I was at an academic meeting awhile back when the speaker referred to some behavior that was dysfunctional and illogical. The speaker stopped and then added that, of course, this describes mostly men. The quip got a don't-we-all-know-it's-true chuckle from the audience.

If the speaker had said the exact same thing, but substituted women for men, his comments would have been met by stunned silence.

Men are the stupid but lovable lugs in sitcoms. They are the pretty boys with overwhelming neurotic tendencies in serious media. If they are majority males, they are dangerous, brutal monsters, sexual predators and child molesters. They run "big" businesses, start wars and oppress women and minorities. If not monsters, they are bumpkins from the sticks who don't like the U.N., NPR radio (on which men must talk with whiney superior voices) and who still want to carry a gun.

The feminists once warned us of the dangers of a masculine society.

Still living within a time stasis, they are still shouting out the same warning at every turn, but what about the dangers of living in a thoroughly feminized society?

Seventeen percent more white women than men now go to college. The figure for Latinos is 35 percent, and for blacks it is 50 percent.

Women have the highest grades; they go to graduate school more often.

College men are six times more likely than women to spend their time in college playing games in front of a computer screen. If I have a student in class who is doing nothing and going nowhere, the probability is very high that it is a male student.

We are in danger of losing an entire generation of males. Recently, one pundit stated that we have already done so.

I have met young men whose life ambition was to find a woman that works full time and to qualify for work disability from the Nanny State.

If a woman will give him free sex without responsibility, and pay for the roof over his head (when he happens to be there), then in a totally feminized society, what better can he hope for?

So let's look at the consequences.

John McCain, who should be acting like a seasoned warrior, is performing the part of an empty-headed, politically correct coed. His handlers are scared to death that he will actually behave like an adult male for a few seconds, whereby allowing the media and the Democratic candidates to attack him without mercy.

Would real men allow their children's schools to turn into baby-sitting stations and indoctrination centers whose directors seem unconcerned that their graduating students know nothing except how to celebrate diversity and how to parrot slogans about global warming?

One of the reasons that American education is a mess is that men aren't allowed within a thousands yards of any of their overpriced Taj Mahal baby-sitting stations. Evidently, we don't want our children exposed to men unless they are the jokes seen on TV sitcoms, or the pretty boys that pass as actors and game show hosts.

Would real men allow pubescent monsters to slaughter their children in schools? And if it did happen, would they then spend months agonizing about whether it would be too dangerous to actually create a deterrent?

Would real men adopt minorities as children, allowing them separate standards of acceptable behavior while supporting the women and children as if they were slaves and peasants? And meanwhile putting away their now unnecessary men in prisons already overcrowded by the results of other "caring" policies?

Would real men allow their government to turn into a totally feminized nanny state that cares so much about them that it has to run massive deficits, transferring money from one group to another, because it "cares," while driving the economy and the value of the dollar into the crapper?

Can you imagine Iowa farmers in 1870 voting for a local official because he "cares?" They would have asked some typical adult male questions.

"What does caring have to do with anything?" "Does the candidate know anything?" Can the candidate actually do anything?"

The current image of a man is a perversion, and it is a dangerous perversion. A feminized society is just as sick as an overly masculine society, and as the feminists are so prone to point out, the ultimate victims are those without the most resources. Ironically, it is minorities, women, and children who are the biggest losers.