Have We Lost Our Balls? A Question about the Final Demise of the System of Male Domination

“This question so bold / In the title above told, / As Master Ildefons once expressed, / Even with pain, it needs to be addressed.” And I absolutely subscribe to Gałczyński the wordsmith here, both about the need and about the pain.
This week’s text will insert the cat provocatively amongst the pigeons, as the theme of men growing increasingly feminine and women increasingly masculine is known to inflame even the most placid doves.
I hope we will arrive at some conclusions together while discussing things together, and therefore I encourage lively comments, even if in all earnestness, I forewarn you that they are quite unlikely to change the world. At least not all of it at once.

The problem is not at all new, as Danuta Rinn’s song, performed to the lyrics of Jan Pietrzak, dates back to the early 1970s. The question that continues to trouble us today was asked back then: “Where are the men, the heroes, the knights, / Eagles and falcons, pillars of might? / Where are the modern men and dads, / Where are the burly lads?”
And instead of diminishing, the problem has only grown worse!

Let us, for a moment, step back into more “environmentally friendly” days, when men in animal hides, club in hand, chased the sprightly deer or any other form of fast-moving meal. Our perspective, partially influenced by comic strips and cartoons, results in an obvious yet fundamental conclusion: in the past, the man’s role was simple and indisputable. He was to provide food, guarantee survival, and ensure safety to the circle huddling around his fire. Simple as that.
The conditions of the time enforced both daring and physical prowess. The circumstances were also conducive to developing skills for coping against any vicissitudes of fate: traits that defined the masculine nature for centuries.

What in bygone days increased options for survival, that is agility and properly developed muscles, has now transformed into the cult of the body, a craze for fitness and idolisation of marathons on the elliptical.
To make things clear: I’m not at all opposed to the concept of exercising: on the contrary, I am a firm advocate. I merely observe the removal of a significant element from a certain logical whole: exercising the body and the character together, as the latter has segued into courage, adamant attitudes, and responsibility.

Men have been stripped of their fighting instinct. Meanwhile, women still have it, for they had to fight for their place, they had to conquer and prove capable of self-realisation. Yet are they prepared for this? Are they capable of carrying that burden?

The fair sex want to rule, and therefore men ever more often withdraw to the positions assigned to them. They willingly give up their masculine traits. Yet every extreme results in problems, and we can never forget that. In many areas, men have made way for women, even if the most appropriate situation for doing so is when they travel together on a bus, when, without further ado, the man must stand up so that the woman can have a seat.

The changes taking place in the wide world have brought the idea of equality to the surface of the turbulent waters. We may grumble at various shake-ups and never fully accept them, yet if things have gone that way and the speeding world could not be stopped, we try to live our fairly normal and reasonable lives on that globe.

For centuries, the domestic chores that women did went unappreciated, which rightly led to a sense of bitterness and the desire to rebel. The context to this is, quite obviously, far broader: any labour, if performed well and thoroughly, must be duly paid and appreciated. A simple and obvious truth.
Coming on top of the natural impulse to rebel was one more factor, beyond the control of ordinary folk: the wars that raged all over the world over took away the men, leaving traditional male duties to women.

As is often the case in life, the actual problem failed to be solved, while emancipation gave in to distortions grotesque enough to turn into all but a warped mirror, reflecting a slogan well known in the communist world: “Women, to the tractors”!
There came the time when the legitimate desire for self-determination began to act against the very people who sought it. Because how come!? Didn’t men use to bring us flowers and roll out carpets before our feet, while now we ourselves have to work for both the flowers and the carpets? Losing their privileged position, women became equal with men, which initiated the process of blurring the element of femininity. And, as nature abhors a vacuum, men, in turn, began to lose their masculinity.

Men have become too delicate. It’s not that they have shed their masculine roughness on the evolutionary path, but rather they’ve begun to take to heart things they should dismiss with a wave of the hand. A papercut to the male finger has blown up to the proportions of a severed hand, and missing a bus calls for a session with a psychotherapist. I’m exaggerating, you say? Believe me, I wish I were.
This leads to downright meme-worthy situations. A woman with a fever reaching 39°C (102.2° for those working in Fahrenheit) cooks dinner and cleans the flat without as much as a word of complaint, and goes on to plan the following week’s schedule and expenditure. And then there’s the man: bedridden with the malady, hiding under seven duvets and seven pillows because the thermometer displayed a killer temperature of 37.2°C (99°F). Or, as the saying goes, the boy’s done for.

What is a man to do to salvage the vestiges of his masculine dignity?

A desperate male revolution is flaring up, its demands satisfied as often as not in a barber’s chair. Yet the barber rebellion cannot last into infinity, for it stems from a ground as uncertain as fashion. Fashion is well known to be fickle and fleeting, precisely the reason why the most keenest advocates of making men look like lumberjacks will sooner or later lay down their axes and appeal for the humanitarian conditions of a truce.
Let us immediately make a distinction between a well-groomed man and an over-preened one, for there must be one. Can you see that difference? Exactly.

To finish, the most important conclusion: how do you spot a true man among the crowd? How can you, dear ladies, recognise one? Allow me to offer a little tip. A true man always spends more on flowers and presents for the lady of his heart than on cosmetics to beautify himself and gadgets to massage his masculine ego.

Give it a try. This test is by all means worthy of long-term application.