The conversation was cast in situational ethics. It began as a high-minded intellectual exchange that distilled to the inevitable conflict between the rights of a woman to control her body and the rights of an unborn fetus to continue its gestation toward independent life.  Then, toward the end of the session, someone interjected a casual remark about the rights (or lack of them) of the father of an unborn fetus. Everything changed.

       The comments divided almost exclusively down gender lines among the high school students. While the boys struggled with the two sides of the argument, the girls universally rolled their eyes with disdain over the notion of a father having anything to say about whether a woman carrying his child has the right to abort the pregnancy.  The comments I heard were, “Oh, men don’t understand,” “Men don’t usually care” and “Men just get you pregnant and then leave you, anyway.” The atmosphere in the room changed from one of controlled academic discourse to that of an emotionally charged, gender-based disagreement.

       I was distressed about the obvious low opinion in which the girls in that classroom, all of them headed for college the following year, held of the honor, intelligence and integrity of their fellow male students. Are these girls the vanguard of a new generation of adult women who believe all males are dishonorable, irresponsible, unfeeling boors?

       Recent popular culture has generally portrayed adult men as ignorant, inept incompetent buffoons who are saved only by the presence and intervention of their wives and girlfriends. Ralph Cramden, Fred Flintstone, Archie Bunker, Al Bundy and Homer Simpson would never survive life’s daily travails without Alice, Wilma, Edith, Peg and Marge perpetually rescuing them from their never-ending mindless ineptitude.

       In contrast, women are portrayed as wise, responsible, calm and capable, fending off the disasters occasioned by their spouse's continuous bumbling of even the simplest tasks.  More important, the popular culture woman is usually portrayed as morally superior to her male counterpart. It took all of Edith, Michael and Gloria’s tolerance, temperance and patience to hold off Archie Bunker’s outrageous racism and prejudices. Ralph Cramden and his cartoon persona, Fred Flintstone, both had notoriously short fuses that constantly had to be doused by Alice’s and Wilma's soothing words and wisdom. And on it goes.

       The pendulum of social movement often swings from one extreme to the other, from the societal condition needing to be remedied to creating an equally difficult counter-veiling problem. We live in the post-feminist era in which so much has been done to end unequal treatment for women in our society. But, I respectfully suggest, a byproduct of this social progress in favor of women has been at the expense of the social status and dignity of men. No self-respecting, legitimate feminist seeks to suppress men; she seeks to achieve women's equality by raising their status to one of parity with men, not by shoving the rights and dignity of men below their own. Only the man-hating extremists admit the latter agenda.

       There is a movement afoot to bring this most fundamental issue of millennial America to the public's attention. A new book (Stiffed by Susan Faludi) has just been published on the subject. But there is a long way to go.  No social agenda, legislation or education can rearrange the DNA in the human body to make men and women alike in all respects. There will always be a different perception of the nature of the world between the genders. One is not more correct or moral than the other — they are just different.

   So, to the girls in the high school class, I say: Don’t judge all of us men so harshly. There are good, kind and responsible men amongst you. For every Archie Bunker, there is an Atticus Finch. We are just a bit different, but we both need each other to keep things going.