By Kari Castor

The world is changing. The future, so they say, is female. Women won a historic election in the 2018 midterms by surpassing the current record and filling Congressional seats with more female butts than ever before.

This is the era of #MeToo, and men everywhere are cringing in fear that they, too, might be held accountable for their skeevy and predatory behavior. New research keeps bringing us closer to the beautiful dream of human parthenogenesis — that is, reproduction, which doesn’t require material from an outside fertilizer (aka, a male) for the development of a viable embryo. Both Nasdaq and the New York Stock Exchange are led by women for the first time in history, ensuring that when the 99 percent rise up in glorious revolution, at least a few of the rich who get eaten will be women. Meghan Markle proved to us that women can close their own car doors. And who needs a female president when we’ve got Queen Bey to lead us? All around the world, it’s clear — women are standing up, taking over, and remaking the world in their image.

So what do we do with the men? What happens to all of those pervs and rapists during those difficult few months they find themselves unwelcome in the public eye? What happens to the male congressmen and CEOs who have had their jobs snatched out from under them? What purpose can men possibly serve in our society once we no longer have need of them to open and close doors or produce semen?

It’s true — the world has changed and is changing. Men’s place in it will have to evolve, just as women’s has.

The trouble with men

I think it’s clear to us all by now that men are simply not well-suited for gracefully managing the complex interpersonal connections necessary in the public sphere. They are too, shall we say, lusty and too ruled by instinct; these are not bad traits, not a sign that men are made wrong in any way — simply that they are different from women. Likewise, we know that men are significantly more prone to violence than women are. Men tend to be physically stronger than women, but with lower pain tolerances and less emotional fortitude. While women are excellent collaborative workers, men struggle to take in other’s ideas or share the spotlight, preferring instead systems of hierarchy and dominance. Women are compassionate and in-tune with the feelings of others, while men… Well, men.

I could go on, but I’m sure you, dear reader, are well acquainted with these and many more essential differences between men and women.

So.

In order to live together and build a better future, I believe it necessary that we be able to first acknowledge that men are biologically, mentally and emotionally different from women, so that we can then ensure that each sex’s role within society does two important things:

1. Provides them an opportunity to use their strengths to the incredible benefit of all.

2. Ensures that their weaknesses do not destabilize our communities, or, worse, our entire civilization.

But just because we no longer need men to fertilize our eggs and run our stock exchanges doesn’t mean they’re obsolete. No, of course not. I don’t hate men or want to get rid of them. I have several men of my own, in fact, who are dear to me, and I want to reassure my male readers, and my own own male friends and partners: There is still a place for you in our new world order.

The solution

Let’s look again at some of those traits to which men are inclined. Again, it’s true, and important to acknowledge, that many of these traits make men generally ill-suited to being leaders in our businesses and communities.

Men’s natural lustiness, for example, and their inability to curb their instinctual reactions to attractive women, is, at best, inappropriate in the public sphere. This kind of behavior simply doesn’t belong in the school, the workplace, or the social gathering. But this potent male energy does has its proper place, of course — in the home! What better, more rejuvenating experience can there be for a woman coming home from a long, tiring day at the office than to find her man eagerly awaiting her return, his eyes alight with appreciation for her, ready and hopeful for an opportunity to tend to her needs (and, by extension, his own)?

Men, we also know, are quicker to violence than women (and their physical size and strength makes them more dangerous when they do become violent). Again, we can see that this makes them ill-suited for a wide variety of roles in public life. It’s important, for example, that our policewomen respond to tense situations in a calm and measured fashion, rather than escalating them with potentially explosive consequences. It’s important, too, that we protect our men from the triggers that can so easily upset them and send them over the edge into violence. We don’t think less of men because of this tendency, of course; we simply show our love and respect for them by helping ensure that they need not find themselves in a position where they might struggle to contain their more violent urges. At home, surrounded by so many sources of comfort (like their children and their TV remotes) and outlets for their less gentle feelings (like their power tools, their Xboxes, and their computers with Reddit access), they can enjoy their lives in a way that is safe and healthy for everyone.

Public life requires women to be team players. We know that our businesses and our societies run on a system held up by all of us working together, each of us with our own special expertise. We know that we must support and trust each other — truly, no woman is an island. But our beloved men have always wanted to be islands, haven’t they? This is why the task of running a household is so perfectly suited for them. Each man can have dominion over his own home, answerable to no one but his partner. He needn’t work with a team to come to a consensus about which color to paint the dining room or whether to replace the toilet with a bidet. He is in control of his own little piece of the world and can shape it as he pleases, to his heart’s content. And think what wonderful pride he can take in creating a perfect little slice of heaven for himself and his family!

Reader, this particular division of labor isn’t novel. What’s novel is our growing recognition that we had it wrong all these years about who is best suited to which sphere — public or private.

No one, I promise you, wants to do away with men entirely. Men are humans, just like women are. We may say “womankind,” but make no mistake that we include you, male counterparts, under that umbrella. We honor and respect our men; being different from women does not make them inferior to women.

To my fellow women, a note: We must always remember that every man is someone’s husband or father, someone’s brother or son. And we should treat all men with the same love and respect we give to our own beloved men.

And a final word to men: I know that some of you are afraid. You think women want to take what is rightfully yours and leave nothing for you. To you, I say nay — that is not and has never been our aim. No, women are indeed simply claiming our own place in the world, and lovingly helping our men find their rightful place at our sides. You are and shall remain our cherished helpmeets.

You know what they say: behind every successful woman, there’s a man. It’s true. Your contributions are important. We want you behind us. We need you — behind us.

This piece was originally produced for BUGHOUSE! #15 and performed by the author, Kari Castor, on December 3, 2018. You can hear her performance on the BUGHOUSE! Podcast.