Men and Women

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Men and Women

The promise of a frontier to be claimed,
the promise of the crowds whom he would crush,
destroying them as soon as he's defamed
their reputation, gives a man a rush,
but women do not show such tasteless tantra,
inhibited from being quite as boorish
by kindliness and love that are their mantra,
Othello proves this, masculine and Moorish.
The reason men behave as men is due to women,
as demonstrated, if you will, by Desdemona;
a lemon does not choose to be a lemon,
and big fish have to swallow men like Jonah.

Susan Faludi, in "Stiffed: The Betrayal of the American Man," William Morrow), writes about the four aspects of the "national male paradigm":

"...the promise of a frontier to be claimed...the promise of a clear and evil enemy to be crushed...the promise of an institution or brotherhood in which anonymous members could share a greater institutional glory....the promise of a family to provide for and protect...."

Faludi claims that the malaise affecting men is often paternal betrayal, but Thomas Lynch ("Great Expectations: The Masculine Mystique and the Reality of American Life," The Los Angeles Times Book Review, September 26, 1999) wonders whether she has not downplayed the importance of feminism, the "male-bashing, emasculating, all-men-are-rapists or sperm donors or the-butt-of-a-joke brand that is practiced by the victim-chic culture that we now inhabit".