Mr. Rights : Somehow a ‘Men’s Liberation Movement’ Does Not Seem Necessary

AS I HAVE noted before, it is hard to write anything for the public without inadvertently offending some sensitive group.

I try hard not to, not only out of decency but also because I believe that every person has a right to dignity and that only he himself (or she herself) can deny himself (or herself) that right.

(I will probably be chastised for putting females in parentheses, but that is the best I can do and still preserve my respect both for women’s rights and English prose. Short of condoning such constructions as “will everybody put on their hats,” I have not yet resolved the question of what to do about gender in such sentences.)

Despite my discretion, I have offended one group: men.

In writing recently about the phenomenal success of books about the difficulties women have in their relationships (e.g. “Men Who Hate Women & the Women Who Love Them”), I said men were “selfish, domineering, thoughtless and infantile.”

I received complaints from men who insist they are not that way, including a bitter one from Men’s Rights Inc. of Sacramento. I confess that I had no idea there was a men’s rights group. Somehow it never seemed necessary.

“I wish,” writes Fredric Hayward, director of Men’s Rights, “that your categorizing of most men as ‘selfish, domineering, thoughtless and infantile’ had come across as sarcasm. It didn’t, and you owe men an apology.”

I would agree that my words were not sarcastic, sarcasm being a way of saying the opposite of what you mean. Perhaps I have been unlucky in my male friends, but it seems to me that most of them have tended to have the character flaws I enumerated.

That all men may not have these traits I readily concede. But I think that those traits are part of the male character. I think that the women’s movement’s consciousness raising helped many of us to see ourselves as we were and change for the better.

“We are human animals, not gods,” Hayward says, “and we certainly do incorporate those qualities. However, the only reason we do not see women as equally selfish, domineering, thoughtless and infantile is that we have spent our whole lives hearing them tell us that they are not . . . .”

I assume that Hayward is young enough that his adult life coincided with the women’s movement. “Perhaps you are secure enough not to mind,” he says, “but half of the male population is so young that the only world they have known is a world where they are dumped on . . . . They have the insecurities of all young people, and they are suffering greatly.”

I hadn’t thought much of the fact that most men in their late 30s and early 40s have grown up in a feminist society and may be confused and hurt by the accusations against their sex. They never had the advantage of living in a male-dominated society, where women were expected to be virtuous, docile, servile, domestic, subservient, overworked, underpaid and faithful--and often were.

Hayward resents my remark, about women, that “it’s their turn.” He says, “During their one life to live, men deserve as much respect as anyone else. Categorizing them as you did, justifying inferior treatment as ‘their turn,’ is heartless in a person, and irresponsible in a columnist.”

He adds that an apology to men is the least he expects. “Any other group similarly maligned would be demanding your job as well.”

I may have overstated the case against men. Many of them are brave, honest, faithful, loving, industrious and good. If they were not, civilization would collapse.

But I can hardly sympathize with young men who have grown up in a world where, as Hayward says, they have been “dumped on.” How about women having been dumped on by men for 5,000 years?

Men still have domains that are secure from intrusion. There will never be a woman shortstop in the American League or a woman quarterback in the National Football Conference. Men will always dominate boxing, track and ice hockey. Isn’t that enough?

But there’s no reason a woman shouldn’t be President.

I am happy to apologize to my sex, as Hayward asks, but I must remind him that men don’t cry.