Real Men
[Originally written ages and ages ago. - R]
Here is something I've been simmering for quite some time. It is still undercooked, but I aim to keep this blog fresh.
Men love a real barbershop. It is one of the last public places where men can go and be men with other men. You can talk—or not. If you don't feel like talking a friendly grunt usually deters a would-be conversationalist. If you do want to chat, why name your topic. Fishing been good? We all want to here about it--even the ones who don't fish. Want to complain about the government? So do we. How about them gas prices, can you believe it?
Men need this sort of environment. Women do too, but I think they find it more easily than men. Until recently men could find this at work everyday, or at the regular service club meeting. But women have rightly fought for and achieved access to these places. So we have the barbershop.
For me the barbershop is thoroughly a man's world. When I was old enough to decide how I wanted my haircut, Mom would drop me off at Eddie's and I'd go in alone. My father has been basically out of the picture since I was eight, so the barbershop was an initiation of sorts. I love the smells of the comb disinfectant and various tonics and the quiet buzz of the clippers as the barber cleans up an old man's bald head.
Our culture has decided that men are objects of derision and comic relief. Watch any family sitcom if you don't believe me (Everybody Loves Raymond, King of Queens, According to Jim, The Simpsons, Home Improvement, to name a few). The message is: Men are idiots, men are lazy, men are just overgrown children.
With very few places for men to socialize the next generation, our boys are growing up to become something less than men. And I don't mean we should be sex-crazed, machismo machines. Men don't have to be pansies to be sensitive. But neither should they have their masculinity drummed out of them. We need to be encouraged to be men.
Here is something I've been simmering for quite some time. It is still undercooked, but I aim to keep this blog fresh.
Men love a real barbershop. It is one of the last public places where men can go and be men with other men. You can talk—or not. If you don't feel like talking a friendly grunt usually deters a would-be conversationalist. If you do want to chat, why name your topic. Fishing been good? We all want to here about it--even the ones who don't fish. Want to complain about the government? So do we. How about them gas prices, can you believe it?
Men need this sort of environment. Women do too, but I think they find it more easily than men. Until recently men could find this at work everyday, or at the regular service club meeting. But women have rightly fought for and achieved access to these places. So we have the barbershop.
For me the barbershop is thoroughly a man's world. When I was old enough to decide how I wanted my haircut, Mom would drop me off at Eddie's and I'd go in alone. My father has been basically out of the picture since I was eight, so the barbershop was an initiation of sorts. I love the smells of the comb disinfectant and various tonics and the quiet buzz of the clippers as the barber cleans up an old man's bald head.
Our culture has decided that men are objects of derision and comic relief. Watch any family sitcom if you don't believe me (Everybody Loves Raymond, King of Queens, According to Jim, The Simpsons, Home Improvement, to name a few). The message is: Men are idiots, men are lazy, men are just overgrown children.
With very few places for men to socialize the next generation, our boys are growing up to become something less than men. And I don't mean we should be sex-crazed, machismo machines. Men don't have to be pansies to be sensitive. But neither should they have their masculinity drummed out of them. We need to be encouraged to be men.
"I too am not a bit tamed—I too am untranslatable;
I sound my barbaric yawp over the roofs of the world."
Comments
I think many women would like for "hair salons" to go back to being "beauty shops" too. The hen clucking of a beauty shop is very different than a "salon". For one thing, in a beauty shop, the ideal was not some anorexic 18 year old chick who looks like someone just stomped on her favorite MP3 player. They were for LADIES. Since being a lady is prized in only a few, a very few, circles nowadays, the overpriced, over-the-top "salon" triumphs and the beauty shop, like the barbershop, goes the way of the dodo.