This isn’t intended to be gratuitous dude-bashing. My Y chromosome is a pre-existing condition that fundamentally shapes me, and I’m pretty darn fond of myself. While I sometimes half-heartedly try to avoid some forms of my innate Neanderthal-ness, it seems pretty baked into my DNA. I scratch inappropriately. I groom only sporadically. I mansplain with the worst of them.
But this business about men not social distancing in the Covid-19 Era is embarrassingly stupid and/or arrogant, even for us. An Altarum survey tells the tale: Nearly one-quarter (24%) of men say they are going to public spaces “a lot” or “far more than usual,” compared to only 10% of women.
Why? Confronted about going to a public place with Covid-19 cases increasing rapidly, I can predict the reaction of many of my male friends. A smirk. A shrug of the shoulders. A devil may care twinkle of the eye. “You can’t live your life afraid of everything,” they’ll say. “If it’s my time, it’s my time.”
For those of you who don’t speak Dude-ish, allow me to translate what these guys are trying to convey to the world: “I’m a bad ass. I’m courageous.”
Obviously, in this context, this is complete and utter bullshit. Yes, courage sometimes means going into dangerous situations, and public gatherings in the middle of a pandemic are dangerous. But let’s be real, fellas. You’re going to the dangerous situations to get yourself a beer, laugh, a corporate brownie point, or a thrill, not to rescue someone.
Going into these dangerous situations for those reasons isn’t rushing into the smoke. It’s more like what suicide bombers do to themselves and innocents.
As has been widely reported, Covid-19 is often carried by people who are asymptomatic or lightly symptomatic, so none of us knows who has the lethal germ-bomb duct-taped to our chest. Walking into public gatherings armed with that knowledge isn’t remotely courageous. It’s either ignorant or deplorably self-centered.
So fellow dudes, you won’t catch me scolding you for your utterly defensible scratching decisions. But could we get just this life-and-death decision right?
You need to edit your second paragraph, because the graph shows that 25 % of men are NOT avoiding going out in public…..
Sorry. I am confused ther.e. must be that y chromosome acting up…..or maybe the fever I got after playing pick up ball with the guys the other day…..
Ha! In the first 5-10 minutes after publication I did have that very statistic stated incorrectly. So if you were an eager beaver, or read an emailed notification of the new article being available, you did read a version where I had that stat stated incorrectly.
Whew!
Nice to know that my 101 fever hasn’t completely addled my brain (yet)…..
I grew up in a rural area where, when we were outside at play, boys made it clear that being concerned for one’s personal safety was sissified. That idea was so ingrained in the culture that it became, I think, an unconscious assumption for adult males.
Women were charged with keeping others safe, which of course caused friction between the women trying to create safety and the men brushing them aside as meddling worrywarts. Now the state has stepped into the woman’s role.
Women, and the state, realize (as you point out) that a lot of risky behavior impacts others, particularly in the case of covid 19. And at risk are not just the people men might expose to the virus unknowingly, but also the health care workers who will reap the whirlwind of excess cases raised by those devil-may-care men.
We are in a sort of war in which avoiding risk and staying safe makes one a good warrior. Maybe it will take men some time to wrap their minds around that.
You nailed it, Ruth. Really well stated. I grew up in South Dakota, so am very familiar with that vibe.
While men try to adjust to this Covid Era definition of courage, you have people like my friend the nurse. Her unit in the hospital wasn’t busy, so she, with no drama or fanfare, is getting herself a crash training course so she can be a reinforcement in her hospitals ER. That’s a wee little more courageous than what my guy friends are doing.
Just visited a friend — 6 feet removed — who’s undergoing daily chemo. He won’t wear a mask when he goes to the clinic and says the docs who treat him aren’t wearing masks. I think it’s a bit macho — plus he’s a Yankee fan. But we called another friend who’s recently done chemo to see if we could stand in their driveway six feet apart to say hello and he and his wife politely said no, they’re not seeing anyone in person. So it’s a mixed bag. Me, a friend sewed masks for Lisa and me but it messes up my “do” so I ain’t wearing it.
Do NOT mess with the “do!”
The mask in public thing is an interesting issue. I’ve heard public health folks conflicted on that issue, with some saying that promoting that would give people a false sense of security that would erode the effectiveness of distancing, and that distancing is much more effective than masks. Interesting public policy call on that issue. Plus, my hair, man!