In a world beset by worries and woes – the floods! The droughts! The banks! The bees! – a new concern has just rocketed straight to the top of all “fret lists”. In a refreshingly frank piece for Grazia, the author Tony Parsons confessed to a problem. Discussing comments from the actress Chloë Sevigny – who claims that men are “intimidated” by her earning more than them – Parsons admitted that he, too, dislikes women earning more than him.
“Does it rock the family boat if the woman earns more?” he asked. “No – it drives the boat into an iceberg. Because the man will feel as if his penis is dropping off.”
Well, this is an alarming state of affairs for Parsons to be confessing to on behalf of all men. I can’t help but feel, in the next few months, he might find parties quite difficult. Every time a woman who earns more than him engages him in conversation, everyone within a 15-foot radius will be listening out for the gentle thudding sound as his out-earned nethers hit the floor. Hosts will have to suddenly abandon other guests and run across the room, screaming, “DON’T TALK TO TONY PARSONS, KARREN BRADY – WE’VE ONLY JUST GLUED IT BACK ON FROM LAST TIME!”
We must all remember, of course, that none of this is Parsons’ fault. It’s not as if this is an intellectual stance he’s consciously taking – some thoughts about a personal insecurity he harbours, which have, over time, solidified into a blanket thesis which all men adhere to. No. It’s deeper than that.
“There is no law that says… a high-flying female banker can’t earn the big dough while her man stays at home, writing slim volumes of poetry. No law against it. Only the law of Nature,” he writes, sadly. And in this he is, of course, correct. For if there is one thing that photosynthesis has proved time and time again, it is that Tony Parsons’ wife must earn less than him. It is an observable fact, noted in all the great studies of biology.
As Darwin’s On the Origins of Species makes very clear, the imperative of a happy marriage is simple: a “good” wife will always earn less than her husband, meaning that, logically, the “best possible” wife would be… a slave. Or, alternatively (if no slaves are available), a woman with massive debts – too big to clear in a lifetime, and which have left her penniless. Under these happy circumstances, a man’s penis should thrive – remaining firmly attached to him, even during bumpy car journeys or after being attacked by a lion.
Of course, with the latest forecast from the Office for National Statistics showing that women in Britain are expected to out-earn men by 2020, this will lead, presumably, to the almost immediate breeding failure of “natural” men, whose penises fall off in the presence of their wife’s payslip. Humanity’s future will, therefore, lie in the hands of the odd, puzzling mutant-man who – through a combination of ignorance and sheer insanity – doesn’t, to use the technical term, “give a toss” who puts the money into the joint bank account, just so long as the family doesn’t end up homeless in a cardboard box next to an A-road.
As a logical extension of this, one must presume that the man who will get the most sex from 2020 onwards will be some manner of super-mutant who actively fancies a woman who does well at her career. This new breed will be able to swing from fruity businesswoman to lubricious entrepreneur – much in the way Tarzan swung from vine to vine – with barely a pause between tumbles between 600 thread-count sheets. The “M” in “MILF” will come to mean “millionairess”, not “mum”.
The only thing we must ignore in all of this is that the man who likes women to earn more money than him must have, logically, as his ultimate role model Prince Philip, which is obviously unfortunate. But no! I’ve just thought of Richard Burton! And Arthur Miller! And, er, David Cameron! It’s all right again!
Perhaps the most notable facet of Parsons’ statement is that he never once mentions his wife’s views on whether or not she should earn less than him. Obviously, those views would ultimately be worthless – you can’t argue with the laws of Nature, Mrs Parsons! But a few crazy dreamers – scientists, perhaps; or socialists, into their “equality” hoo-ha – might wonder how she felt.
Aware of this imbalance, I asked my husband how he felt about our situation.
“What?” he said, blinking vaguely.
“How do you feel about me earning more than you?” I asked.
“Er, really glad we can buy food, and stuff?” he replied, looking confused.
“It doesn’t make your penis drop off?”
“No, that’s leprosy,” he said. “You’re confusing ‘your wages’ with leprosy. Leprosy is the only thing that makes a man’s penis fall off.”
“There is no law that says… a high-flying female banker can’t earn the big dough while her man stays at home, writing slim volumes of poetry. No law against it. Only the law of Nature,” he writes, sadly. And in this he is, of course, correct. For if there is one thing that photosynthesis has proved time and time again, it is that Tony Parsons’ wife must earn less than him. It is an observable fact, noted in all the great studies of biology.” — Caitlin Moran (via praiseisdefiance)
(Source: thetimes.co.uk, via praiseisdefiance)
“Aware of this imbalance, I asked my husband how he felt about our situation.
