...men are unraveling. It's tough to adjust when you lose your patriarchal inheritance!
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Yeah, this sounds about right.
I'd narrow the focus a bit though and say a certain kind of man is unraveling. Men like the guy in this little moment from my past...
Years ago I dated a beautifully tough -- or was that tough and beautiful? -- woman who possessed, among many talents (including scholarly knowledge of ancient music, which was a surprisingly sexy thing about her), a very skilled amateur's level of understanding about cars.
She grew up on a farm surrounded by heavy, dangerous gear and her father, a practical guy - sort of a de facto feminist, without the theory - made sure she was familiar with the care and feeding of machinery so she'd never have to depend upon anyone for basic repairs.
One day we were at home, snuggling on the couch watching a bad 'independent film' (a stale little confection about 20-somethings sitting in bath tubs discussing life as I recall) when we heard the painful sounds of a car in distress outside our living room window. My girlfriend looked out and saw a guy huddled over his car's engine while his buddy sat in the drivers' seat hitting the ignition on command. The engine huddler would dive in, make a few futile adjustments, then signal his comrade to try to fire the poor beast up again.
But it was no good, the vehicle was as dead as a Brecht Forum Xmas party.
Immediately, and based solely upon the sound the engine was making, my girlfriend recognized the problem. She shared her diagnosis with me. "Well, you should tell them" I said. In spite of her confidence and knowledge she was still pretty shy. She insisted I do it.
So, I went outside and relayed some wisdom to these stranded lads.
Of course, her advice worked; the car started. The grateful engine huddler shook my hand and asked how I knew what the problem was.
I told him, without thinking about it at all, that "my girlfriend identified the problem and told me what to tell you."
From the way he looked at me, you might have thought I said "yes, that's right, I do enjoy sex with decapitated dogs". He was actually speechless for several seconds. Finally, he caught himself, offered a (now much weaker and oddly wary) final thank you and sped off into the bright and chilly day.
Now I imagine that of the kinds of men on Earth who might become unraveled to varying degrees by a weakening of patriarchal privilege, my engine huddler surely falls well within one of the near total freak out subsets.
And of course, I'm no angel (thank the maker, or the gene pool or something) so I'm probably in there too -- somewhere. Hopefully in the mildly confused by it all...but only on odd Tuesdays and leap years, category.
.d.