My comedy idol, Bill Burr, once humorously justified the wage gap as a “surcharge” for our understanding that men aboard a proverbial Titanic must relinquish their lifeboat spot to women. Although Bill would surely take unkindly to my paraphrasing his joke, I wonder how Isaac Newton might feel about the growing consciousness on women’s issues.
(*Here I pause to hoist up Goretex fly fishing waders as I head into waist-deep rapids…*)Newton, we know, said that for every action, there is an equal and opposite reaction. At the height of the MeToo era, I heard people—mostly men, some women—referring to the daily news developments as a “pendulum that has overcorrected;” that yes, change was necessary, but we had swung too far to the other side. This sentiment led to terrified realizations from the country club taproom to the high-speed gondola: “I’m afraid to compliment a woman these days!” and “I don’t even know how to flirt anymore.”
From behind a corrective lens of behavior, we glimpsed a future of declining birth rates. Fear of rejection (and/or litigation) would spawn an asexual populace. The death knell of the American family, tolled by female-only communal workspaces and mandatory harassment seminars, rang out from sea to shining sea. No more corporate retreats. No more company happy hours. No more Jim and Pam. The “party” was over.
I’m kidding with this bullshit. But in truth, the birth rate in America dropped another 2% in 2018, to the lowest number of births in 32 years (NPR). When you live in New York City, you welcome that statistic. Even so, I wonder what Newton would say. What’s on the other side of all this? What new landscape will resurface the cratered-out topography of catcalls and wolf whistles? Dare I ask, will anything good come of it… for men?
Behold! My post-equality wish list for men:
It’s not much, but progress is planted in baby steps. Here’s to gender equality in 2020.
