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Feminists created Mr Sensitive, but what we REALLY want is a man to fix the car

By LOWRI TURNER
15th May 2008

Picture the scene: I am standing in front of my car, fingers hooked under the edge of the bonnet, trying to free it so I can lift it. I need to put water in the engine, but first I have to get the bonnet open.

As the woman who once responded to a puncture by turning the radio up and driving until smoke billowed from the shredded tyre, I am far from adept when it comes to solving car problems.

Still, as I attempt grimly to manipulate the locking mechanism under the bonnet, I hear a male voice. "Can I help you?"

I look sideways. A dark-haired man has put down a briefcase on the pavement (a risky manoeuvre where I live, but from his accent he sounds foreign, so maybe he doesn't know that yet) and is advancing toward me.

With an accent I now realise is Italian, he declares: "I don't like to see a woman do this alone. This is man's work!"

My first thought is that we have somehow slipped back, Life On Mars style, to 1973. "If I look down I'll be wearing a suede A-line skirt and a polo neck," I think.

1973 was about the last time any British bloke uttered the phrase 'man's work'. However, I am still wearing my 2008 kaftan and sandals, so my second thought is that he is being ironic.

However, the furrow in his brow says he is serious. As he gestures for me to step aside, deftly lifts the bonnet and instructs me to start the engine while he pours the water in, I realise that I am dealing with what most of us thought was an extinct species Macho Man (MM).

Macho Man used to wear tight trousers, have obvious facial hair and do manly things like check the football scores and drink pints of bitter from a glass.

In ultrasmooth mode, he might have insisted on lighting a woman's cigarette in a bar. He definitely insisted on paying for dinner.

MM became a joke and wandered off into oblivion some time in the Eighties, when pubs began to turn gastro and the only men with moustaches were gay.

That's what we thought. In the UK, MM might be extinct, but abroad, as I was discovering, he is alive and well. I was standing right next to the genuine article as he lectured me on why I shouldn't be trying to sort out my car on my own, and I was just taking it. More than that, I blush to admit that I was actually enjoying it.

A decade ago, had I received the 'man's work' speech, I would have given MM a feminist lecture on equality of the sexes, told him to get lost and struggled on myself.

I would have been appalled at the suggestion that I needed rescuing from my automotive crisis. So, how come I just handed him the water jug and put the key in the ignition? Exhaustion, I think.

I am part of a generation which has spent the past 20 years proving to men that we don't need them. In doing so, we have painted ourselves into a corner, literally in some cases since we have given up waiting for the men in our lives to redecorate the spare room and girls are now doing it for themselves, as well as everything else.

I look at myself and my girlfriends, all so tired from being bravely, fabulously independent, and I wonder if, in wanting to show we are not silly damsels in distress, we have let men off the hook?

When it comes to domestic chores, we do seem to have a bad deal. These days, we do our mother's work, the cleaning, cooking etc, and our father's DIY, putting stuff in the loft, as well.

This is, admittedly because it's often quicker to do it ourselves than wait for the men to get off the sofa and we don't have to waste energy nagging. But it is exhausting.

For those of us who are single parents with sons, the example we set is worrying. I look at my two boys, seven and five, and wonder if they will grow up to assume that women do the shopping, cleaning, cooking, washing, car maintenance, DIY etc. while men tinker round the edges, doing the odd run to the bottle bank or buying overpriced salami at the organic deli.

Yes, it's good to show boys that a woman's talents have no limit, but not if it means they are going to sit on their bottoms and expect their girlfriends to put the rubbish out.

So, perhaps the time is now ripe for the return of Macho Man, not the knuckle-dragging Neanderthal but a chap who knows where to put water in the car, decides where to go for dinner and can clear blocked guttering.

Emotional intelligence is all very well, but if a pigeon dies in your cold water tank, it's not much use being able to discuss how you feel, you want someone to get the blinking thing out.

So it is interesting that this is exactly the point at which many cities in the UK have an influx of foreign MMs.

These are Eastern European workmen - Polish plumbers, Estonian carpenters for whom the idea of machismo never went out of fashion. As they tip out of planes at Heathrow and Gatwick, it is like setting a herd of wildebeest free in Hyde Park.

They seem so out of place in our PC environment. Some even have irony-free moustaches. British women are getting their first taste of Macho Mandom in 30 years.

I recently employed a bunch of Albanian MMs to work on my house. When I explained I was separated from my second husband, the team foreman sighed and said: "You English girls!" clearly despairing of the British woman's stroppiness.

Still, the upside was I never had to carry the shopping upstairs and they put all my suitcases in the loft.

As for my Italian MM, after filling up my car up with water, we swopped numbers and have been out twice. Date one, he brought me a rose, which was pretty retro I thought. Date two, he announced apropos of nothing "I am a man!" in full "I am Spartacus" tone.

