Sir, - While I usually enjoy John Waters's weekly column, I'm afraid I find his women-versus-men complex has become tiresome to the point of being farcical, as in his offering of December 7th, where he declares that if the average life expectancy of men were brought into line with that of women, "this would be denounced by feminists and suchlike [?] as an indicator of our oppression of women." What ridiculous nonsense! Or again when he tries to argue that men die earlier than women mainly because of stress.
Is he really serious? So women have little or no stress? Nor do they have "duty, honour, responsibility, drudgery" like the unfortunate males? Have we not all got stress to some extent or other in our lives? It is the way we deal with it that affects our health, for better or worse. What of the many single and widowed women who raise families single-handed and maintain a home, while holding down a badly paid job, perhaps? Surely such lives are stressful.
It is a well-known fact that, on average, men do smoke more cigarettes, drink more alcohol, exercise less, and eat more fat and carbohydrates than women do. Think of your average man's heaped up plate of steak and chips, lavishly anointed with rich gravy. Think of his beer belly. And you can wager he's not a candidate for yoga classes or aerobics either, to get rid of the blubber.
Moreover, it is a fact too that men are thin on the ground when it comes to being mentally active and involved in the life of the community. Any group or cultural society to which I belong has a preponderance of women to men, often in the ratio of 5:1 or even more. Why? Because the men are busily occupied holding up the counter in some pub or hostelry, a pint in one hand, a cigarette in the other. Any wonder they die earlier than women?
It seems to me from John Waters's statistics that women have discovered how to deal with stress by talking freely to each other, and by being open and honest about problems, and thus they have unlocked the secret of living healthily, mentally and physically, while men, to quote Mr Waters, "walk with a heavy heart, which drags them to an early grave."
Not all women are the enemy. Not all are rabid man-hating feminists. Life would be very dull for us without men. They are our soul brothers, fathers, uncles, husbands, and we love them all, but not when they whinge and blame us for their own ills and weaknesses. So lighten up, get a life, John, and "sursum corda"! - Yours, etc.,
Vera Hughes, Moate, Co Westmeath.