I’m a yesterday man. Yes, my friends, that’s what I am. A yesterday man.
Yeah, there I was back in the newsroom last month after a brief stint away when the in-house horde cried, as one: “Hey, Patsy. You’re male, pale and stale.”
I was bewildered (not for the first time in that company).
“Did you not see your photograph on Twitter?”
I had not.
“In a collage of speakers at this year’s MacGill summer school?”
I had not.
“Nonsense,” spoke I (not for the first time), “it must be some mistake.” And I added, “but I did chair a session at MacGill a few years back.” Which I had.
“No, it’s for this year,” they said. “Couldn’t be,” I replied, “I wasn’t asked.”
But I was and did not know it. A little later I noticed the light on my landline phone blinking. Messages had been left for me in my absence.
I keyed in the code and there among the chaff were the sonorous tones of Joe, he of MacGill, from six days previously. He asked me to chair a discussion on the Catholic Church in Ireland.
“What!” thought I, aghast at the scenario now presented.
I had already denied I was taking part in MacGill 2018 to colleagues, including some “sisters”, and the man who invited me had probably concluded by then my nonresponse was because of the furore caused by some opportunist women.
Who on either side would believe me now?
I called Joe. “Eh Joe..,” and explained. He did too. He had to rearrange things since leaving the message and had lost my mobile number in a change of phones. He sounded weary and put-upon.
Though always in sympathy with what women want, I felt in this instance they went too far, and with a man who had done their cause some service in far more difficult times.
Younger sisters would not know this, having come lately to an old battle. Implicit too in some of their commentary was an unwelcome strain of misandry.
It is no more acceptable than its twisted sibling, misogyny.
MacGill began in 1981. Unlike the rest of us it is not perfect, but it has survived almost four decades. Its 2018 season ended yesterday. Well done, Joe.
Misandry, from the Greek misos-andros, hatred of man/male human.
inaword@irishtimes.com
