...and read my last two posts. In that thread, I'm clearly on your side because I shifted my perspective and saw the righteousness of what you and your ideo-frat brothers write. Now, I'm assuming you already read those posts and have read the various man-friendly things I've written and perhaps you already realize that I aspire to position myself far from the all-men-are-rapists-and-women-everywhere-and-everyday-suffer-more-than-any-man-has-ever-suffered camp, which, as I've posted in the past, is a very small camp and not representative of those serious feminists who have the ears of serious people.

Now, if you want to be taken seriously, you need to decamp from your current position and manifest some serious empathy. Patriarchy isn't make-believe. Its symptoms abound.

And when you just remind us, again and again, of the plight of men, I don't hear you say, "But men, men, men!"

I hear you say, "But me, me, me!"

And yes, men suffer. Terribly sometimes. Men do much of the world's dirty, dangerous work. Men are asked to give limbs and eyes for country and to wear colostomy bags in decaying V.A. wards. Men are often taken less seriously as parents.

Now, what do you understand about the plight of women?

you charmer, you!

if I could wash your feet with my hair, I would.

Thank you for what you wrote.

a few posters here already use Broadsheet as ManBitch Magazine.

...watching C-Span and rarely seeing a man. Imagine walking into the Capital's rotunda and seeing portrait after portrait of female presidents. Imagine 2% of the Fortune 500 companies being run by men. Imagine your surname going away when you married a woman, or, if your wife's name happened to be Becky Dillard, having some letter to you addressed to Mr. Becky Dillard. If you imagined well, then perhaps your gonads just retracted like the landing gear of a 747. I gave you present and past examples of patriarchy. It's real. Your make-believing that it's make-believe doesn't suggest that you're a social justice fighter. If you care about injustice, then join this fight. If you care about the status quo, then stay on your side. And if you care about lucidity, don't extrapolate wildly from one woman's assertion. Put 10 feminists in a room and you'll have 11 opinions.

Biological: synchronized menstrual cycles

Physiological: you yawn (signaling a coming change in level of activity), I yawn (signaling that I'll synchronize)

Cultural: if Paris wears a string a pork chops around her neck, I'm bound for my butcher!

Corporate: corporate dress codes (People, don't forget Casual Friday!)

Interpersonal: in groups, people are unconsciously assigned roles of peacemaker, cynic, order-lover, clown, etc., forever and ever.

Intimately Interpersonal: "So, what are you wearing tonight? Okay, then I'll wear...."

In our ways, we're like that school of fish or that flock of burns that all turn on the same dime, so that we don't bump into each other and I suspect, as there are more and more and more of us, that conformity will become more and more important. Like the flamboyant guy gay in the remake of the Stepford Wives, who cares if he's gay as long as he's Stepfordized?!?

Boys are 15 times more likely to die an accidental death than girls. All people should be perpetually aghast at this, but we aren't and it's because danger is integral to masculinity. There is no "Dangerous Book for Girls" because danger isn't a component of femininity. There are no common aborginal tests of courage for women and in America, girls don't generally don helmets and pads and go forth to dislocate and break bones. Limbaugh has promoted "The Dangerous Book for Boys," which is yet another irony, for he's far softer than I am and always has been: he avoided the draft with a pimple. But even the Stay-Puft Marshmallow Man gets that most cultures believe that boys have to die to become men. Girls might dare to step up to the lip of the cliff, but boys have to jump.

Anyone who's buried a young son knows the horror of this requisite for manhood.

to winterize the garden. However, I've lost my light, so now I can write.

Here's my discomfort with a lot of feminists and masculinists: to plagarize Holden Caulfield, I think they're phonies. I think they're nazel gazers who want a crowd to also gaze at their respective navel, but since most folks are self-absorbed, they argue that their victimhood is every man's or every woman's victimhood and that those of their gender are pure and those of the opposing gender are tainted by something surpassing original sin: gender sin.

However, it doesn't take a pink penis to want to f*ck the world.

The song doesn't go, "Everybody with a pink penis wants to rule the world."

One can be born with a brown vagina and still want to rule the world. Witness Star Parker, who recently said that gay people should be quarantined, which sounds only slightly prettier than saying that gay people should be concentrated in camps.

Of course, there is patriarchy. A string of people with penises as presidents is a national shame. And of course, nearly every single feminist, if she'd been born with a penis, would support patriarchy. Generally, it is just circumstances that decide whether one will be an exploiter or victim...rather than the person.

And the circumstances for nearly everyone who posts at Salon are pretty cushy: they have to be to afford a computer and an Internet connection. People who post here don't descend into coal mines. They generally get to keep their teeth and they don't suffer from dysentery.

So, I have limited patience for much dearly beloved misery.

Thanks.

However, I don't think there was more than one person who suggested something more daring than ditties. Just me. Just be sore at me.

And I'll have to give the book a look. I hope to be proven wrong: that would be cool.