The end is near.
Tomorrow, in fact.
All of those gross and feeble attempts by normally clean-shaven men to add a moustache as part of a unified global effort to support men's health will be done.
See you later, Movember. Thanks for the money and attention you raised towards men's health issues but don't let the shaver bump you on the way out the door.
But why the hate for the lip rug?
Here's a high, falutin' theory:
Sociologists talked about the 1980s and 1990s as being the post-feminist era, when women shook off the bra burnings of the 1960s and the demand for affirmative action and equal pay for equal work of the 1970s, and decided they would succeed on their own terms. That battle continues to this day, of course, but now we seem to be in the post-masculine era.
In this era, the lines between women and men have been blurred. In the workplace and at home, there are no longer blue jobs and pink jobs. You're likely to find as many or more pink shirts on his side of the closet as on hers. Men are now supposed to be in touch with their feelings and able to articulate those feelings to loves ones.
The assault on masculinity starts with young boys. In schools, competition, particularly at the elementary level, is a bad word. Girls are praised for their social and listening skills and being able to work in teams while boys are admonished for their independence and their desire for action, not words. Yesterday's horseplay, especially between boys, is now on a sliding scale from physical intimidation to harassment to bullying. Yesterday's high-energy boys in the classroom are now sick (ADHD) and need to be medicated (Ritalin).
This is not a call for the good, ol' patriarchal days because masculinity in those days was built on being better than women, not on a real sense of what being a boy and being a man actually meant.
In this post-masculine era, however, being a man is complicated. Hanna Rosen's book The End of Men makes it plain - in the new information economy, traditionally masculine occupations in construction and manufacturing are nowhere as valuable as traditionally feminine career steams like teaching and nursing.
And it's going to get worse for men before it gets better. Until men adapt to the new labor and social realities, more and more of them will get left behind. The conflict at the individual and community level caused by these shifts in gender relations and power will be with us for decades to come.
In the meantime, there's Movember, a month of the year where men decide that an outward demonstration of masculinity is no sin and is actually a badge of honour. It's the only time of year when one man can compliment another on his looks and not wonder if there is something more behind the praise.
Men, haven't you noticed, especially in the last week as that face fur has thickened up, that women are fascinated and are looking at your mouth instead of your eyes when you're talking to them? Let's play the evolutionary biology card here and say they're responding to that blatant but not threatening display of masculinity.
Just a thought.
In Saturday's paper, we'll feature the Citizen's Men of Movember and in Monday's paper, we'll showcase the men (and women!) at Finning and the efforts they made to support Movember.
Send us an email at [email protected] with a high-res photo (minimum 1 MB in size) and a short write up on Movember in your workplace. We'll do our best to share as many of them as we can.
Movember is almost over but let's put those razors away after Halloween next year, boys.
