I am glad that I am of an age where womens' opinions of me or anything else are of no interest.

Many of the men I know tell me that the women in their lives check them before they leave the house to make sure they are presentable.
To whom? Other women?
My ambition is to grow old not gracefully, but disgracefully.

Well ummm, perhaps, maybe, it might be happening? And possibly explains why many confused emasculate young men, bereft of a traditional role?
Are preferring to remain single and uncommitted; and raise all their kids the same way?

That said, I'm very firmly in favor of genuine equality in all things, including a predilection to stereotype. My favorite target being oversexed old men! You know, those incorrigible old politically incorrect reprobates standing around permanently to attention. And have a want to start dribbling at the sight of a pair of naked ankles? Oops, sorry Sir, should have gone to specsavers!

Saw the family GP a few weeks ago about a "plumbing problem" need a new washer, the current one has sprung an inconvenient intermittent leak. Several weeks later, I was there again as he perused reports and x rays, tut tutting all the while. Finally he turned and said, sorry old timer, but you're going to give up all horizontal recreation! Whadda ya mean Doc, I inquired, thinking about it or talking about it?

So? You think it's psychological then? he replied, that maybe you'd be helped by some counseling?

Hell no Doc, I retorted, anyone who thinks they need a psychiatrist ought to have their head examined.

Where do you think the leak is coming from, he asked?
Water on the brain? I replied.
To be sure, we Irish have a cure for that, he exclaimed.

Yes, I'm all ears, I replied.

I've noticed Jumbo, he said, then went on to explain, a wee tap on the head.
I thought I should repeat every word at least twice, but that might be seen as stereo typing?
You know when I'm on the level, given I dribble equally out of both sides of the mouth.
Can't polish a turd even with, boom boom repetition.
Hey man, you'll have a nice day now y'hear.
Alan B.

This article is pretending to be about the need for 'fairness' of gender criticism in the media, but it's really just reinforcing the age-old stereotype that men just want to be left alone, while women just want to nag.

The long-suffering male beseiged by the petty moralising of women is deeply embedded in the culture. The male-controlled media simply maintains this trope

A good piece, Peter.

The tendency for women to want to make "something better" out of the men in their lives is an old one. There used to be a saying that "a woman marries a man because she thinks she can change him and a man marries a woman because he thinks she'll never change" with the rather sour sting that "both end up disappointed".

One of my Mum's favourite games when I lined up for inspection before leaving the house was to order me to do some small thing or other to improve my appearance because "you look like nobody owns you".

My Dad would always submit to the same inspection and got the same short shrift if his tie wasn't straight, his shoes were dull or he hadn't trimmed his nasal hair recently enough. He certainly never had the temerity to choose his own clothes for any kind of social occasion!

I know the same process occurred in thousands of homes across the land in middle-class households, where female social stature was inextricably linked to their capacity to manage their men. Simone de Beauvoir wrote about it in "The Second Sex", lamenting that petit bourgeois women were too interested in the display of their capacity to manage their men and their households to be easily conscripted to an ideal in which men and women were able to live as equals.

She thought that was a social construction, rather than an expression of an intrinsic motivation, in which I think she was partly right: the construction emerges from rather than being imposed on the intrinsic motivations of both men and women.

As you point out, the same thing is being writ large across society as women move in greater numbers into positions of social influence in media and to a lesser extent, business.

Alan,
for a leaky old bugger you can be very funny...