Columnist Marrin Hopes It's Reigning Men

Brit publication The Times is noted for it's frequently sexist articles on fashion, dating, and culture, but nothing takes the patriarchal self-serving cake like this little beauty, in which columnist Minette Marrin asks, "Are men really necessary?"

Marrin notes the "onslaught against masculinity," how women are becoming more in control of their financial, social, and emotional lives. Many women, Marrin writes with horror, are becoming, get this: independent! "It is hardly surprising," Marrin says, "that men increasingly feel dispensable."

Marrin goes on to say that single women and lesbians undermine a man's sense of his own masculinity, and produces a nice little rant about why we women need men: "Men have wonderful qualities which women often lack and need. Men are much more likely than women to be of exceptionally high – and exceptionally low – intelligence; they are on average stronger, funnier, and have a better three-dimensional sense and they are usually better at techy things."

The only quality a man has that women lack is a penis, and women only need that for purposes of procreation, which is purely optional and in no way a prerequisite for womanhood. (I ignore heterosexual intercourse, which I would only consider a nice perk, and only for some.)

And just in case our female readers thought their place was outside the kitchen or the bedroom, Marrin reminds us to keep churning out those babies. "Researchers warned that couples should beware of swapping traditional roles." (She does not cite this research.)

Marrin sums up her point by concluding, "What we need is the rehabilitation of real masculinity, because that is something most of us do need and like." She doesn't go on to describe "real masculinity," but if it's anything like her marginalized 50's-style real femininity, Marrin better leave the column-writing to the big boys and get back in the kitchen.