Let me begin
by saying that I am an unapologetic patriarch who deeply
appreciates female beauty and intelligence. I count among
my friends women whom I admire enormously. I have a lovely
and brilliant wife whom I regard as the greatest blessing
of my life, as per Genesis 2:18. I say this to dispel
any notion that I am a misogynist or some sort of knuckle-dragging
chauvinist. That being said, I should also declare my
convictions touching the gender wars tearing apart the
time-honored relations between the sexes in the decadent
West.
I firmly
believe in the biological, psychological, and domestic
differences between men and women, who are God’s
or Nature’s determined partners in the drama of
both survival and individual flourishing but occupy distinctive
and natural domains commensurate with their genetically
given talents, aptitudes, and strengths. We might say
that men and women are binary but complementary beings.
There are anomalies and “crossovers,” obviously,
but the general pattern is pre-ordained regardless of
the theories and practices of the feminist sorority and
its enablers who claim precedence under the deceptive
rubric of “equality.”
This basic
distinction was vividly brought home to me during the
five years I lived on the Greek islands. I learned many
interesting things in those years — the two levels
of the Greek language depending on social status, local
viticulture and the unique taste of retsina, the “lift”
of bouzouki, sirtaki, and chasapiko, the meditative zembekiko,
the archaic power of modern Greek poetry, and, especially
significant, the nature of domestic arrangements pertaining
to spheres of marital influence. Broadly speaking —
and this is not a cliché — men hold sway
in the tavernas, women control the home.
The trade-off
works exceptionally well, if at times a tad too enthusiastically.
I have seen dishes fly when the men come home late and
tipsy — the area between my house and my neighbor’s
was cobbled with broken crockery. The women, for their
part, do not intrude on the rummy games and heated political
discussions — every Greek man is a potential prime
minister—in the sacred precinct of the taverna.
But both join hand and spirit when it comes to the raising
of children, on the whole, training boys and girls in
their respective social roles, though allowing for individual
qualities and faculties.
Relations
between the sexes are mainly harmonious — if, let’s
say, somewhat vigorous at times — so long as the
rights and privileges of each are neither resented nor
confused. (There are exceptions to the rule, primarily
in the big cities where a globalist or international culture
has taken root, diluting the natal Greek character. This
is a form of urban blight we are all familiar with.)
Marriage is
not only a sacrament, elaborately celebrated but an implicit
contract regarding the cultural territory discretely reserved
for men and women. There are no half-female political
cabinets in Greece, as there are, for example, in an effeminate
nation like my own. Island Greeks, for the most part,
are not interested in feminist doctrine and regard the
trans phenomenon with undisguised distaste. The major
sports spectacles, in particular soccer, a national pastime,
are dominated by men, both on the field and in the announcer’s
booth. Which brings me to one of my major pleasures, as
some PJM readers may recall, namely, watching NFL football.
Football is
a synecdochic expression of the essential male character,
on the one hand pugnacious, rowdy and boisterous; on the
other analytic, rational and problem-solving, as anyone
who understands the strategic, chess-like nature of the
game can attest. The element of sacrifice for the team
and for the brotherhood — as is evident in the concern
among opposing teams for an injured player and the post-game,
fraternal ritual between winners and losers — is
what binds these two aspects of masculinity. It is something
that feminists have never been able to come to terms with.
Since football
is a man’s game, I wonder what a woman referee is
doing on the field. Must I endure female intra-and-post-game
interviewers who have little idea what the game entails
and trade mainly in inanities? Or female commentators
who have never played the game expounding on its involutions
beside former players and coaches sitting on the same
panel — those who know firsthand and from experience
what they are talking about? Having spent some time back
in the day on my varsity practice squad as a free safety,
I know how difficult it is to execute a proper tackle
on a six-foot-four tight end hurtling toward you without
breaking your neck in the process. I know when to cover
zone or play the man, to join the quarterback rush, or
to fake it and drop back. I recognize when the coach is
calling a bonehead play. I can appreciate what is happening
on the field. Most men do. And they are the ones I want
to listen to when the progress of a game is being described,
discussed, and analyzed.
The men, we
might note, are always chivalrous and amiable to a fault
in their comportment, but eye candy belongs elsewhere.
It’s rather a jarring spectacle, the men formal
in jackets and ties, the women often looking as if they’re
about to go out on the town. What is a young woman wearing
a bright pink, form-fitting, slant-décolleté
pantsuit doing on a football panel? Carrie Underwood’s
dynamite performance introducing Sunday Night Football
represents the extent of my appreciation for the female
contribution in this context.
Of course,
there are several full-pad tackle female teams, but women’s
football is not a truly serious game and may often resemble
a comedy act, like the Lady Yellow Jackets of yore. The
caliber of play exhibited by the gridiron girls bears
no comparison to the skill and robustness and the ever-present
threat of severe injury of male college and professional
teams, any more than women’s soccer or hockey comes
close to the speed, intensity, and finesse — and
interest — of male soccer and hockey. It’s
a fact that must be faced despite the ideological intent
to render the masculine estate female-inclusive.
An illustration
of the manly character of the game and its players is
provided by Tampa Bay Buccaneers backup quarterback Blaine
Gabbert who, along with his two brothers, rescued the
occupants of a helicopter that had crashed in the water.
This is the sort of thing that men do, taking risks both
on and off the field and doing their utmost to excel and
contribute, whether in the game of football or the game
of life. Of course, all human beings are flawed regardless
of the distribution of chromosomes, but the slur of toxic
masculinity is a feminist canard and a dogmatic libel.
This is not
to say that good women do not appreciate what men do in
the world — or that they do not appreciate NFL football.
My wife enjoys the game and is learning, with my assistance,
to understand its tactical offensive and defensive adjustments
from snap to snap, the subtle disposition of configurations
like the Okie Front, and, in short, its intricacies and
complexities. And she, too, has had enough of the female
interloper from whom we both wish to be rescued.
