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 Happy
Valentine’s Day!
A Few Words in Favor of Men...
[Carol
Platt Liebau] 2/13/06
This has
not been a good year for the reputation of the American male.
In print
and on television, the narcissistic, endlessly self-absorbed
Maureen Dowd has accused men of wanting nothing more than to
marry their maids and secretaries – all the time planning
to ditch them when they’re around 40. According to Ms.
Dowd, men are generally so insecure that even a glint of female
power and intelligence is enough to send them scurrying away
like scared bunnies.
Even little
boys are subject to the same kind of mindless trashing. As
Deborah Roffman pointed out in last week’s Washington
Post, there’s now a virtual expectation that “boys
will be bad,” both socially and sexually. One wonders:
Is that attitude to be expected when women like Maureen Dowd – clearly
no fan of the other sex – are in the midst of their child-rearing
years?
Contributor
Carol Platt Liebau - Senior
Columnist
Carol
Platt Liebau is editorial director and a senior
member of tOR and CRO editorial
boards. She is an attorney, political analyst
and commentator based in San Marino, CA, and
has appeared on the Fox News Channel, MSNBC,
CNN, Orange County News Channel, Cox Cable and
a variety of radio programs throughout the United
States. A graduate of Princeton University and
Harvard Law School, Carol Platt Liebau also served
as the first female managing editor of the Harvard
Law Review. Her web log can be found at CarolLiebau.blogspot.com [go
to Liebau index]
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Certainly
there are some men who wouldn’t be caught dead
dating or marrying a woman they suspected to be more intelligent
or more successful than they. But the “intelligent” and “successful” women
should thank their lucky stars every time a suitor is scared
away by a graduate school degree or a fancy job – consider
it early warning on the jerk-detection meter. Likewise, there
are some women who wouldn’t dream of dating or marrying
a man they didn’t deem to be “rich.” That doesn’t
make all women gold-diggers, any more than the existence of some
insecure men means all men are insecure.
Of course, there’s no doubt that some men are “pigs.” Almost
every woman has had an experience with the boyfriend or boss
whose boorish behavior beggars belief. All of us have either
known or heard about men who care for nothing but cheap, easy
sex and pretty faces. Bad guys are out there, all right.
But it’s worth remembering: For every one of those, there
are ten others – like the soldiers risking their lives
to protect us from Islamofascists, the doctors who give up their
nights and weekends to deliver our babies, and the mechanics
who warn us when the treads on our car tires are becoming dangerously
worn. There are the truck drivers who stopped to help stranded
motorists in a pre-cell phone age, and the policemen who still
respond to midnight burglar alarms – when they’re
malfunctioning, and when they’re not.
They are our husbands,
fathers, brothers and friends. Their teasing, messiness, quirks
and annoying idiosyncrasies may drive
us to distraction, but at the same time, we know that they would
do whatever it took to stand between us and disaster – and
that the most heart wrenching thing in the world for them is
to see us cry (even when we’re in the wrong).
In the end, women
have a power over men much greater than the pull of sex or
the threat of disapproval. For some wonderful
reason, good men (for the most part) want to please women and
to see us happy – even if there’s no immediate “payoff” in
it for them. And for the most part, they will live up (or down)
to the expectations we set for them. Best of all, real men are
proud of high-achieving women in their lives – so long
as all the achievement is leavened with a little kindness, humor,
humility and love.
Men, as a sex, are not inherently insecure, animalistic nor
undisciplined. They are just different. Pity the women who look
at them and see nothing but a projection of their own shortcomings
and fears.
They are missing out on one of life’s greatest joys – the
love, friendship and companionship of men. -one-
Columnist
Carol Platt Liebau is a political analyst, commentator and tOR / CRO editorial
director based in San Marino, CA. Ms. Liebau also served
as the first female managing editor of the Harvard Law
Review. Her web log can be found at CarolLiebau.blogspot.com
copyright
2006 Carol Platt Liebau
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