It is a very busy time here at the old Rose-coloured Ranch and—rare occurrance—I don’t really have time to write anything. Sometimes I leave half-finished or nearly finished posts in my drafts and forget about them so I was hopefully checking to see if I had done that and well…here is something. I can sort of see why I didn’t post it at the time—it is basically a rant about an inane article in Vogue from months ago. But hey, any post that is a rallying cry for feminist men is probably worth posting and also, I am out of time for the week. I will write something better soon, promise.

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I don’t useful fall for ragebait—I have been staying right out of the whole “women ruining the workplace” “conversation.” I have enough to read without adding things to my pile that someone wrote deliberately to annoy people in my demographic so that we will see more ads for face creams and charm bracelets. But somehow I fell for that dumb Vogue article about how it might or might not be uncool to have a boyfriend these days, and it was the worst-written most nonsensical garbage I could have imagined. Please don’t google it and give them the dumb clicks. I’m mad and I will tell you.

One of the many problems with the article is that it conflated actual human life—whether your friends and family would try to shame you or take you aside for a talking-to if you had a boyfriend—with influencer culture—whether you would lose followers if you had a boyfriend. The whole article was actually only about the second thing and it never really addressed what was going on offline or that…influencer culture isn’t real life. I don’t follow a tonne of influencers per se, but if someone I followed for a specific way of being in the world—say, urban writer—suddenly gave that up to do something different—say, to farm goats—I might stop following. No shade on the goats, just not what I’m there for, and if we have no personal connection, it’s only the thing we both do that interests me. Instagram just isn’t that deep, you know?

The article was insipid in that it never attempted to evaluate the quality of the relationships anyone was having or the men they were dating, just painted all the men with the “bad” brush, as if hating men in a sort of vague, cutesy way would of itself be political. To be clear, many of the people in the article were in relationships or wanted to be, they just hid the boyfriends from public view? Because a lot of heterosexual women—not all!—like being with men. But if men are all bad…awkward!??

I often say that there are as many feminisms as there are feminists but for most of us, the point of feminism has never been to abolish men but to hold men to a higher standard and, in doing so, free all genders from the stupid and reductive gender roles we have been locked into. If a man doesn’t have to be strong and silent, a provider and a defender, a football fan and an asshole, but can be whoever he wants to be, he can be an amazing champion of women, an excellent listener, a good cook, a caregiver, and so much more. Feminist men are real, and really, in my opinion, the only answer.

You meet so many people who don’t even appear to like their partner, or the dating pool they are attempting to dive into, but feel they “have” to have a partner—well, no one does. But if you want one, demand better—demand someone you like and respect, and who likes and respects you back.

That article, and almost everyone interviewed in it, was deeply embarrassing.

PS—As I was writing this, I did ask Mark if he considers himself a feminist and he said yeah, but he added that no one likes men who talk about being feminists so we skip that dialogue for this instead:

MS (finishes one tub of yoghurt, gets out a new tub from the refridgerator)
RR: Hey, did they change the shape of the Source cherry yoghurt tub?
MS: Oh, yeah, they did.
RR: Is the new one bigger?
MS: Hmm, it looks bigger (reads the two containers) But no, they say they are the same size.
RR: Wow, that one really looks bigger!
MS (peeling off the plastic seal) Strange world. (licks plastic) Want a lick? (holds out partially licked plastic)
RR: …yes. (licks some yoghurt off plastic, returns it to Mark) Thank you.
MS: Never say I don’t share my stuff with you!
RR: I would never say that. You always share!
MS: Thank you!
RR: I have many criticisms of you—
MS: Hey!
RR: But not sharing food is not one of them. You are a good sharer.