The Battle of the Sexes Rages On in Print

Doubt that it’s still a man’s world? Then how about this factoid, reported in the January/February Utne Reader:

“Competitive qualities have been necessary for the survival of the species, and despite the debate over masculinity, they are still valued today. Some trial lawyers now include their levels of testosterone . . . on their resumes.”

Such mindless machismo has heated the battle of the sexes past the boiling point.

A few feminists see the only hope for peace in “ovular merging,” a process (successful with mice) in which reproduction of the species occurs without male meddling, and produces only girl babies.

In a 1982 article, quoted in Utne, Sally Miller Gearhart explains the appeal to some: “Such a prospect is attractive to women who feel that if they bear sons, no amount of love and care and non-sexist training will save those sons from a culture where male violence is institutionalized and revered. These women are saying, ‘No more sons. We will not spend 20 years of our lives raising a potential rapist, a potential batterer, a potential Big Man.’ ” Such crackpottery is part of a largely reasonable Utne cover package “Men and Women. Can We Get Along? Should We Even Try?”

Lawrence Wright’s lead essay, excerpted from Texas Monthly, starts the debate with insight into many matters, including the family--more and more of which are fatherless.

“Somehow, men have to go find a place for themselves again in the family . . . “ he writes. “My personal fear is that fatherlessness will have unanticipated political and spiritual consequences, such as a longing for authoritarianism and a further lack of attachment between the sexes. . . . I’m not saying that single mothers--or single fathers--can’t do a good job of raising children. But a society of children who don’t understand men produces men who don’t understand themselves.”

In a piece titled “The Blame Game,” Sam Keene, who wrote the book “Fire in the Belly: On Being a Man,” offers some intelligent words about the foolishness of inter-sex finger-pointing.

Then he winds up saying something to the effect of come on guys and gals, let’s all be whiny, wounded victims together! and he points the finger of blame for all this shared suffering at . . . “the modern corporate-industrial-warfare system.”

The sparks in this package are hottest between the ever-provocative Camille Paglia (“It’s a jungle out there, so get used to it!”) and Utne contributing editor Helen Cordes, who offers a snappy rebuttal.

“The date-rape debate,” Paglia says, “is already smothering in propaganda churned out by the expensive Northeastern colleges and universities, with their over-concentration of boring, uptight academic feminists and spoiled, affluent students.”

Then she really lets her razor-wire tongue loose: “Beware of the deep manipulativeness of rich students who were neglected by their parents. They love to turn the campus into hysterical psychodramas of sexual transgression, followed by assertions of parental authority and concern.”

Cordes in turn blasts Paglia’s “awe-struck view of male sexuality and her inane suggestion that women view it as a blind force of nature instead of morally accountable behavior. . . . “

Paglia says, “A girl who goes upstairs alone with a brother at a fraternity party is an idiot. Feminists call this ‘blaming the victim.’ I call it common sense.”

Paglia’s advice to female students confronted by a male student’s vulgar remark: “Don’t slink off to whimper and simper with the campus shrinking violets. Deal with it. On the spot. Say ‘Shut up you jerk! And crawl back to the barnyard where you belong!’ ”

Cordes reply: “Women should let men know when their behavior is offensive. But individual complaints are toothless without societal and institutional awareness, dialogue, and censure.”

In fact, if these two women weren’t so all-fired combative, they’d notice that they agree on a lot of points. If they’d sat down and hashed this piece out together, they’d have accomplished a lot more.

The potential results of all this gender screwiness show up in unexpected ways, as another, officially unconnected story in Utne demonstrates.

Suzanne Gordon’s excellent “Caring Means Curing,” taken from Mother Jones, illustrates how health care has been critically wounded by society’s failure to scrutinize the medical Establishment’s testosterone-addled tomfoolery.

“Health care has always been a collaboration between care and cure,” Gordon writes, “and health-care institutions have always depended on a marriage between medicine, a profession until recently entirely male-dominated, and nursing, still 97% female. Like most conjugal relationships . . . this one has silenced the voice and obscured the contributions of the female partner.”

Still, she says, “it is the nurses who do a great deal of the curing and caring . . . during an average hospital stay of five days, a patient might spend less than an hour with his or her physician.”

We’d be a healthier nation if nurses--male and female--were given more credibility and power to make medical decisions, Gordon says. But for that to happen, more of that complex gender role bending will have to occur.

“Nurses need to be far less humble and far more assertive in promoting their profession and its achievements,” she says.

REQUIRED READING

The title poses a question that people have been asking about LAPD officer Ted Briseno since he broke ranks with his comrades during the first trial for officers accused in the Rodney King beating: “Good cop? Bad cop?”

Featured in the February Players magazine, this Q & A by Ron Brewington portrays the cop--who claims he tried to intervene in the beating--as frightened, frustrated, angry and confused.

“My mind is just like these all-night movies,” he says. “My mind does not shut off. I can’t sleep at night. I can’t sleep during the day. . . . “

Among the interesting insights:

Players: Do you feel that you have broken the “Code of Silence” by coming forward like this?

Briseno: No! . . . You have to understand, that I have a family. We’re talking family, we’re talking freedom, and you’re talking a career. I don’t feel that there is a policeman out there that if we were to trade places, that would not tell the truth. You know, we took an oath. . . .

Players: Chief Gates called the Rodney King incident an “aberration.” What do you think?

Briseno: I think he’s full of it!

And . . .

Players: In your heart, do you feel guilty or do you feel innocent?

Briseno: I feel innocent. I’m just extremely saddened by the whole thing. It’s just been devastating, not just to me and my family, this has struck the world! This has reached out and it has touched the world.

SHREDDER FODDER

Nikki Finke’s profile of master wordsmith John McPhee in the January Los Angeles Magazine is a fun read about a man who is too often merely revered by his fellow journalists. As she describes it, McPhee’s new book on-- yawn --plate techtonics, is as exciting as a knickknack shop on the San Andreas during an eight-pointer.

But talk about pluggola! Finke managed to slip an unabashed advertisement for her upcoming book on Hollywood agents into the fourth paragraph!