Men Also Have a Soul

Men Also Have a Soul

Because One Woman Out of Two Is a Man

Feminists could forgive men their faults.

What they will never forgive are their qualities

Alain Habib

Alain Habib

INTRODUCTION

It’s a bad time to be a man …

If anyone would venture to utter such statement, we would ask ourselves (and I would first) if he did not stay too long in the sun without a hat.

We all read the press, listen to the radio and watch television. How many times have we not seen, in the course of an article or a televised debate, objective facts illustrating the difficulty of being a woman in our society? The mix of training, enshrined in law, is not achieved in practice. Women are confined to 10% of the jobs, often the least valued. Women often have careers that do not match their abilities. Employers seize pregnancy as an ideal pretext to exclude them from promotions and positions of responsibility. In 77% of cases divorce is pronounced to the wrongs of man. In twenty years of women's struggle, the husband's time spent on housework has increased by ten minutes. Two million women beaten in France. While women account for 52% of the electorate, only 3% of the deputies are women. Not to mention the Senate, the town halls, the government, the management of large companies and so many other similar facts …

Is not the male sex, since the world exists, the sex king? The one for whom the world is made, the sex superior, macho, phallocrat, the one who oppresses the other, says weak? Do we not live in a world of men who only works from man to woman?

Such is indeed the representation of the world to which the dominant opinion has accustomed us to the point that it seems inconceivable that there might be another.

And yet, is the life of men as simple as we have been willing to say? Basically, what do we really know about them? In short, not much. For the women have convinced us that they have hitherto remained an unknown land to be explored as a matter of urgency: nothing was said of them, they had remained under the bushel. It had to change.

They have organized themselves, created their newspapers, their publishing houses, went down the street to demonstrate. Tons of works of all kinds, studies, and articles on women in all fields, at all times, in all latitudes, were published in order to make known to the whole world their miserable condition.

Inevitably disadvantaged, they saw nothing but macho and misogyny. Their childhood was martyrdom, their marriage an atrocious drama, their sexual initiation a rape, the fate of the bride a Calvary, raising children slavery, washing dishes a torture.

Is not the male sex, since the world exists, the king sex? The one for whom the world is made, the sex superior, macho, phallocrat, the one who oppresses the other, says weak? Do we not live in a world of men who only works from man to woman?

Such is indeed the representation of the world to which the dominant opinion has accustomed us to the extent that it seems to us inconceivable that there may be another.

And yet, is the life of men as simple as we have been willing to say? Basically, what do we really know about them? In short, little. For the women have convinced us that they have hitherto remained an unknown land to be explored as a matter of urgency: nothing was said of them, they had remained under the bushel. It had to change.

They got organized, have created their newspapers, their publishing houses, demonstrated in the streets. Tons of books in all kind, studies, articles on women in all areas, at all times, under all the latitudes were published to let the world know their miserable condition.

Inevitably disadvantaged, they saw everywhere nothing but machos and misogynists. Their childhood was a martyrdom, their marriage an atrocious drama, their sexual initiation a rape, the fate of the wife a Calvary, raising children was slavery, washing the dishes a torture.

They were marginalized, in the shadows, in dungeons, behind the scenes, in a cul-de-sac, in the bottom of the hold, forgotten, battered, victimized, humiliated, raped, debited in washers, mutilated, martyred, kept in slavery, reduced to serfdom, sold, delivered, exploited, put to death, tortured, gated, relegated, deported, betrayed, flouted, cloistered. And this, of course, in the most favorable cases. Because very often it was worse.

Placing themselves in a perspective of radical hostility between the sexes, they denied any positive counterpart of their relationships with men.

As for men, my word, they appeared only in the form of general and abstracted entities: men, those that governed the world, the oppressors or in the best of cases, in the form of historical characters in the singular destiny… So that these men, about whom we imagine to know everything, have in fact been very little studied.

It is in their sentimental relationships that women, for the first time, have sensed that, perhaps, the men were not these simplistic creatures that they had enjoyed imagining until then.

In a first step they had rejected them, declaring them harmful, and preferring to live alone. But in recent years we have been witnessing a change of attitude and a number of them declare today to feel the need of a male presence. But, to their surprise, they realized that instead to return to them in the whistle, they took their distance. The women's publications testify this malaise and wonder how beautiful, intelligent and dynamic women can remain neglected…

Perhaps should we see in the difficulty of communication between the sexes one of the reasons for this situation: women, at heart, know little about men. And, how would they? Who gives them the means to know them? From what sources could they have drawn their information?