“What?” he said, blinking vaguely.
“How do you feel about me earning more than you?” I asked.
“Er, really glad we can buy food, and stuff?” he replied, looking confused.
“It doesn’t make your penis drop off?”
“No, that’s leprosy,” he said. “You’re confusing ‘your wages’ with leprosy. Leprosy is the only thing that makes a man’s penis fall off.”
— Caitlin Moran (via praiseisdefiance)
(Source: regulusfuckingblack)
Oh Caitlin, this is why you’re one of my faves.
Chain Reaction: Caitlin Moran Interviews Jennifer Saunders -
Following the interview with Tim Minchin… THIS!
Get tickets at the link above, free.
“When people suggest that what, all along, has been holding women back is other women, bitching about each other, I think they’re severely overestimating the power of a catty zinger during a fag break. We have to remember that snidely saying ‘Her hair’s a bit limp on top’ isn’t what’s keeping womankind from closing the 30 per cent pay gap and a place on the board of directors. I think that’s
more likely to be down to tens of thousands of years of ingrained social, political and economic misogyny and the patriarchy, tbh.”
— How To Be A Woman by Caitlin Moran (via coldandwrathful)
“As Germaine Greer puts it in The Whole Woman, ‘to become a mother without wanting it is to live like a slave, or domestic animal.’”
— Caitlin Moran
How To Be a Woman
(via )
(Source: kindlequotes)
“
But if you had some manner of Psychic Helmet that you could
put on, in order to read the women’s thoughts, any man donning it
would be instantly terrified by the previously concealed levels of
female insanity it revealed.
Look at that woman in the corner – a perfectly normal, nonpsychotic
section manager, with a pleasant and easy demeanour
towards everyone she works with. As far as anyone is aware, she
doesn’t really fancy anyone in the office. She appears to be writing a
long, important email. But do you know what she’s really doing?
She thinking about that bloke five desks away that she’s only talked
to about ten times.
‘If we went away for a mini-break together, we couldn’t go to
Paris – he went there with his ex-girlfriend,’ she’s thinking. ‘I know.
He mentioned it once. I remember. I’m not going to go tromping
around the Louvre if he’s comparing me, in my spring mac, to her,
in her spring mac. Not that we’d be going in spring, anyway – given
where we are in our relationship now, if he made the first move
TODAY, the earliest we’d be going on mini-breaks would be –’
counts up on fingers ‘– November, and it would be really rainy, and
my hair would go all flat. I’d need an umbrella.’
‘But,’ she continues, typing angrily, ‘if I had an umbrella, then
we wouldn’t be able to hold hands because I’d have the brolly in
one hand and my handbag in the other. So that would be shit.
UNLESS! UNLESS I could fit everything I needed in my pockets!
Then I wouldn’t have to take a handbag to the Louvre. But I’d be
without spare tights if I got splashed, and I’d have to go barelegged,
and it would be so cold that my legs would look all purple,
and I’d be tense when we went back to the hotel to fuck, and I’d be
trying to hide them with a towel, and he’d think I was prick-teasing
him, and go off me. OH FOR FUCK’S SAKE. WHY IS HE TAKING US
TO PARIS IN NOVEMBER? I HATE HIM.’
She doesn’t even fancy this bloke. She’s barely even spoken
to him. If he asked her out for a drink, she’d probably say no. She
has no desire to have an actual relationship with him. And yet, next
time he talks to her, she’ll be a trifle curt with him and he – in his
wildest, most opium-fuelled imaginings – would never come close
to guessing why that might be. Maybe he would shruggingly
presume she was premenstrual, or just having a bad day.
He would never alight upon the simple truth: that they went on
a very bad imaginary mini-break to Paris together, and broke up
over some tights.
“Because the purpose of feminism isn’t to make a particular type of woman. The idea that there are inherently wrong and inherently right “types” of women is what’s screwed feminism for so long - this belief that “we” wouldn’t accept slaggy birds, dim birds, birds that bitch, birds that hire cleaners, birds that stay at home with their kids, birds that have pink Mini Metros with “Powered by Fairy Dust” bumper stickers, birds in burkas, or birds that like to pretend, in their heads, that they’re married to Zach Braff from Scrubs, and that you sometimes have sex in an ambulance while the rest of the cast watch and, latterly, clap. You know what? Feminism will have all of you.
What is feminism? Simply the belief that women should be as free as men, however nuts, dim, deluded, badly dressed, fat, receding, lazy and smug they might be.
Are you a feminist? Hahaha. Of course you are.”
— Caitlin Moran - How To Be A Woman (via thistlesandweeeds)
(Source: whengirlztelephoneboiz)
