A columnist in Toronto's National Post put her foot in her mouth last Saturday. Irked after seeing some boys greet one another with hugs, she chose to vent about both Toronto politics and contemporary male "delicacy" in the same piece. People took notice of the latter, and well they should: I'm pretty sure hugging (even between two men) is not one of the seven trumpets of societal collapse. I decided to write Blatchford myself. My letter and her reply follow.
I was trying for a balance of frankness and courtesy, since I signed with my real name.
It's a sword that cuts both ways, you know, when one berates the transgressors of gender norms. In my imagination, I can hear my late Grandam Sara responding, "I can remember a day when ladylike columnists did not call men sissies and ding-dongs."
Of course you're entitled to dislike hugs; I do too. And I realize after reading your column of 10 Dec. that your point was half about Toronto politics. Maybe the "sissy" thesis was mixed in to give the piece a bit of zing. But the Lament Over the Delicate Male is offensive and atavistic.
The idea of an iron law of gender binaries is as anachronistic and destructive as a theory of eugenics or a religious bigotry. Your argument -- that because of relaxed gender norms men are no longer "tough" -- is total barking nonsense: queers defeated the NYC police in 1969 and they've been winning battles ever since. LGBT people are mentally the toughest group you will ever meet. Not invulnerable, of course: those iron laws of sex and gender have driven many people to despair and death, and they've goaded the hatred of others to assault and murder. Bullying kills some and blights others. Forcing all the men to be tough and all the women to be ladylike means that those somewhere in the middle are forced to die a little inside, or just plain to die.
Maybe it's too earnest and outraged, but as I've gotten older I've grown more idealistic, and I won't apologize for that. Today I was surprised by her reply:
It was meant to be a bit funny, and light. I'm covering a murder trial -- victims four women, three teenagers -- and have been writing about it five times a week for two months. I briefly ran out of stomach for serious. And may I point out, the word sissy is not in the column, or my lexicon. I can thank the headline writer for that; as you may know, writers don't write our own headlines. And while I make no claim to be a lady, certainly not in the sense you mean, you might well call the bright lights at the Toronto school board "ding-dongs" if you knew them as I do. That said, thanks for your note. I'm sure you won't care, but the majority of the hundreds of emails I've got on this column are filled with words so vile even I wouldn't use them. It was nice to get a smart one.
Cheers
CB
I appreciate the reply, but "trying to be funny" is an excuse as lame as it is old. Also, in case it wasn't clear, I'm definitely not trying to lace anyone into the corset labeled LADYLIKE. I'll let Blatchford pass the blame for
sissy onto the headline writer, but if she's going to take responsibility for
arch, effete, fey, and (with a sneer)
slender, then why not man up (as they say) and take responsibility for the headline too?