The cinema, the literature offer them only clichés: James Bond, the very British spy with his electronic gadgets, the harsh but incorruptible policeman; the gangster Al Capone, J.R; Ewing, the Texan oil billionaire, Tintin the reporter without fear, without reproach and without sexuality…

A lot of women complain of the reticence of men, of their silence. The text that follows should respond to their expectations. It will undoubtedly surprise those who imagined their existence as a roses garden.

But each medal has its reverse. One remembers of this queen who, in the tale Snow White, asked each day to her mirror who was the most beautiful woman. And who broke it through spite on the day when - Alas! -, it informed her of her come down.

It is a fact that it has much been told to women that they were the most beautiful. Exploited, oppressed, they are eternal victims, while men hold admirably their role of ideal scapegoat. In a world that’s not too nice, they do not bear the responsibility of any crime, of any atrocity, since they are not the lead. They derive a very comfortable good conscience on a moral plan. Will they accept- to call it into question?

I hope in any case that might forgive me to disturb sometimes the chorus of praise to the female sex. It happens to me in effect to formulate a few criticisms, or even to express a certain indignation.

I think it is time to open the dialog. May the following lines contribute to our mutual understanding.

MEN LIBELLED

Demeaning men is a women’s practice that does not date back to today if one believes these excerpts from The second sex, published more than sixty years ago:

Sometimes, wrote Simone de Beauvoir, women cling deliberately, by hostility for men, to values that are not her own. She is leaning on the authority of a mother, a father, a brother, of some male personality which seems to him higher, a confessor, a sister to thwart him. Or, without opposing him anything positive, she endeavors to contradict him systematically, to attack him, to hurt him; she strives to instill in him an inferiority complex.

She stiffens between his arms and inflicts him the affront of her frigidity; she shows capricious, coquette, she imposes him an attitude of supplicant, flirts, makes him jealous, she cheats on him; in one way or another she tries to humiliate his virility.

Quantity of married women s have fun to confide the tricks, which they use to simulate a pleasure they claim not to feel; and they laugh fiercely of the conceited naivety of their fools.

It can be seen: it is not from now on that women endeavor to belittle men, to turn their authority into derision, to show that they are in fact nothing but ridiculous and pretentious dwarves. What has changed, however, is the breadth multiplied by one hundred of the means at their disposal to do so. In old days a woman mocked her husband in the secret of her heart, in a diary or with some friends at tea time. Nowadays a modern, organized army, with stewardship and transmissions has ousted William Tell. They have their own publishing houses, newspapers, radio and television broadcasts, countless associations, not to mention the state-owned media (Ministry of Women's Rights) mostly financed by male taxpayer's money.

Here is a typical example of feminine prose taken from an article in Femme Pratique (The Practical Woman) about shyness:

"As for shyness, men and women are equal. Shyness, like jeans, is unisex: men and women are initially united for the worst. Same trembling, same blushing, same anxiety. However, at the end of the day, women cope better with it. Simply because they do not balk at the effort, even if it consumes their time, even if they have to question themselves.

We learned a lot in a short paragraph! We have learned that women do not balk at the effort, but men - no doubt about it - are lazy like dormouse and only wait for everything to fall into their mouths. Moreover, they are incapable of questioning themselves and of evolving while women are ready to make sacrifices to improve themselves. Many mean and poisonous innuendo in a short paragraph!

But such taunts do not come only from women. For today, women are at the head of many editorial boards. And male journalists are well constrained - in all independence and freedom, needless to say - to embrace the cause of feminist fundamentalism.

Thus, appears in the newspaper L’évènement du Jeudi (Thursday Events), a case on the new machos. Directed by Florence Assouline, it calls women to watchfulness: the machos are not dead. They beat, violate, and kill women.

An Italian correspondent, Salvatore Aloise, reports on the creation in his country of a protective society of the homo italicus. He applies himself to show them as wackies that could be dangerous if they were not totally cut of realities:

Mistrust! He writes. It is enough that Italian women turn their backs for a moment [like the schoolmaster of our primary school] for the fantasies of the macho restoration to come alive again [for the children to begin heckling at the back of the classroom]. Here, from Milan, though the most European city of the peninsula [ an allusion to Algiers and Tehran], one learns the birth of a peculiar [no comment] association. The name shows its hands: National Association for the Safeguarding of the Italian Male: a true SPA [men are animals] for homo italicus. For too long we have been abused by women, says the president. It was time to react. " Umberto Galli, 45, is the founder of ASMI (Associazione Nazionale Salvezza Maschio Italiano). He wants to alert the public opinion by promoting new laws for the just cause of the Italian man. According to the vision of the ASMI commandos [sic], the general situation can no longer last. For now, in any case, let the ladies be reassured. The registered activists are only … 238 [hence they are wackies]

