A.M.E.N.
Mayer, Milton
A.M.E.N. by MILTON MAYER I have the honor—and I should have—of being National Chairman of the new movement known acronym-ically as A.M.E.N. (By happy happenstance the full name of the movement...
...On behalf of our aging male brothers of all countries—excepting Russia —A.M.E.N...
...Today the women of Russia (according to Brother Harry Trimborn's dispatch in The Los Angeles Times) "do the work and the men tell them how to do it...
...We brothers in A.M.E.N...
...I was born sedate and have grown sedater with the passing of what used to be the decades and is now the quarter-centuries...
...2. We demand the right to enter all doors marked Ladies, Girls' Locker Room, etc., to know what goes on behind doors marked Powder Room, to go through revolving doors at the same time as the Woman with us, and to be carried across the threshold on our wedding day...
...We brothers in A.M.E.N...
...We brothers in A.M.E.N...
...Beloved Husband and Father, R.I.P...
...It has, indeed, been thirty years since I even leered in my heart...
...is purely defensive...
...Our objective is revolution and we mean to carry it to the very limit—to the point where a Man in mixed company can get a word in edgewise...
...will be butted with no more "—buts...
...Not on your life, brothers—not in MILTON MAYER, the Roving Editor of The Progressive, is professor of English at the University of Massachusetts and professor of the humanities at Windham College in Vermont...
...Brother Trimborn was able to confirm his suspicion that the Soviet woman would be willing to trade even Article 122 of the Soviet Constitution (which guarantees her equal rights) for a little of the sexism that babushka, or grandma, enjoyed (or at least had time for...
...We demand the right to equal time and tenacity to bicker about all bickerable matters and the right to say, "You don't love me any more," when our wives decline to get up and go downstairs at 3:30 a.m...
...to see if it's a burglar...
...Four-fifths of the sixty million women in the Soviet labor force are engaged in what is officially termed physical labor, while their male coworkers operate the fork-lifts, mechanical diggers, trucks, cranes, and other muscle-sparing machinery...
...A Soviet study shows that the average woman spends at least fifty per cent of her off-working time shopping and cooking...
...We disdain to mealy-mouth it...
...We spavined heterosexual males are debased by being portrayed as phallic imperialists and sexual fantasists...
...They followed the advice in Russia and liberated themselves from sexiste domination...
...We brothers in A.M.E.N...
...Like sweeping the streets, bricklaying, loading cargo ships, collecting garbage, building dams, digging ditches, and mining coal...
...demand peace and quiet now—and we will negotiate this one demand (and no other) only to the extent of sacrificing peace...
...8. We demand protective labor legislation which will reverse the timeless male preponderance of ulcers, coronaries, and strokes, and, in consequence, to survive our wives instead of they us and to live as Merry Widowers...
...We demand the right to Equal Suffrage on the ground that it will put an end to war...
...Beauvoir says Women have to) "forego liberty and be a thing" {Ibid., p. xxi), and we will make these demands of the Armed Forces, the Internal Revenue Service, and the shop foreman first thing in the morning...
...Workingmen of all countries, unite and fight...
...The time has come...
...6. We demand the right, after "doing" (i.e., putting into the dishwasher) the breakfast dishes, to settle down to the telephone for a series of nice long chats...
...was pressed upon me by acclamation after a Woman, writing in behalf of Women's Liberation, characterized me in the local paper as "our own male chauvinist"—though I had never insulted her by thinking of her as a sex object...
...Not on your life in America any more, either, now that the brothers in A.M.E.N, have risen to emancipate themselves from the rich generosity with which they have so long been conned into smothering Amazonian sex toys with presents and tenderness...
...We Men are degraded by*the hairy, horny hunk-of-man portrayal of us in Woman's co-op tationist propaganda media...
...3 ever more incessant counselors ("Why don't you demand a raise like a man...
...We are a desperate band of badgered brothers...
...Russia, where the workingmen are emancipated...
...We disdain to disguise it...
...You have nothing to lose but your daisy-chains...
...We demand liberation now...
...We brothers in A.M.E.N...
...In order to defend ourselves we Men have taken up righteous rebellion against our subjugation by the matriarchal structure of a society at whose apex stands that poseuse of an Amazon: Helpless Woman...
...7. We demand the right, as plaintiffs for divorce on the ground of mental cruelty, to break down in the middle of our testimony in uncontrollable sobs to be led gently from the courtroom, still sobbing, and to be awarded enough alimony to save us from having to spend the rest of our days sweeping the streets, bricklaying, loading cargo ships, collecting garbage, building dams, digging ditches, and mining coal...
...The time is now...
...will not be cozened out of our Tightness by being told, "You're right, dear...
...where we demand equal membership rights) and to have the name, Camp-fire Girls, changed to "Campfire People...
