“’A Few Good Men’ may have made a great title for a movie, but when it comes to describing the majority of the male population, it’s demeaning, sexist, and just plain wrong.”
As well as being a marriage and family therapist, I’m a writer. Because half of my practice involves working with men, I’ve written a fair number of articles in defense of them. Recently, I wrote a piece called, “A Proposal.” The piece describes a wonderful and defining moment in my life when my daughter’s boyfriend took the time to take me to lunch, express his love and devotion to my daughter, and ask for my blessings for her hand in marriage. He did the same with her father.
The comments to this piece surprised me. “Your daughter got one of the few good men,” “she got one of the good ones,” “my daughter found one of the few good men too.”
These pronouncements stood out to me like a slap in the face, not to me, but to men. How often do we hear this phrase thrown out like three-day-old garbage?
I read those comments and thought to myself, “How would women feel if men said this? What if I had written a piece about my son finding the right woman and the comments were, ‘Good for your son! He found one of the few good women!’”
See what I mean? The media, the culture, even many men themselves readily accept this phrase as if it’s the truth.
It’s not. Men love women, and they want to please them. Many of them will admit to being clueless and ask only for a roadmap, a set of instructions, or specific communication about what their woman wants.
Many men spend their lives in unfulfilling jobs, but they go to them without complaint and without expectation of recognition because it feels natural for them to do this for their family and the ones they love.
“A Few Good Men” may have made a great title for a movie, but when it comes to describing the majority of the male population, it’s demeaning, sexist, and just plain wrong.
—Photo marysecasol.com/Flickr