Michael Noer is the latest member of a growing chorus of concerned citizens watching out for that most beleaguered figure: the under achieving, white, heterosexual man. With his Forbes piece, "Don't Marry a Career Woman" Noer joins the ranks of protector John Tierney of the New York Times, who has bemoaned the plight of men in the classrooms and playing fields across this pansy-ass country. All this hand wringing about men has this woman wondering: could I possibly care any less? Answer: no.
Noer has advised the brotherhood, "Whatever you do, don't marry a woman with a career." His reasoning, aimed at protecting his brethren from unhappy marriages, rests on the cold hard facts that career women are "more likely to get divorced, more likely to cheat, less likely to have children, and if they do have kids, they are more likely to be unhappy about it." Noer even points out that women, "even women with a 'feminist' outlook - are happier when their husband is the primary bread winner." Thanks for looking out for us "feminists," "Michael." Meanwhile, John Tierney in his July 11th column argued for football programs at US colleges being muscled out by the mean butchies of Title IX. It must not be necessary to alott time and attention to women's programs and teams since women are now totally and unquestionably equal with men on the playing field and in the University budget. When exactly that happened, I don't know. I must have missed it while watching a field hockey player make some lacrosse players weep behind the gym.
Apparently football is necessary to keeping our men educated. After all, who believes in curiosity being required for intellectual stimulation anymore? Tierney noted, "Besides attracting boys to campus, football and other sports help them stay in school. Provided they're not at a school that lets jocks get away with anything," because there are none of those around. Maybe I should check in on that girl with the lacrosse players. "A good coach can provide [their players] with the discipline - mandatory class attendance, supervised study periods, required grade-point average - that male students seem to need more than female students." Yes...men do seem to need more hand holding these days than women. How about that?
So what's this all about? When did the Great White Male get so endangered, so in danger of losing out to the women, of being cowed into marriage with a latte-guzzling, blackberry-pounding, bread-winning-and-not-baking girl? Maybe it was when he left home for the big scary world of bright women and big cities. Maybe it was when he had to share the front row of the classroom. Maybe it was when he left his Mommy. As Justin said to Britney, cry me a river. As my sixteen-year-old brother told me, sack up. And as I say to these two gentlemen, are you serious?
Let me get this straight - American men are suffering because they're being denied a hand to hold them through college, they aren't winning at the money game, and no one is cleaning up after them? After all, Noer likes to point out that if a man makes the mistake of marrying a woman with a quality education, he'll be living with a woman who does 1.9 hours less housework a week, at least according to a University of Michigan study from 2005. Sure, I'm dumbing down Noer and Tierney's arguments, but it's hardly a crime to dumb down the already fantastically simple-minded. How else could one explain the logic that links smart women with men committing suicide? Noer seems to think it makes perfect sense since his reasoning goes something like: career women are more likely to cheat (being around all those stags in the office is more than one little lady can bear) and cheating leads to divorcing, and divorcing leads to suicide. Eep! Someone grab my smelling salts! It gets even worse: "Divorce has been positively correlated with higher rates of alcoholism, clinical depression and suicide. Other studies have associated divorce with increases rats of cancer, stroke, and sexually-transmitted diseases." So not only will the minxes indirectly kill you, after they dismember your member and put it up on the wall with all their other trophies, they'll laugh over your body wrought with the Clap.
If men are falling so drastically far behind women in the classroom, in the boardroom, in the living room, which I don't entirely believe, then I suggest people like Noer and Tierney stop blaming women, stop trying to make us all in the New Mommy's and start taking a closer look at men. How about looking at the benefits of single sex education that is neither military nor secular in background? How about examining what fatherhood means to an individual, and how our ideas of masculinity can both limit and expand the very concept of fatherhood? How about trying to move away from the rigorous structures of masculinity and femininity, tab A and slot B, all together?
If one man's happiness can only be assured when all his fears of being cuckolded by a smart woman with a life of her own are assuaged, then it's time to take a closer look at that man's idea of happiness. Just a hint, it should not include being spoon fed.
By the way, if you're a man whose idea of happiness is another man, then don't worry - Noer and Tierney have nothing to say to you, other than possibly, "Do you do more than 1.9 hours of housework a week?" Wait, never mind, that'd be totally gay.