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Irish Times
15 October 2000
Real men stand up for what they know is right
By David Quinn
Pay close attention, particularly if you are a man, because what you
are about to read could change the way you view your personal habits.
Did you know that standing while urinating is a political act? No, in
fact, it's worse than that. It is a patriarchal act, a symbol of male
arrogance and dominance over women.
I kid you not. Truly enlightened men - Swedish men to be precise -
are beginning to cotton on to this. An article in The Spectator a few
months ago informed the world that among the Swedish chattering
classes, men, in solidarity with their women, now sit down while they
urinate. Only barbarians stand.
It can only be a matter of time before it begins to dawn on Irish
men, or at least those most sensitive to the needs of women, that to
stand while urinating is indeed a terrible thing.
Informed sources tell me that even now The Irish Times is beginning
to debate the matter. In order to encourage things along Fintan
O'Toole has let it be known that he sits. Those in The Irish Times
who take their lead from him, and they are many, are beginning to
follow his example.
Kevin Myers, on the other hand, has said he will resign before he
sits. Another well-known journalist thought about it for a while and
then, in rebellion at the very suggestion that he should sit, decided
instead to pee all over the floor.
I understand that RTE is considering ripping out urinals from men's
toilets and installing closed-circuit television cameras in the
cubicles to ensure that the men sit. Standing, being a sign of a deep-
rooted contempt towards women, will become a sackable offence.
This new, enlightened attitude towards urinating also is beginning to
win converts in our schools. For example, I am told that my old
school has already removed urinals. This is due in no small part to
the wonderful effects of the new Exploring Masculinities programme
that has taught the boys of St Paul's College, Raheny, all about the
wickedness of masculinity.
Gentle reader, of course all of the above is a send-up. The Irish
Times and RTE are not considering the matter. My old school has not
ripped out the urinals. In America, however, it is genuinely the case
that in some schools boys are encouraged to sit rather than stand
while doing their business. Some Swedish men agonise about how they
should urinate, and my old school really is teaching boys about the
evils of masculinity.
This last fact I learned from an article in this newspaper three
weeks ago. Stung into action, I obtained for myself a copy of the
programme.
Its 418 pages teach boys about men in the workplace; men and power;
men and sex and health and relationships; men and violence; and men
and sport. At first glance it all looks benign enough but in reality
this programme is the educational equivalent of Nurse Ratched from
One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest.
It comes at its victims with a smile, it tells them it has their best
interests at heart but really it wants to perform a frontal lobotomy
on them. It wants to cut out of boys their wicked male hearts because
in its touchy-feely, smiley-sneaky kind of way, what it tells boys is
that in all walks of life men are a problem and maleness a pathology.
Naturally its proponents will vehemently deny this. They will tell
you that what they are objecting to is not men as such but the way
society has taught them to be men. That's why the programme is called
Exploring Masculinities, because there are all kinds of ways to be
masculine. Society has taught boys to be male in one way, the
programme will teach them to be male in another.
What is going on here is that Exploring Masculinities has decided the
old nature versus nurture argument ends in favour of nurture. Men
have no given nature - they are as they are because of society. To
put it mildly, this is a controversial position which has a growing
weight of evidence against it, evidence that says that some of the
differences between men and women are innate. It's closer to the mark
to say that we are part-nature, part-nurture.
The Exploring Masculinities programme is quite explicit in its
rejection of this view. In its executive summary it says flatly: "It
is a fundamental premise of the Exploring Masculinities initiative
that masculinity is a social construct."
It is equally explicit about where this idea comes from: "Recognition
of masculinity as a social construct derives from the insights and
increased levels of awareness developed by the feminist movement
which was the precursor for Men's Studies."
In other words, Exploring Masculinities is feminist propaganda that
the Department of Education has fallen for hook, line and sinker. Its
aim is to feminise boys, maybe your sons, by turning them into
Sensitive New Age Guys. Nature always gets nasty when you try to
suppress it, so expect a lot of boys to rebel against this piece of
social engineering by exhibiting exactly the kind of behaviour the
feminists rightly deplore.
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