For reasons that are beyond my comprehension, my television was on this morning during the fake news in front of Rockefeller Center for girlie girls and girlie boys portion of the programming day. Mind you, I only left the television on for about ten minutes, and caught just two segments.

The second segment, which caused me to turn the television off was some nonsense about pirate accessories being very popular with the ladies this season. Skull and crossbones belt buckles, skull and crossbone rhinestone encrusted bandanas, skull and crossbone decaled sunglasses... you get the picture. Something about some movie about pirates is causing this. Lame and trivial, but otherwise completely inoffensive. If I actually see a woman on the street wearing pirate accessories, I’ll be laughing on the inside and once again thanking the gods for making me a boy.

But it was the first segment that really made my jaw drop and experience a very brief, but passionate and justified moment of misogyny. It was devoted to help women cope with the problem of their husbands loving their children more than their wives. Apparently, according to the segment, it is quite natural for mothers to resent their children for receiving more attention from their mates than themselves. And the solution that was offered by the beautifully accessorized (sans pirate stuff) expert, the sort of expert whose knowledge is generally tapped for these sort of segments, was for wives to demand more attention from their husbands. To his credit, even the smiling former fat man seemed baffled.

So let me get this straight. If a husband and father is doing what he is supposed to do, and giving his children the attention necessary to mold them into happy, well adjusted adults, he should be prepared to have his partner nag him for failing to shower her with the attention she needs to feel loved and appreciated? So if a man is doing the right thing, it is to be assumed that he will be criticized for doing the wrong thing?

Of course, I’m not saying that all women suck. I’m sure countless women find this to be as ridiculous as I do; but a large enough percentage of women seem to agree with this line of reasoning to keep the Today Show number one in the ratings. I don’t blame Katie Couric one bit for bailing from that show and throwing her hat in the real news game. After listening to that sort of crap for fifteen or so years, she must find women (and womanly men) as annoying as I do. It’s a damn good thing I’m pathologically incapable of being part of a committed relationship. I don’t think I could handle always being wrong and insensitive, no matter how right and sensitive my actions were.