Men as Steak-Loving, Beer-Guzzling Simpletons

Father’s Day reminds us that men have simple needs. They need to know how to grill steak, keep a yard green and how to use a remote while utilizing a big-screen television to watch their favorite sport. At least, that’s what advertising tells and if that’s what most men in America are, no wonder television comedies turn us into boobs.

The image of men in the United States on TV sitcoms is a stereotype. But since advertising reflects at least some accepted beliefs and also impacts how its subject is perceived, there’s some truth to the image and it is aggressively perpetuated.

When did American men become such simpletons? At least, how hard is it to grill a piece of steak that it produces such an expression of pride. Or what better way can we spend our time than using an abundance of water and chemicals to artificially to keep grass in eternal spring? When did sports become the defining element?

But there it is. Many men in 50 states have been convinced that a man’s meal is a three-pound steak accompanied by ample helpings of starches at a steak house and you haven’t had a meal unless you’re so stuffed you are ready to vomit. Dad has to be rooting for a bunch of sumo-sized linesman on his favorite football team to pound equal large defenders on the other team as hard as is legally allowable.

This is not the image of men in all societies present or past. A fellow skater once remarked that the lead dancer at the Bolshoi, lean and muscular, is perhaps THE image of masculinity in Russia.

In this country, choruses usually stagger from the weight of female members while their male counterparts are in short supply. In Wales, all-male choruses are abundant. Men take time to share the poetry they have written with fellow workers. It’s difficult to get an image of a bunch of autoworkers taking time out to read their verse or even admit they have written it, or to spend time after work to practice a musical piece instead of heading for the bar, beer and TV.

How did we become trapped in this caricature? If you’ve ever tried figure skating, you know that landing jumps of more than one rotation is not for wimps. It requires strength and it just happens to also require artistry. To an extent artistry is celebrated in the catch of a wide receiver in football or via the slam dunk competition of pro basketball. But here, the artistry is either incidental to the game, or not really admitted to be artistry, all the while announcers drool over the beauty of a player’s move.

Maybe the acceptance of gays wlll help the macho men alter their image. I believe the television show, “Queer Eye for the Straight Guy” both reflected increased toleration and helped many Americans get an image of gays as people with a variety of temperaments and styles, and not as sex-craved queens.

Just maybe we can begin to accept there is something manly about muscular moves and about artistic moves on the football field and elsewhere. And we can let the grass grow and have a quiche on Father’s Day.

Food with Thoughts?

The conversation was not generally the kind that takes place on the steps of a Unitarian church. But here were three of us, all members and over 50 (whether that is relevant I don’t know) discussing the virtues of freshly-killed meat and how good it tastes.

Many inside would agree that fresh food is good and that organically grown vegetables are to be preferred. What they would have thought given the number of vegetarians and vegans, about our assertion of the superior flavor of some animal that has recently left its happy foraging grounds is not hard to imagine.

And yet, there we were, hunters, small town kids, people who know how to use a gun. For my part, having grown up on a farm, we didn’t have our own cattle butchered and packaged for home consumption. But people purchased a half a side or a side of beef and for flavor it is simply matchless when stacked up against the stuff laid out under lights designed to heighten the red color of flesh that has been pumped full of water.

There is that ethical dilemma as we realize increasingly that other animals can use tools that chimpanzees engage in war and in ritual murder. People in Africa eat monkey meat a fact that gets discuss in how the aids virus crossed from the jungle primate population in to humans. The higher primates all show some intelligence. So how far down on the chain of life is it OK to eat sentient beings? We haven't really come close to needing to make the decision. Those who eschew meat avoid it all; they don't have a threshold about what to eat.

Other species don’t ask these questions. Crocodiles do not engage in internal debates about devouring someone who enters their world. The fact that a young woman from the same address as our church, Morristown, N.J., on vacation in India recently ended up as a meal for one of these reptiles reminds us that they have no qualms. Being eaten is not on our list of expectations of things that can go wrong on a trip. But however rare such a fate is these days, it's still one that humans can experience.

We are living proof that intelligent creates can be eaten. However, we haven’t had to face the dilemma of ourselves eating a species that has great cognitive ability, even if not up to human standards. When we aim at a deer, it doesn’t yell, “Hey I don’t go around hunting you, do I?"

But suppose on some planet while hunting a meal we come across a slow witted, but tasty creature. And as we aim, it looks at us and says “please don’t."