What Do We Need Men For? A Modest Proposal

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“The whole female sex seems to agree that men are becoming a nuisance with their lying, cheating, robbing, perjuring, assaulting, murdering, voting debauchers onto the Supreme Court, threatening one another with intercontinental ballistic nuclear warheads, and so on.” – E. J. Carroll

E. Jean Carroll

This quote pretty much sums up the theme of the book, plus amplifies a large part of the rotten core of human history – unevolved men. I might quarrel with the words “are becoming” and replace them with “always have been.” Men, less than fifty percent of the world population, are way more than fifty percent of problem, that’s a given, but it is refreshing to have Carroll’s hilarious, dead serious take on it.

If you’re a proud woman and a staunch feminist – or a self-confident man – and want a fun romp through the female side of the looking glass, then E. J. Carroll is like the Red Queen, sharing some weird and wacky life-experiences on a road trip through the underbelly of America with her cat, Vagina T. Fireball and dog Lewis Carroll. All to prove her hypothesis: That women don’t need men.

The writing has a breezy, fresh honesty to it and she’s convincing, even if her sampling of men follows a rather narrow and twisted path through the heart lands, bad lands, swamp lands and rich lands of America – from Indiana, Ohio, Missouri, Arkansas and Louisiana to New York (the one depicted in the Steinberg poster’s perspective from the insular-minded island of Manhattan).

E. Jean has written a book that every woman should read in trying to answer the eternal question: “Why do we let hideous men get close to us?”

She was an advice columnist with Elle, with eight million followers, and had a TV-talk show, Ask E. Jean, which has provided her a window, a big window, onto women’s endless problems with men. This book reflects a principle taken from Simone de Beauvoir’s seventy-year-old book, The Second Sex (see book review) that “women’s problems are men.” Nothing has changed.

“’Smart enough to choose an out-of-the-way hotel,” and he steps into the elevator behind me and, his pants bursting with demands, presses the door closed and goes at me like an octopus.” – EJ [referring to Les Moonves, Ex-Chairman, CEO and EVP of Groping at CBS Broadcasting]

Les Moonves

Donald Trump

Despite a bunch of make-ya-wanna-throw-up anecdotes about ugly gropers like Moonves, and alleged rapists like Donald Trump, E. Jean’s story makes you laugh more than throw-up. But what does make you sick is when you realize she is onto something, and that men really are a contagion, a toxic mix of evolutionary genes that has created a male species that is an insecure, predatory, ignorant, dumb-fighting vertebrate of the Mammalia class. And we’re stuck with them – us (I’m male).

After several thousand years, men still lack much ability for introspection – still charging off to compete, prey and conquer – and because they think they’re winning, they never see themselves in the mirror. Fortunately, E. Jean has provided a shiny mirror that displays the fundamental, genetic blueprint of men through the characters she has run into. Unfortunately, you can bring the man to the mirror but you can’t make him see

One of the blind spots is with women themselves – some of them, not all. There are too many women, like Miss Anita from Elnora, Indiana, one of E. Jean’s interviewees. Miss Anita is convinced: “Men’s gonna rule over women. That’s the way it’s supposed to be.” This is her mindset despite living smack-dab in the middle of the MeToo movement and well into the 21st century of human progress. Some progress.

E. Jean provides lots of bobble-head examples for readers to compare the men in their life with, and if your man doesn’t measure up against her cast of characters, which includes Donald Trump, then to survive you might have to adopt Miss Anita’s philosophy, “… it’s supposed to be.”

E. Jean’s list of “The Most Hideous Men of My Life” is both dark and illuminating and her question, “What do we need men for?” will not only resonate with most women, but beg a larger question: Why are we still asking this question after two-hundred-thousand-years of evolution? 

“Donald Trump assaulted me in a Bergdorf Goodman dressing room 23 years ago. But he’s not alone on the list of awful men in my life.” – E. Jean Carroll

Trump makes her most hideous list, no surprise. He makes most women’s list.

“Not my type” is Trump’s pathetic, narcissistic, self-defence against women’s rejection of him, even when being associated with him isn’t a resounding endorsement of a woman’s taste. So when you hear E. Jean tell the story of her encounter in Bergdorf’s, you wonder what the hell she was thinking. Or doing? And her explanation, although sounding a little convoluted, certainly rings true for women who have experienced being caught – trapped – in similar ‘situation.’ Not to suggest the horrific act of rape is a ‘situation.’ Of course knowing what we know of Trump today, we might wonder how she could let this ugly carnival barker get anywhere near her. But back then, Trump had erected a faux spinning, shiny promotion platform – unless you were in New York real estate, which I was, then you knew what a bumbling buffoon he was – that dazzled more than a few non-discerning women. E. Jean does mention how Trump was a sparkly man-about-town at the time.

E. Jean’s alleged rape reveals a lot more than an ugly man with his pants down in a women’s change room, it epitomizes the non-evolution of men’s genetic, predilection to use power to rape and pillage. Like the Praetorian Guard in Ancient Roman and the marauding Hutu gangs in Rwanda, men with power – “hideous men” – think rape of a woman is an evolutionary “right.” As a further hideous-qualifying marker, Trump is a pillager of real estate, gambling casinos, banks (same thing) and, now, the country.

E. Jean has an organized crime boss at #12 on her list and calls him the “Neck.” He showered her in money and gifts, and when I was reading the story, if he hadn’t have been from Chicago, I would’ve guessed it was Donald Trump – except the Costra Nostra guy was much more of a gentleman.

Indiana University

Cheering on women’s attack on hideous men

E. Jean’s list of Trump-hideous men, ranges from her cheerleader days at Indiana University to the fox’s den, FOX NEWS, where the nastiest fox (most say ‘pig) of all, Roger Ailes, preyed on women. Surprise, she liked him. “Egads! How I adored that man!” Her writing of him has a sense of authentic, employee gratitude. “Roger was the most buoyant, turbulent, warlike optimist I’d ever met! I am talking of love for a friend here, not romantic love.”

She doesn’t reveal much about their personal relationship with Ailes, except to say she was perhaps “picking up some dark undercurrent in Roger” but that she would “harass” him “as high jinks, as frolics … and was inflicting upon him what he would later inflict upon women at Fox.” She then gives him his just dues. “The fact is this: no one, not even Donald Trump, has done more to smash America to pieces.” She doesn’t say enough to excoriate him for his sexual predation, but I am sure she would handcuff him to Trump and march them off together to Montana as part of her ‘final solution,’ male containment.

“One solution to the problem of men, Ladies? Pass a law: Only women can own guns.” – E. J. Carroll

Male Containment

E. Jean’s “modest proposal” is hilariously serious and theoretically the idea of isolating hideous men is worthy of consideration (Jeffery Epstein in prison for life and Donald Trump “locked up” after leaving office would be a good start). She offers a couple of solutions in a denouement that ranges from “vote all the chumps out of office, vote the women into office, and completely takeover” to “round up all the men and put them in Montana,” which she names the Male Containment State.

“Using my training methods, will turn these chumps, half-wits, scoundrels, jerks, degenerates, jackoffs, dingbats, and creeps into strong, faithful, affable, dependable, trustworthy, kind, intelligent, funny, honest, upright fellows who will quit starting wars and leave all toilet seats down.” – E. J. Carroll

It’s hard to argue with voting the chumps out and putting many more women in office because evidence abounds that across the centuries the men have fucked it up, and to this day continue on their merry-fucking hideous way, with no better end insight.

Well done E.J!

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