We should aspire to a life of shoes and/or willies

This opinion piece [via kotaku] by a Kay Hymowitz claims that men these days are getting stuck in some kind of adolescent kidulthood and whilst all women are going off travelling, shopping and having dinner with friends, us lads (to be fair the author only mentions single American men) are sitting around, drinking, playing on the Xbox 360 and generally having too much fun! Why are we mentioning some obscure piece of opinion from Dallas news of all places? Because it brings gamers into potential disrepute and as gamers we have to shout longest and loudest to show that we aren't the immature dregs of society that the rest of the world likes to stereotype. In addition it also attacks men so there's ample opportunity for all us men to pretend to be offended and call "sexism!" even though we don't really care.

So, to the article. In the first instance, Kay Hymowitz hints that 1965 men at our age would have achieved a lot more by the age of 26. Stable job, married, kids and saving up for a house. Kay nicely skirts over any issues that 1965 Dallas man would be at home with sexism, racism, xenophobia and homophobia in the workplace and at home. 1965 man would also be able to beat his kid for discipline and his wife too should she be unruly.

In contrast 2008's young man is supposedly happy to live with a bunch of other single friends, have showers, get laid and play a bit of Halo 3. They're all making fart jokes and women across Dallas are calling them immature and sad. The thought of a wife or a house or kids is far from the modern man's mind. Put simply, single men aren't achieving the adulthood milestones according to 1950s suburban America. Apparently, they are poor father material and are afraid of commitment. Oh, and we also don't read much, especially "anything prescribing personal transformation". SAD SMILEY FACE :(

Women on the other hand are hyper achieving in work and school and take up their leisure time, shopping, dining with friends and travelling.

CHOOSE YOUR OWN CONCLUSION TO THIS POST:

1. The Youtube conclusion. Onli FAGS go shoping so shut up fag and go do ur mom liek i was last nite.


2. The sexism card. What Kay doesn't realise is that men aren't just one dimensional creatures and that by stereotyping based on no facts (the facts included are irrelevant to the discussion and the sweeping statements) highlights her own (Kay=woman's name?) personal biases. She not only hates men but hates women by inadvertantly calling women gamers failures and by implying that shopping is a worthy pastime. Shopping for shoes no doubt. Shopping for shoes that a) Only other women notice, b) Probably hurt your feet, c) Reduce walking speed to 1mph and d) Cost stupid amounts of money. She goes further on both these counts by claiming that women are gullible morons easily swayed by advertising and that single young men don't read. Women have fought so hard for equality, perhaps they should try expressing some?


3. The chauvinist conclusion. This whole article came about becuase the author is a little bit past her prime and is finding hard to get guys. It's easier to blame personal shortcomings on contrived reasons but frankly, such a playground mentality (boys=uuuurgh) is obvious to all but the feminine reader. She probably also loses a lot on Halo 3 so like the fox that couldn't get the grapes, lambasts it as something she didn't want to do anyway.


4. The hippy conclusion. What Kay neglects in her article is that these capitalist pursuits and outdated ideals are all different ways of raping the planet. Who cares about shopping when there are only 37 hairy nosed wombats in existence. Kay should put some of her capitalist pig scum earnings into supporting my personal "Hate Iraq Oil War Free Love" protest march to the whitehouse.


5. The evolutionist conclusion. And thus it ever was. Men playing around occassionally pausing to impregnate women, who have to fuss and be picky due to the physiological impairments of bearing young is how it goes for most species of animal. Men aren't getting worse they are merely reverting to a previous stage in our species evolutionary history because they no longer have to carry society in the same way as the "idylic 50s". What is alarming is that women are waiting much longer to have children, thus endangering the family unit due to the reliance on IVF and other treatments. Futhermore, if men become so unattractive to the hyper-achieving woman you'll have population problems a la Spain, where the government will have to pay people to produce timely offspring. Of course, this situation is only localised to affluent America, the rest of the world is more than happy to pop out sprogs to keep the species going.


6. The meme conclusion. The cake is a lie.


7. The spiritual conclusion. So what if single young men are having fun, having a good time? What's wrong with that? Essentially the article moans on about how women don't find men appealing when they are having the time of their lives. What's the problem? If these modern women stopped hyper-achieving enough to have a good time, a good life, then articles like the one in question wouldn't appear on the internet.


8. The "Wacky" conclusion. I put Jam in my slippers phone.


9. The Phishing for Cyber sex conclusion. Kay's article is spot on. Although I'm a sensitive heterosexual male who enjoys long walks on the beach, dinner with friends and shopping (it's fun!)but most other men are immature. Don't get me wrong, I have a sense of humour, I think Will and Grace is hilarious but farting is not funny. Sometimes I despair at my gender. They should grow up and respect women of all shapes and sizes and ages instead of treating them with envy because they are so much better than men.


10. The Tl;dr answer. Wouldn't.

Which, answer did you choose reader? Maybe you have your own answer? Maybe you don't care? Maybe I don't care? Maybe no one cares and therein lies the problem.