Come on sisters, give men a break - a little less gender stereotypingplease, Mike Jennings pleads
Imagine this. The Irish women's team has qualified for the finals of a major sports event. The whole country is enthralled by their exploits. Great things are expected and there is a feeling that the entire nation is behind them, egging them on. Then disaster strikes - a major row has broken out between the manager and the team's best player.
You are sitting with your 11- year-old daughter - a sports fanatic - who has followed the team's every step for years and is au fait with every minute detail of their background and individual talents. The radio is on. Again the controversy off the pitch is the topic of conversation but it's a chat show so the commentary is non-expert and a little ill-informed but that's all right because this story is huge and discussions on it abound and are by no means confined to the cognoscenti and the knowledgeable.
Then one of the speakers - a man - says, casually, but yet with absolute certainty as if stating an indisputable truth: "Of course none of this would have happened if it was a team of men. This is women you see. Men would have sorted this out sensibly, the situation would have been avoided or dealt with."
Your daughter is gutted. Not only is her sports dream shattered but now she knows that it is the inherent inadequacies of her sex which made the disaster almost inevitable.
Now, can you explain it to her?
Sorry did I say "her"? I meant "him". In fact re-read all the above and substitute son for daughter, him for her, women for men, because that's the way it actually happened last summer.
You know you are dealing with a sensitive topic when in an article such as this the very next thing you do after making your point is to protest what you are not saying.
So let me straightaway say that this article is not part of the backlash against feminism and women's rights.
I regard myself as a feminist, but I respect the fact that in some people's definition it is not possible for a man to be one, so in those circumstances I content myself by saying I support the feminist ideology and believe in the total equality of the sexes and am a supporter of measures to vindicate and assert that equality which has been trampled on for hundreds, perhaps thousands of years.
I hope nothing I write today gives any comfort or solace to those with an anti-feminist agenda.
Indeed I believe that people (men, let's face it) who can stoop to coining the word "feminazi" have lost the right to be heard. (Let the smug writers of self-indulgent newspaper columns note that I said the right to be heard - not the right to speak.)
But I am the father of two sons, neither of whom is old enough to have contributed even a speck of dust to the edifice of the oppression of women but who, almost on a daily basis - particularly in the media - hear and read references to and depictions of their sex as being inferior, even risible.
My seven-year-old son - who given a choice would watch his beloved television 24 hours a day - recently ran out of the TV room exclaiming "why do they always show us as being so stupid?"
Men can't cook, can't plan, can't budget, can't prioritise, can't cope and are constantly in need of rescue by a good woman - you know, the wise, intelligent, pragmatic, sensible one.
Stereotypes are the stuff of advertising but how long would an ad last if it showed a woman genetically incapable of turning on a computer or changing a wheel unless rescued by a man?
And yes - in case you think I am completely blinded by paranoia - I do believe that most ads are probably produced by men. So what does that interesting aside tell us?
But it's not just advertising. As illustrated by my opening paragraphs, it is everywhere open season on men. A newspaper article before Christmas was just being humorous when it spelled out all the reasons why Santa Claus would be so much better if only he were a woman. It was a joke, I recognise that. But would we publish a story about how much better off Cinderella would be if only her fairy godmother was a man? A fairy godfather would, it would say, surely not have imposed unrealistic timetables and silly deadlines.
I do, I hope, still have a sense of humour. I thought a Christmas e-mail about the inadequacies of the Three Wise Men (because they were men) was going to be more grist to my mill until I read on and found that it turned out to be a funny, well-balanced dig at both sexes and both sets of stereotypes.
And then there are stereotypes which might be painful but which perhaps can't be or shouldn't be avoided. My sons don't like the "Slow down, boys" campaign but it is a fact that speeding and reckless driving do seem to be more of a boy thing than a girl thing and I know that in a few years time I am going to worry more about them being behind the wheel of a car than my friends will about their daughters.
Physical violence makes me squirm. I have missed seeing several modern film classics because they were accompanied by the health warning "contains graphic violence". So it is very welcome to me that in television land violence is the new taboo (as is smoking). Some even go as far as to seek its excision from Tom and Jerry-type cartoons - not a view I share.
However, my younger son's (him again!) reaction to a television ad which shows a young woman literally fighting off nicotine cravings - "Dad, why do they only show women hitting men?" - gave me a jolt. Violence by women against men is, I believe, a small fraction of its opposite but given that it does exist how come we seem to accept on television and in films that it is okay, even natural, for a woman to slap a man's face? Imagine our revulsion if he hit back.
Albert Reynolds was rightly pilloried for his "that's women for ye" slip (a slip of the tongue reveals the mind, they say) but how often do we hear comments, asides, analysis and remarks which in their essential meaning amount to "that's men for ye" complete with just as much derision?
Having discussed this issue with many people I am struck by (and have a lot of sympathy with) the counterpoint, mostly made by women, that given the history of the demeaning of women it is an acceptable irony we are witnessing. A kind of "now you know how we felt all those years". And I do.
But my sons don't. They don't see this as the second half - the balancing out - of the war between the sexes. They do not have a context to make it understandable as irony. They just don't like it and since they are not guilty of any anti-women activities or attitudes they don't deserve it.
• Mike Jennings is a trade union official with SIPTU