Guest Man Blog: Manhandled!

An actual school report written by MY husband as a boy.  My mother-in-law, the wise woman she is, typed it, and saved it to torment him with later in life.

This is the first of  many (I hope!) guest male blog posts to come.  Nothing more intriguing than getting a glimpse inside the male brain from articulate and insightful men!  I invite self-aware and willing to share men to submit!! 

by Mark C.

I would like to take a moment and address the concerning spectacle of men and women competing in the same sporting events.  This injustice, specifically directed towards the weaker sex, has been tolerated for some years but in light of recent race results, I believe this issue must be confronted, and fairness restored!  As we all know, there is significant physical inequality between the sexes:  Men don’t stand a chance!

Admittedly, I am not an Olympic caliber runner, but I can make the occasional podium for the random running race or triathlon.  Recently, however, women have begun to occupy my reserved spots in the winner’s circle.  For example, I managed to finish one of our local races in a respectable time.  This particular race takes you up over twelve and a half thousand feet of elevation and then roundabouts  back to town via an arduous, single-track.  It winds through high alpine, rugged terrain and exposes one to the harshest of elements.  All, very manly experiences, until now.

 

I managed to finish this race second among the men.  Normally, this would have been the end of it,  I would have been second overall.  But this year I placed fourth overall.  To make matters worse, the first place man, finished second overall!  Women claimed the top and third places overall, beating out the men, including me!  Now I was getting the dreaded fourth place, the wooden medal, because of women runners?

In a local marathon I was bumped to eleventh place because two, (selfish I might add) women had faster times than me!  I propose that getting women out of such races would mean more top ten opportunities for deserving athletes such as myself.

Let's face it, women have an unfair advantage.  For starters, they have the ability to endure higher levels of pain.  Who hasn’t seen a female athlete return to sport, post-partum, tougher than ever?  These women can literally push themselves much harder, knowing from their childbirth experiences, how much pain they can actually endure.  Unfair!  As a discriminated against male, I am unable to partake of this unfair training practice! Men, on the other hand, may experience physical challenges, such as taking out the trash, looking for the remote, and even getting up and getting their own beer. All admirable challenges to be sure, but comparable to childbirth? I think not. 

Then there are women who will train five or six days a week.  What man has this time and focus not to mention their ability to multi-task? And these women are slender and light.  It's a well known fact that men develop more muscle than women.  All of this muscle ends up weighing us down.  I have personally developed so much muscle that it has taken to jiggling around my mid section.  Just because women are staying fit and active is no reason why they should be winning races!

  

This is even now becoming an international problem!  For the first time, the United States sent more women athletes to the Olympics than men.  Ye Shiwen, the winner of the Olympic 400-meter swim, did her last 50 meters faster than both Ryan Lochte and Michael Phelps, two of the fastest male swimmers in the world.

Of course, this is all a result of title nine which mandated the unfair practice of equal money spent for sport participation for both sexes in universities that received federal funding.  Since then, it's been all downhill for men.

I think, in lieu of these unfair advantages, there needs to be some rule changes in order to level the playing field.  First, women should have to run on steeper slopes than men.  Better yet, make them run altogether different and harder courses so that their times will not be compared to men.  Second, women must wear backpacks with weights in them: nothing excessive – 40 or 50 pounds- to match their male counterparts body weight.  Lastly, women should have to run barefoot.  On this point I don’t really have any “hard data” but in my gut I think this would add an appropriate handicap.

  

If unchecked, I fear that the present direction of women’s advantage in sport may affect other parts of our culture.  What's next?  Women demanding equal pay for equal work?  Now you're just talking crazy!