I tried not to laugh. MMs can be unintentionally hilarious. The way to deal with a modern MM, I realise, is to channel his energies into things you need him to do, like fix the car, and ignore the rest, or at least don't let him see you smirking. It might hurt his ego, poor lamb.

Call it "old school" if you want, but I *love* a man who wants to fix all the broken things around my place to help make me more comfortable. I think it shows caring! Call it "old school" if you want, but I love cooking a man dinner and then cleaning up, and doing his laundry, too. It is probably the generation I came from. I love to wait on a man. It pleases me and I just wish I could find a man who wants it!

Personally, I love doing DIY and fix-r-up stuff.

I don't do it for everyone though, and I certainly wouldn't do it in a casual dating situation.

If you want me to fix your house, you need to keep me around your house long enough for me to feel it needs to be fixed. I'm not a piece of meat, or free labor at your whim. Demonstrate to me you're willing to invest some effort and emotion in me, and I'll return the favor.

Why is it that many women believe that men are obligated to do things for them because of their gender? But if a man thinks that women are obligated to do ANYTHING because of his gender, he is an chauvinist or some type of idiot?

I can just imagine if a guy made a complaint about women not cooking him meals or doing his house work. The thread wouldn’t last 5 minutes but its socially acceptable for women to believe they have entitlements over men.

Many of today's women seem to have a poor understanding on what equality is.

The Slave's Happiness

The lemon-coloured MG skids across the road and the woman driver brings it to a somewhat uncertain halt. She gets out and finds her left front tyre flat. Without wasting a moment she prepares to fix it: she looks towards the passing cars as if expecting someone. Recognising this standard international sign of woman in distress ("weak female let down my by male technology"), a station wagon draws up. The driver sees what is wrong at a glance and says comfortingly, "Don't worry. We'll fix that in a jiffy."

To prove his determination, he asks for her jack. He does not ask if she is capable of changing the tyre herself because he knows - she is about thirty, smartly dressed and made-up - that she is not.

Since she cannot find a jack, he fetches his own, together with his other tools. Five minutes later the job is done and the punctured tyre properly stowed. His hands are covered with grease. She offers him an embroidered handkerchief, which he politely refuses. He has a rag for such occasions in his tool box.

The woman thanks him profusely, apologising for her "typically feminine" helplessness. She might have been there till dusk, she says, had he not stopped. He makes no reply and, as she gets back into the car, gallantly shuts the door for her. Through the wound-down window he advises her to have her tyre patched at once and she promises to get her petrol station attendant to see to it that very evening. Then she drives off.

As the man collects his tools and goes back to his own car, he wishes he could wash his hands. His shoes - he has been standing in the mud while changing the tyre - are not as clean as they should be (he is a salesman). What is more he will have to hurry to keep his next appointment. As he starts the engine he thinks, "Women! One's more stupid than the next". He wonders what she would have done if he had not been there to help. He puts his foot on the accelerator and drives off - faster than usual. There is the delay to make up. After a while he starts to hum to himself.

In a way, he is happy.

Almost any man would have behaved in the same way - and so would most women. Without thinking, simply because men are men and women are so different from them, a woman will make use of a man whenever there is the opportunity. What else could the woman have done when her car broke down? She has been taught to get a man help. Thanks to his knowledge, he was able to change the tyre quickly - and at no cost to herself. True, he ruined his clothes, put his business in jeopardy and endangered his own life by driving too fast afterwards. Had he found something else wrong with her car, however, he would have repaired that, too. That is what his knowledge of cars is for! Why should a woman learn to change a flat tyre when the opposite sex (half the world's population) is able and willing to do it for her?

Women let men work for them, think for them and take on their responsibilities - in fact, they exploit them.

Since men are strong, intelligent and imaginative, while women are weak, unimaginative and stupid, why isn't it men who exploit women?

Could it be that strength, intelligence and imagination are not prerequisites for power but merely qualifications for slavery?

Could it be that the world is not being ruled by experts but by beings who are not fit for anything else - by women?

And if this is so, how do women manage it so that their victims do not feel themselves cheated and humiliated, but rather believe to be themselves what they are least of all - masters of the universe?

How do women manage to instill in men this sense of pride and superiority that inspires them to ever greater achievements?

Why are women never unmasked?

So does this mean if my future girl friend wont cook me meals and wash up the dishes and do the house work without any equivalence in return from me, she is just using me for sex also?

Are you implying that a man is only good in your eyes if he's able to fix things around your home? sheesh.

This is, admittedly because it's often quicker to do it ourselves than wait for the men to get off the sofa and we don't have to waste energy nagging. But it is exhausting.