The message is clear. Women have a monopoly of suffering and oppression. It is ridiculous to assert that men could be mistreated even just a little. The ASMI commandos would only want to make wear the chador to the women and lock them in harems. But these are fortunately only fantasies without danger because these people are merely wackies without audience. That, at least, is information without bias! To what does this term of commando exactly refer to? According to the dictionary, it refers to specialized training in limited purpose attacks. What kind of shots are we talking about? Are there any specific facts? Which ones? The correspondent in question said too much or too little. Or is it just humor? As for the fact that the association counts only 238 adherents, it is a specious argument, but very clever. Its strength rests on the gregarious instinct of the human being. We enter a livelier restaurant than in an empty room where waiters seem to be bored waiting for the customer. The gregarious instinct is reassuring because everything happens as if a large number of people could not be deceived at the same time. It is an insinuation of this kind that is used here: if the Italian militants of the masculine condition are only 238,inevitably they are merely wackies who are roundly in another world It is easier to imply than to demonstrate.

Actually, there is nothing to demonstrate. For all the precursors, such as Copernicus or Galilee, and many others, have had the whole world against them. And yet everyone recognizes today that it does move. Feminists, too, were few in their early days. You are not inevitably wrong because you are going against the current. You are not inevitably right when you bleat with the herd.

But that does not embarrass Mr. Salvatore Aloise. All means are good when it comes to discrediting men. Tell me which methods you use, I will tell you who you are. Here we are, at any rate, far from the spirit of tolerance which the feminine sex pretends to embody.

Advertising is another example of persiflage about men. As Jean Feldman, an adman of the advertising agency FCA reminds us, it has got into the habit to ridicule men in order to better sanctify women.

For instance a series of TV advert for Vénilia, a trademark of wallpapers, was broadcasted on french television. The scenarios changed slightly from one advert to another, but the structure remained the same. A guy, pretentious, hasty, with a grisly physique, imagines impressing a woman by explaining to him that he has seen everything, read, and done. She listens politely, though with a certain irritation. On the way, they enter the flat of the type (or another place, it is according) with screaming decor and bad taste.

She puts the boss back into place with a condescending pout: In any case, you have not read Vénilia. A voice-over resumes: Vénilia, to be read absolutely. We'll think about it.

Galaxy, first gel for dishes. A dozen guests are sitting around a table. Among them, a four-eyed examines the cleanliness of a glass.

She: What’s the matter, Gerard?

Four-eyed: There are traces on this glass …

She, peremptory: It is impossible!

Four-eyed: Yes, I assure you.

She then removes her glasses and makes him ashamed in front of everyone by designating tasks on his glasses. Moral of history: men, prigs, accuse women of their own faults. But they, like dishes washed with Galaxy, are tasteless.

Detergent Saint Mark. A man and a woman enter together in a kitchen that obviously needs serious cleaning. Him: Let me be the strongest. She, smiling: That's what we're going to see. They get to work, each in a corner of the kitchen. He uses his virile and stupid force: big muscles, but brain like a hazel. She, malignant, smiling, effortless, finishes before him. Because she used the good product, detergent Saint Mark, as you understand.

The Saint Marc detergent scenario can be adapted to a whole host of products: it is enough to represent a competition between a barracked moron who uses a nerdy material and a fine fly that uses the good product, that is to say the publisher. Example: Black and Decker for its wallpaper removal machines. Let us specify for those who have not yet picked up: it is she who wins.

New York, with its brick buildings and its heavy traffic of big American cars. A small Citroën AX red, led by a woman, impeccable from her nail varnish to her hair, stands out from the grayness. A bicycle courier (the fastest way to sneak in traffic jams) challenges the small AX in a speed race. Grimacing with effort, he throws all his male (we would be tempted to say thus stupid) physical strength in the battle. In vain because the charming driver, relaxed and smiling behind her steering wheel, gets systematically ahead.

We see here the pretentious men, aggressive towards women, favored with regard to them (everybody knows that the professional life of women is full of pitfalls). But in this hostile world, she is the one who emerges victorious from a fight she did not trigger.

In all these advertisements, the punchline of the story unmasks the boastful, pretentious and incapable man, while the woman, intelligent, shrewd, modest, emerges with greater prestige. The product is valorized by direct association to the