I hate men. All men. I have a comprehensive plan to exterminate everything with a willy. I don’t eat in the dining hall or restaurants because the food was touched by non-females. I grow my own vegetables and chickens and slaughter all of the roosters and leave them on my neighbors’ doorsteps. In fact, I don’t eat any male animals except, of course, boiled pig testicles. I have an obsession with putting bananas, carrots and cucumbers in my blender and pressing the puree button. I have a poster of Lorena Bobbit hanging over my bed and a knife under my pillow. I take only women’s studies and military science classes. I have 10 cats and if they have boy babies I grind them up and smear the gook on my face and run around fraternity houses chanting gibberish. Without a bra, of course.You see, I like women. And according to the unquestionable laws of logic, this necessarily means that I think all men are scum. As our buddy Nathan Crabbe puts it, I spend all of my time “whining about the evils of dirty-minded men.” I mean, gosh, what else is there for a feminist gal like me to do?Let me make a shocking and frightening confession: I sort of like men. I know this is difficult to fathom, but I kinda like old gramps, even though he -eek- likes sports. I like my dad, too, even though he has this utterly nauseating habit of watching action movies. And, oh my gosh, come to think of it, I even like my boyfriend even though he – oh shriek! – pees standing up. In all seriousness, the common idea that supporting women automatically means degrading men is sad and dangerous. Thinking that women sometimes get a raw deal does not mean that I blame men. My pointing out that men are sometimes brought up to behave a certain way does not mean that I don’t like them, and that there aren’t many good and wonderful men. It also doesn’t mean that there aren’t some horrible and nasty women. People somehow have gotten the idea that being pro-woman means being anti-male, when all that feminism says is that women should get a fair shot to live happy, free and fulfilling lives.Take, for instance, The Neighbors. Yes, sometimes I think that the comic is a little degrading and stereotypical. But that doesn’t mean that I think that Jeff Yoakum is an evil man, or that he does not have the right to draw what he thinks is funny. In his comic strips, he represents one aspect of womanhood. There are certainly women who act like his nymphomaniac, drug-crazed sorority “chicks.” The problem is not that he depicts that type of woman – it’s just that he focuses in on that one aspect only and that there are not more healthy representations on the page to offset his unhealthy ones.And it’s not like I think it’s bad to have pictures of scantily-clad women up in your room or that talking about a woman’s appearance is “dirty-minded.” Women are sometimes objectified, and men are too – there’s nothing wrong with appreciating peoples’ appearances unless we do so disproportionately and forget that there are other valuable aspects to being women and men than what fills out our bathing suits.The point is that the sexes do not have to be “opposite.” We do not have to oppose each other and we would in fact do a lot better if we helped each other out. “Women’s issues” like rape, abortion, equal pay and sexual harassment are all intimately related to men’s and women’s relationships with them. Men would more likely promote fair treatment if the sexes weren’t so polarized and their supporting women weren’t seen as “working with the enemy” or “selling out.” Why is it so remarkable when a man takes women’s studies classes? Isn’t he just trying to understand the experiences of his mothers, sisters, friends and partners? Ask a man who has taken a class and see if he didn’t find that unfair treatment of the sexes didn’t adversely affect him too.The idea that my desire to stop discriminatory and demeaning attitudes toward women should imply that I don’t like men defeats anything I try to do. And it is just an easy way out for people who don’t care to listen to what I am trying to say. But this attitude is something we can all change. Next time you talk to a scary “feminist,” don’t assume that she hates men simply because she thinks women should get on-site child care. Don’t look at sexual harassment as some sort of claim brought up by women who want to ban sex from daily life. And when you read my columns, don’t assume that I have some sort of evil plan for female world domination. Oh, wait….!
Jessica Weeks is a regular Lantern columnist.
