A man's a man for a' that

My favourite Flemish magazine has recently had a couple of articles that really annoyed me. One was a test asking "How masculine are you?" The other was an article entitled "Are men allowed to cry?" Allowed, for fuck's sake. That's enough to drive me up the wall. Their answer seemed to be that "Yes, some grown men do cry." Which absolutely made me drop my club and fall out of my tree. Really? Men sometimes cry? Bloody hell. It's like we've gone back to the 1950s or something.

The test which was meant to determine a man's manliness focused mainly on how much they know about sports (the more the better), how little they do around the house (less is more) and how bad they are at discussing their feelings (bad being good, of course). Now of course I know this test was all in jest, and mostly tongue-in-cheek, but it still bugged me. A lot. Most men I like and respect would have been classed in the "bottom" two categories, which could broadly be described as metrosexuals and nancy-boys. (It was a very subtle test, with subtle answers to match.) I shudder to even imagine being with a man who goes in the "top" two categories, which I would class as Neanderthal and macho man. (I can be subtle right back.)

Then tonight, discussing this with my metrosexual (according to the test) husband, we worked out the problem. The magazine writers were describing what makes a man "masculine," which is a matter of hair, sports and insensitivity. What I respect in a male of mine, though, is that he is "a man," which to me means that he's kind, responsible, a good husband and father, someone you can build on. After that, hairiness or interest in sports don't really register on the scale.