Do you have to be dumb to be a man?

The author of this Huffington Post blog entry speculates that men are finding an ever decreasing set of traits to which they can lay claim because of some requirement that a "man" is something/anything that a "woman" isn't. He also surmises that men are still being trained as warriors, while women, of necessity, are left with ... whatever is left. He uses this to explain why women are better negotiators and have better social skills.

I have always used the "biology" argument for why there are differences between the sexes. Historically (and I mean way, way back in the past) it made eminent sense for the species that when sabretooth tigers came to call, it was the males that went out to face them. After all, if the female is killed, the young perish, since males can't breastfeed. If the male is killed, the female simply needs to find another male to fight the tigers. Since the females were behind the "front lines" caring for the young, skinning the latest kills, gathering the fruit, etc., they had an opportunity and a reason to cooperate and collaborate. Put another way, the females were more successful if they were social, while men were more successful if they were strong, stoic, and fearless. You would understand this if you ever had to face a sabretooth tiger.

I don't think either role is more or less important, and I have believed since I have been an adult (i.e., a long time) that the differences between the sexes is really quite miniscule. Females have the courage and determination to face down a tiger if the need arises (you don't want to come between a female and her young!), and the males certainly have the ability to be loving and nurturing, again, when the need arises.

True, men seem to be trained for the warrior role more often than for more ... feminine-inspired roles. They have the aptitude and physical traits that make them a good match. But I would argue that for men to arbitrarily limit themselves to only things that women are not is to be relegated to the role of nonentity. Unless the men out there really think they don't matter much at all, it's apparent that what it means to be a man absolutely must include some traits that women are now adopting.

This doesn't make men more feminine or less important, for the same reason that the change in women's roles don't make women less feminine or more important. We're all equally capable and important. What's most significant is that in most ways, today, it really doesn't matter what you are. Your sex just means that when it comes time to get horizontal you have nicely cooperating anatomies.

So, what is a man? Well, my answer has always been: a man is whatever he wants to be. A man is the freedom to be both strong and vulnerable, because either one has its advantages depending on the situation. A real man doesn't accept limits any more than a real woman does. I figure that if it's good enough for her, it damn well ought to be good enough for me.

Popular culture revels in making men out to be idiots, and if you're weak enough to accept that characterization and further that image, then you deserve what you get. I don't watch TV or movies that extoll the "dumb and dumber" stereotype, and I make mental notes not to purchase products that use numbskull men in their advertising. But seriously, popular culture mistreats women just as much, so in truth we're all losing, all the time.

If men seem more "simple" it's because men tend to be mono-taskers. Multitasking implies complexity, but everything is relative. I may tend to concentrate on one thing at a time, but I have truly killer spatial perception. Women are anecdotally bad with maps precisely because that ability (good spatial perception) wasn't crucial to the species' survival. There's nothing like a rampaging sabretooth to help a guy judge the distance to the other side of the cliff. If you missed, you were history, no matter how much consensus building your mate was performing back at the cave.

Men are also more visual, and we still tend to measure success by the size of our biceps and the distance we can hit a baseball. We are by nature "doers" and judge ourselves based on what we can accomplish, rather than how we make everyone feel. I hate the saying, but "git 'er done" resonates with males because for us--that says it.

So, if you're a man my advice is simple: Decide what you want to be, then git 'er done. Damnit.