they saw fit. At some point, men started assuming that those who had been subjugated by force had actually chosen, of their own free will, to become second class citizens. Imagine their surprise (men, being men) when women insisted this was not so.

Of course, having had their way for so long, men had little experience at redefining their role. Their first attempt, in the 1970s, entailed sympathy, understanding and crying a lot about how hard it was to be a man.

Nobody bought it.

There the matter lay for years. Although so-called New Age Man was an improvement over Old Age Man, nobody wanted to invite him to parties.

Enter Robert Bly, who claimed that men had to get in touch with their primal emotions and remain in touch with the strengths men had always admired in themselves. Men, being men, this meant parading around in the nude in a forest, pretending to be animals.

You can be forgive if you don’t see much difference between Robert Bly Man and Old Age Man. Although subtle, the major difference is critical: Robert Bly Man wears better suits to work.

Nor are these the only choices. Creeping along the horizon is a future filled with more technological marvels than you can agitate a three dimensional forestry by-product at. For all we know, men may some day be replaced by computer chips (although, men, being men, this seems unlikely to be accomplished without the spilling of a great deal of silicon).

Where do you fit in in this mishmash of masculine role models? We’ve prepared a chart comparing Old Age, New Age, Robert Bly and Future man; simply find the characteristics that best describe you. The chart is a simplistic device, of course, but suitable for our needs.

Men, being men.