First of all, you ask me, what do I know of this subject?
Plenty.
Like many of us, I have nightmares. I wake sweating and thrashing, ready to fight off attackers. One night several years ago, I wasn't sleeping well. It was right after the fires in our neighborhood. The ashy smell hung low and the heavy, silt air, thick and grey, tasted wrong. I couldn't sleep and when I did, I dreamed of hell -- a place, I'm told, I'm surely doomed to enter. I woke with a sickening thud. The thud was my foot, my heel precisely, coming down on something strange and unnatural. I heard a scream and woke completely. I knew immediately that I had brought my leg up and down like some karate punching movement, like some ninja warrior. I had stomped on my husband's balls. In my sleep.
There is good news. He talked in a sort of squeaky soprano for a few months, but now, several years later, he seems to have recovered his voice. Okay, it only took a few minutes before he could speak again, but it felt like years. I was mortified! But he's pretty careful now about his side of the bed. And mine. Especially when it's hot and the wind is rising around the house and the air smells like smoke. He's very careful then.
But every day, I meet someone who complains about her boyfriend, her spouse, her date, and how he simply doesn't measure up. He doesn't have the balls to handle this or that. He won't stand up to his parents and siblings to say that they won't be coming for Thanksgiving or Christmas. He won't say 'no' when his father pressures him to go to Hooters. (Why should he? Isn't Hooters every man's wet dream?) He won't stand up to his boss. My girlfriend Kaycee tells me that her husband should be making twice as much money as he's running the whole company. But he won't walk in there and just ask for a raise.
The women's movement has spawned a generation of females who are running the world. They're taking over. They're telling their men what to do and they're stomping on their balls and then complaining about the fact that they're hooked up to a weak man. You can't call your dude a half-man if you're the one who castrated him in the first place. It isn't cool, and it isn't fair.
Note the rise of the man caves. Of the men who claim their own territories free of women. I'm not arguing that men need drumming circles, hunting trips or that they need to join the Promise Keepers. And I would never argue that women should obey men in anything. If my husband told me to change my name, to wash the dishes without the dishwasher (yes, I know a man who doesn't want his wife to use the dishwasher even though she does the dishes) or move to the city he wants to live in, leaving behind my friends and family, then no, I wouldn't go along with any of that.
What I'm arguing for is this: We women want to be treated with respect. We want to be treated as equals. So we should do the same for men. Women treat men like they're children. We need to stop that. The boat has tipped far enough. Everyone deserves respect. Men. Women. Children. And if you want a man to treat you like a goddess, it would help a lot if you treat him well. Otherwise, we women are creating the boy-men who demand their toys and then complaining that they're always watching porn and never growing up. If you want a man, it doesn't hurt to treat your partner like he already is one.