It's A Man's World. Whatever That World May Be....

Recently I have been pondering the question, "What does it mean to be a man?". Beyond the physical body hair and big strong arms of course, has the archetypal character of the human male become tarnished over time or ruined by modern life and what exactly is a man in the 21st Century?

In Ancient Greece, men were in charge of the family and house. They would work during the day and when they returned they would lay on a couch and were fed and entertained while the women and children ate in another room. Not much has changed certain feminists would argue, and to a degree this is true. In other respects though, the role of the modern male has completely changed.

Gone are the bearded and muscled warriors of old, replaced by a new generation of perfectly groomed, manicured psuedo-males who would rather hunt for a bargain on moisturiser than a deer. Australian anthropologist Peter McAllister claims that at the end of the last century, an Aboriginal could outrun Usain Bolt and that any Neanderthal woman could best Arnold Schwarzenegger in an arm-wrestle.

So what happened us? The concept of a man been devalued and we're now the worst men in human history according to the big-brained boffins. It would be easy to take the lazy route and blame feminists, but I disagree because a strong man should be able to take any strong-opinionated woman in his stride. The truth is we've become lazy, complacent and if anything, cowardly.

In my own opinion however, nothing can adequately surmise what it is to be a man, simply because it's a constantly shifting ideal. The world has changed a lot between ancient times and the present and as a result of that the world's inhabitants have changed along with it. The modern man may have swapped his spear for a telly remote but I believe that at the core of us lies strength, integrity and kindness - traits that set us apart from the rest and traits that are timeless.

Regardless of whether you buy your clothes in Abercrombie and Fitch or the military surplus store or whether you're name's Phil or Alonso. We are men, and we will continue to be men because being a man isn't about shooting animals or skinning them alive no more than it's about sitting in front of the telly - it's about being strong and dependable, whatever the world dictates that to be.