"Hah!" I say to my wife as we loiter over our Father's Day coffee. I
point to an article called "White Male Paranoia" in an old copy of
Newsweek.
"That would be a hah with an exclamation point indicating
reinforcement of male bias," she says without looking up from her
crossword puzzle, "rather than a hah with a question mark
indicating male befuddlement."
"Hah?" I say.
"Never mind," she says. "What'd you find?"
Since our kids left home, this is how we celebrate Mother's Day and
Father's Day: we play the Martyr Game, arguing over whether fathers or
mothers are more put upon. On Mother's Day, I let her win; on Father's
Day, my naturally superior male logic prevails.
"I've been saying this for 25 years," I say, "and now this guy in
Newsweek is saying it: 'Look at our TV sitcoms. The white malethe
dadis always the stupidest guy in the room.' What do you say to that?"
"White males shouldn't be so hard on themselves,' she says.
"Sometimes there's a goldfish or a zucchini in the room."
"That's not what he means," I say. "He means sitcoms are part of a vast
conspiracy to make fathers look dumbespecially white male fathers."
"As opposed to white female fathers?" she says. Then she
chortles. She's got a very low amusement threshold.
"Sure, mock us while we're down," I say. "We're used to it. Even TV
ads make us look bad. Says here that someone took a survey in 1987 and in
every commercial where there was a conflict between men and women,
women won. You think that's an accident?"
"Sitcoms and TV ads aren't real," she says. "Here's what's real."
And she points to another paragraph saying that white males make up
39.2 percent of the population, but 82.5 percent of the Forbes 400, 77 percent
of Congress, 92 percent of state governors, 90 percent of newspaper editors.
"Those numbers merely reflect our greater talents, our greater need to
get up and go," I say. "But beneath our successful exteriors, we're sensitive.
We don't like being ridiculed."
"You're ridiculed because you're ridiculous," she says. "When the
exploiters of the world are so befuddled they think they're the exploited,
they need to be ridiculed."
"We just want people to like us," I say. "When people don't like us, we
feel threatened."
She snorts, and reads another paragraph from Newsweek where
an African-American says "European males have always had the propensity
to say 'I feel threatened' while holding a gun to somebody else's head." She
says what really threatens white males is the fear we might not always get
the preferential treatment we're used to.
"All we ask for is fairness," I say. "Was it fair for Clinton to consider
three women for Attorney General without considering any men? Is it fair
that he overlooked all the males in the country to nominate a woman to the
Supreme Court?"
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The Truth, Mainly
"If Ruth Ginsburg is confirmed," she says, "the total Supreme Court
score will be 106 men to two women. Janet Reno makes the Attorney
General score 77 men to one woman."
"Wait a minute," I say. "This is Father's Day. My naturally superior
white male logic is supposed to prevail. You don't play fair when you use
evidence like that."
"And the score for Presidents is 41-zip," she says. "I suppose that
seems about right to you."
"No fair!" I holler. "I'm supposed to win on Father's Day. It's
always been that way."
To persuade her, I sing a few lines of "Tradition!" from Fiddler on the
Roof. She ignores me and goes back to her crossword puzzle. I escalate
to hymnology and sing "Faith of our Fathers." She pours herself another cup
of coffee.
So I have to bring the full force of my naturally superior white male
logic into play: I begin repeating Rush Limbaugh's PMS jokes.
She spills her coffee and looks ill.
"O Lord, not that," she says. "Not Rush Limbaugh's PMS jokes. I give
up. You win. White males are the most abused class in the whole history of
humankind."
"The whole history of what?" I say, pushing my advantage.
"Of mankind!" she says. "The whole history of
mankind. White males are the most downtrodden, the most cruelly
mistreated, the most trashed, bashed, smashed of us all. Now pleasepretty
pleaseno more Rush Limbaugh PMS jokes."
Her gracious concession speech perks me right up. I go off to the
bathroom for a celebratory Father's Day shave.
"If you really want to act out your debased status," she yells, "you
could swab out the toilet bowl while you're in there."
"Hah?" I say. "Hah?"
Satterfield is a college professor and writes as a means of discovery.
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