...3. We demand free anti-karate lessons and the right to be seated first (along with children) in all lifeboats...
...Although she might have been on her feet eight hours a day operating a lathe, the Soviet woman must spend more time waiting in line to buy the family groceries...
...We know we're right, and we know it without the "—dear...
...Beloved Wife and Mother, R.I.P...
...Veepings said we ought to have a Mercedes"), all-day luncheon-and-bridge throwers, child-devouring mam-ists (and Gold Star Mamists) bucking for instant heartbreak, put-upon helpmeets with wall-to-wall tear ducts, put-upon housekeepers with disposal, dishwasher, and a dustcloth for a once-a-week lick-and-a-promise, constant companions ("Where were you until all hours...
...We shopworn shopkeepers of ladies-ready-to-wear shops are insulted by being characterized as repressive manipulators of clitoral cuties...
...She left him enough to support both of them...
...co-totterers halfway ("He complained of a pain in his chest") down-the-hill-t'gither-John-An-derson-me-Joe, remarrying insurance beneficiaries ("He left her enough to support them both") or divorcees ("The last I heard, he was still on Alimony Row...
...These twelve nonnegotiable demands—a baker's dozen—are only the beginning...
...9. We demand the right (which Simone de Beauvoir demands for Women) to be "an irreducible free individual" {The Second Sex, p. 583) and not to have to (as Mile...
...make the following nonnegotiable demands of the feminist brutes who gussy themselves up at our expense for the purpose of manipulating, exploiting, and repressing us: 1. We demand equal exemption with them from military service, except in the volunteer WAGS, WAAFS, etc...
...We demand the right to recount in detail how hard a day we had at the office instead of having to hear in detail how unmanageable the children were, and how uppity Mrs...
...Twenty Years Earlier...
...A.M.E.N.'s motto: What's Good for the Gander Is Good for the Goose...
...The time has come for the working-men of all countries to do what Marx and Engels advised them to do a century ago: Unite and Fight...
...McGilli-cuddy was, her and her mouse-belly mink coat, and how the manager of the supermarket has got to be bullyragged for refusing a refund on a package of Crunchies ("I thought they were Munchies and he had the gall to say, 'Why didn't you read the label?' ") which had hardly been opened...
...reject the crumbs of reform and tokenism, which offer us an evening off each week or a new set of golf clubs or a pair of carpet slippers...
...True, Soviet women predominate in medicine, teaching, and the textile industries— the three lowest-paid occupations in the USSR...
...puts forward its demands...
...Aging Male Emancipation Now calls all Men to the barricades in the immortal words of Emmeline Pankhurst: "Do not appeal, do not beg, do not grovel...
...We brothers in A.M.E.N...
...5. We demand the right to squander the Woman's take-home wages to make ourselves more attractive (or at least no less attractive) than other Men (the Man next door...
...We are through with "our sisters' " self-pity and the legend—their legend —that a man can do anything he wants with a woman as long as he feels sorry for her and a woman can do anything she wants with a man as long as she says, "You're right, dear—" before she says, "—but...
...A.M.E.N.'s slogan: All Power to the Impotent...
...disdain to conceal our objective...
...feel sorry for ourselves, and we demand that the Woman feel sorry for us before she does anything with us...
...By happy happenstance the full name of the movement provided the acronym: Aging Male Emancipation Now...
...He asked a twenty-three-year-old-garbagewoman for her conception of the ideal man, and she set the can down beside the truck and said: "I would want a rich, generous man who would smother me with presents and tenderness...
...The National Chairmanship of A.M.E.N...
...We brothers in A.M.E.N...
...A.M.E.N.'s theme song: They're Burning the Bra, We're Junking the Jock...
...4. We demand the right to bear children and be revered for doing so, or, alternatively, to be felt sorry for if we don't, and to have Father's Day celebrated as sanctimoniously as Mother's Day...
...The starting wage of a physician is two-thirds that of a skilled worker...
...We demand liberation from our exploitation by self-starting sex toys who pose progressively as sugar-and-spice-and-e v e r y t h i n g-n i c e-h a i r-i n-the-ink-well dippees, non-carriers of their own schoolbooks, baby-doll goo-goo-eye-makers, trim ankle displayers (up to the lint-studded navel), not-so-hard-to-get come-on bunnies, ear-piercing, bangle-dangling, fur-bearing, Aphrodesia-squirters, unblushing brides, bell-bottomed crones, incessant counselors ("Mrs...
...Like all Liberation Fronts, A.M.E.N...
...Take courage, join hands, stand beside us...
...The Soviet woman," Brother Trim-born adds, "must also perform the usual feminine tasks—like having babies, cooking, cleaning house, washing, ironing, and buying the groceries...
Vol. 35 • March 1971 • No. 3
