Colin Sheridan: Manscaping of society has gone on for far too long

Irish Examiner

20 hours ago

Considering the latest bromantic melodrama emanating from the sadistic reality TV show that is the USA, I'm thinking of writing a non-fiction book called The Penis Apologist in which I make a case that men should not be allowed to run for public office for a century — at least.
The ban would be worldwide, and effective immediately.
Where snap elections cannot take place, the closest female relative to the outgoing official's nemesis will be jettisoned in until a plebiscite is possible.
In the case of Keir Starmer, for example, Jeremy Corbyn's wife would take charge. Their qualifications are irrelevant, just as they've been irrelevant for men. The same standard will apply to the general staff of all militaries.
I understand there will be considerable pushback to this idea from all sides. From the feminists, who might argue that I am appropriating the legacy trauma of women everywhere.
From the Andrew Tate acolytes, who will argue treachery to a non-existent brotherhood.
From the centrists, who will accuse me of flagrant populism and suggesting I have hopped aboard a bandwagon — or a fallopian flotilla — all in the name of ingratiating myself to the sisterhood.
To all of them, I simply say: This isn't working
The manscaping of society has gone on for far too long and the results of the masculine monopoly have proven to be much too disastrous for humankind, for the planet, for the arts, culture, and academia.
The only thing men have not ruined all by themselves is sport — both the watching of it and the playing of it. That, and drinking silently in pubs.
Literally every other thing has been tainted to some degree by an inglorious arms race between men intent on one thing: Winning a big micky contest.
The cost of that megalomaniac pursuit has been catastrophic. War. Famine. Drought. Climate change. Kanye. And now, in the case of Donald Trump and Elon Musk, a break-up so unedifying they make Kim Kardashian look like Grace Kelly.
Women themselves are not entirely blameless. Maggie Thatcher didn't exactly woo the working class with a mother's touch.
Kamala Harris may have proven slightly less duplicitous a president than Donald Trump, but she was too incompetent to defeat him.
Liz Truss, Suella Braverman, and Priti Patel were nearly as bad as Boris Johnson, which is a quite the reach.
Ursula von der Leyen displays all the empathy of a data centre, and I wouldn't trust Giorgia Meloni as far as I could throw her.
Closer to home, the nuns — as a collective — did considerable damage, especially to women
Despite all of this, I still think men have had the reins for long enough. All its brought us is disaster.
As of this year, only 13% of the world's nations are led by women. Historically, only about one third of United Nations member states have ever had a woman serve as head of government.
According to UN figures, women hold just 23% of ministerial positions globally in 2025. The same study notes women are more often assigned portfolios related to social affairs, while defence, foreign affairs, and finance remain predominantly the purview of men.
In terms of wealth, women constitute approximately 13.3% of the world's billionaires. According to Forbes' rich list published this year, out of 3,028 billionaires globally, only 406 are women.
Let's put the diversity, equity and inclusion argument to one side for a moment. Clearly, that was beyond our abilities to properly implement, probably because it was men responsible for it.
Perhaps we don't even need to try that hard. Perhaps we should just seek to put the best people in the jobs with the most power. Perhaps, after many millennia of evidence, men are not those people. Perhaps the best people to be in power are those who do not seek it out.
'Unhappy that I am, I cannot heave my heart into my mouth. I love your majesty according to my bond; no more nor less.' So said Cordelia, the youngest of King Lear's daughters, when the narcissistic monarch sought some sycophancy before dividing up his kingdom.
Cordelia the character was, of course, a work of Shakespeare's imagination. However, she endures in my mind as the antithesis of what we have come to expect from Trump, Putin, Biden, Boris Johnson, Churchill, Blair, Kennedy, Clinton, Netanyahu, Musk, Bezos et al.
If we flipped it entirely, we should really let the children be in charge.
We'd eat nothing but Nutella with every meal, but you'd be guaranteed wars would quickly end, the hungry would be fed, and there'd be no such thing as genocide.
What is absolutely certain is that they could not do any worse.