New Macho Bickers Toward Destruction

Look out, old macho’s back. Any assumption that the sun was about to set on the masculine empire has been refuted by a new wave of misogyny in song, in crime, in war and even in marriage. This is Nuevo Macho--unrepentant, guilt-trip-proof.

Credit Saddam Hussein for the most recent surge. By embodying those traits men value--firmness, toughness, confidence--he is bringing on a reactive desire in Westerners to show they are as tough as he is. When Margaret Thatcher called Hussein “cruel and brutal,” the Iraqis shot back by calling her an “old hag.”

And while the Iraqi News Agency stopped short of using the b-word to describe Thatcher, they did refer to her “canine, harsh voice.”

Tell me that some of our Western knights in shining Italian suits did not snicker over this? I giggled myself.

It’s not as if Hussein is appealing to something deeply buried. For the past year, so many hit songs have used the b-word to refer to women that some rap music seems to be veering toward rape music. Some of the lyrics of 2 Live Crew use the b-word as if there were two sexes--men and b’s. And their right to use that word is vigorously defended by tough women lawyers from the ACLU.

Crimes against women, from the most violent to the most bizarre, have been on the rise. We all watched in befuddlement as a man shot homemade darts into the behinds of women in New York this past year. The newspapers dubbed him Dart Man as if he were some kind of comic book hero.

But I don’t think the full effect of Nuevo Macho hit me until our old friend Jimmy came to town.

My husband and I used to hang around with Jimmy and his wife, Barbara, 20 years ago, when educated men were starting to cook and clean and act as if women were as important as they are. Jimmy was always outdoing himself, showing that he was the most progressive guy around. You’d walk into his house and find him in an apron saying, “Come see the chocolate souffle I made for Barbara.”

This time, Jimmy was in town by himself for a job interview. Nothing brings out the inner beast like facing your exact value to the world. So I attributed some of what he said to that painful experience--that and the six-pack he put away at our house that night.

“Are a lot of your friends divorced?” he asked. “Everyone we know got divorced.”

Now, I wasn’t sure if he wanted an answer to his question, but the fact is that most of our friends had stayed married.

“Remember Steve and Vicki, who went to Canada in the ‘60s?” I offered. “They got divorced.”

“It’s a plague,” he said. “It’s the AIDS of marriage. So, do you two fight a lot?”

“No,” I said.

“She does,” said my husband.

“I heard an NPR report on bickering,” Jimmy reported. “They said that all couples bicker. They had some therapists on there talking about how bickering is necessary to a marriage.”

I wondered if they offered Fair Bickering Workshops. “So, what are you and Barbara bickering about?” I asked.

“The same old things,” he said, and then, “ . . . sometimes I just want to slit her throat and tie her to the railroad tracks.”

Well, old Jimmy always had a flair for hyperbole, but this seemed like a new level. Not exactly bickering words. Then Jimmy turned to my husband and asked, “How about you? Do you ever want to slit Alice’s throat?”

My husband has a way of dealing with these situations. He just sits there and doesn’t say a word.

But I was squirming. I mean, what is the polite thing to do in such situations? I was torn between wanting to be nice to a friend and wanting to scream. Miss Manners, help me out here!

So I said what I thought was a compromise. “Well, I think he wants to slit my throat but not tie me to the railroad tracks.”

Of course, this was the height of Nuevo Macho. There I was--ready to slit my own throat--just to be one of the boys.