the MANifesto

Ladies, but mostly gentlemen, welcome to the 21st Century. Women have made impressive strides in the field of civil rights, and they have declared that women can do anything a man can do, plus a little change (like childbirth). I feel that male sex has not thought about the implications of equal rights for both men and women, and I have thus set forth some principles to encourage the average man to stand up for his rights. The male sex has long been encumbered by thoughts of "gentility," which is a word that women created to trap men in a small, sexist cage. Women no longer listen to some of our demands, so why should we listen to some of theirs?

1) We, as men, resolve to no longer put the toilet seat down. Scientists have proven that nearly twice as much men as women suffer from chronic back pain, and this is most certainly the cause.

2) We resolve to never, never share the remote. Women read books and look at paintings. Men watch real things, like television. Thus we demand and will retake our sovereignty of the cathode ray tube, both now, and forevermore.

3) We resolve to stop opening doors for women. The awkwardness of jockeying for a position to where the man can open the door, and the excess of thought done in preparing for such moves both overburden a man's brain in unecessary ways (as in, non-sports thinking). We still retain the right to open the door, if we think we are entering a hostage situation.

4) We resolve to proudly belch and fart, as these are our natural and holiest of biological functions.

5) We resolve to scratch ourselves whenever we damn feel like it.

6) We resolve to dress ourselves. Women have tried to dominate the male's choice of aesthetic appearance, to which we say, no more! We dress for the optimum level of comfort, and it is sexist to tell us to do otherwise.

7) We resolve to watch action movies whenever we want, whether women are in the mood for them or not. A man's desire is not contingent upon a woman's, and our mastery of the remote (all forms of them, really) demands that we have the choice of film.

8) And finally, we resolve to abolish that insipid holiday, Valentine's Day. Valentine was a loser and shouldn't be celebrated. This female-driven holiday is another bar in the sexist cage that leads to the oppression of men, and dammit if we aren't going to break this one. If women want flowers from someone, they can ask their girl friends for help.

Good manifestos have a round ten points, but as a man myself, I resolve not to worry more about the MANifesto until further notice. My brothers would be appreciated to add more points.

Men of the world, unite!