Are men going extinct?

Are men going extinct?

December 27, 2001

It's The Pitts
By Lee Pitts

The First World Congress on Men’s Health recently convened in Vienna, Austria, to mull over the question, "Are Men Going Extinct?" If you are a man you aren’t going to like the answer they came up with.

It seems we men are dying off because we are sicker than women, are more likely to die from an act of crime, and our jobs are more dangerous. Each of the 15 leading causes of death is more likely to kill a man than a woman. The PhDs in Vienna said the primary reason that we men are going extinct is we don’t go to the doctor enough for regular checkups. I’d suggest you have to question the credibility of a bunch of doctors getting together on expense account vacations and coming to the conclusion that we don’ t go to the doctor enough. See the conflict of interest here?

There’s a perfectly good explanation why men don’t go to the doctor as often as women. Every time we go they find something wrong with us. And they lecture us not to do all the things that make life worth living, like eating meat and drinking. My attitude is if something still hurts in five years I’ll think about seeing a doc. Maybe.

The smarty-pants in Vienna said another reason men don’t live as long as women is that we have more psychological problems and we worry more. Hey, women would worry too if they knew they were going extinct! The quacks also came to the conclusion that men are unwilling to grapple with their emotions, don’t cry enough, and are unwilling to admit when something hurts. I fail to see how talking to my sister on the phone for hours about a pain in my neck is going to make it better.

I’ve seen this coming a long way off. It’s a conspiracy of the women of the world and a bunch of over-educated girly-men who want to turn us manly-men into a bunch of wimps so they can rule the world after being "oppressed" for so many years. I wouldn’t be surprised to learn they’re sneaking something into our beer to make us all more lady-like. I have proof of the conspiracy too. The chairman of the conference in Vienna, one Siegfried Meryn, MD, posed the following question in the British Medical Journal about the role of men in the future: "Will men be needed at all? With the advent of sperm banks, in-vitro fertilization, sex-sorting techniques, human cloning, and same sex marriage, it is reasonable to wonder about the future role of men in society."

I’m telling you guys, this guy Siegfreid is a regular Benedict Arnold: A traitor who should be strung up by his pony tail or his fanny pack.

Ladies, if all this is about you wanting to take control of the TV remote, or the fact that once in a while we may forget a birthday or anniversary, I’d suggest that we can work these things out. But why is it that you always want to have deep meaningful conversations during Monday Night Football? Couldn’t it wait at least until the commercial break? Sometimes I think you women forget about all the pain we are in.

I’d like to put in a good word here for guys by pointing out there are some things that men can do that women cannot. Clearly women have not thought this through. Who’s going to take out the garbage and kill the spiders when we’ re gone? Or program your VCR or change your oil? Who will pay child support and tell you that you don’t look fat in that dress? Who will you have to blame when things go wrong? I’m telling you ladies, you’ re going to miss all the little things we do when we’ re gone.

If men are endangered it’s not because we won’t go to the doctor. It’s because our habitat is being overrun by a bunch of overly-sensitive do-gooders who won't let men be real men anymore. Ladies, you ought to at least show us the same respect you give endangered woodpeckers and spotted owls. The least you could do is give us a nice refuge somewhere and let us live out the rest of our pitiful lives in peace.