HOWZAT

Confused? Well, according to Salzman, a classic example of M-ness man is Guy Ritchie. He is the alpha male tough guy who married an even tougher woman. But have his masculinity and identity been diminished by Madonna, arguably one of the biggest female icons in the world? No, says Salzman.

If anything they have been enhanced because Ritchie is so comfortable in his own skin. Here lies the essence of M-ness.

Ditto Bill Clinton, believe it or not, who scored M-ness points for apologising publicy for his infidelity (admitting you were wrong is a very feminine trait) and has not been threatened by taking a back seat to Hillary. See also the Republican Arnold Schwarzenegger, who, in marrying Maria Shriver, a famous Democrat, showed simultaneous respect for her beliefs and absolute confidence in his own. You could argue that Sir Paul McCartney demonstrates M-ness in his support for the career of his wife, Heather Mills. And might there not have been a touch of M-ness at the heart of Sir Denis Thatcher, whose sense of self was never compromised despite being married to the most macho female in living memory?

Salzman’s point is that you can have M-ness whether you are a happily married house-husband or a 45-year-old serial dater, a physician or a soccer coach. You must do whatever makes you happy, gives you self-respect and makes you feel whole while respecting the other gender’s right to the same. But you must be multidimensional. You must love your family, have male friends to whom you are not afraid to show affection, have one or two hobbies.

“We need to move to a place where each gender can co-exist mutually and happily,” says Salzman. “There is no society that we can learn from on this — we have never had that kind of equality.”

Ultimately men will learn that their future is not about control as it has been in the past, it is about co- operation.

()

Men - and women- are fed up that men are the butt of every joke

SO WHAT does the future hold for men?

Renewed respect

We’ll see more focused and more organised efforts by men to regain the societal and intrafamily respect they used to take for granted.

Husband-bashing, believe it or not, is on its way out — not completely (never completely) and not quickly — but we’ve finally reached a point at which men are truly fed up with being the butt of every joke, and even women are beginning to see that it’s gone overboard. We’ve seen this trend in spurts and fads such as Promise Keepers and the “surrendered wife” phenomenon. Now we’re going to see it move beyond the Religious Right and other conservative groups, and make it into the average household. And that, in turn, will put television executives and advertising creatives on notice that using men, fathers in particular, for cheap laughs has run its course.