Bag yourself a 'must have' male
Once they were happy to live with saggy jawlines, baggy eyes and a 'menopaunch'. Now they are turning to surgery. Fay Weldon on how alpha woman has reduced men to the status of mere accessories
Status symbol: women need men less and less
Time was when a woman had to please a man. He was her meal ticket for life. She competed to catch him, dieting, simpering, smiling.
Men picked and chose, hummed and hawed, and then ''committed''.
The fear for the woman was of being left on the shelf, humiliated.
No more. Now women want to be stick-like and beautiful to please themselves or impress other women - not men. Women like to have partners: they don't need to have partners. And so it is the man who has to make the effort to please.
He, too, diets, uses cosmetics, has his hair styled - and, in increasing numbers, as he gets older, like women, turns to the quick fix: cosmetic surgery.
Like it or not, ''the male menopaunch'', as this worrying trend for beating the bulging waistline with surgery has been dubbed, has become something of a phenomenon.
The number of liposuction operations for older men has risen by 140 per cent during the past five years - and the appetite continues to soar - eight times the number of men are enduring it as did three years ago.
They see no need to keep it secret either - or confine the surgery to their waistlines. In 2003, General Sir Mike Jackson, 63, had his eyes ''seen to''. Silvio Berlusconi, 70, had a face lift and a hair transplant. Actor Michael Douglas has had all sorts done.
The menopaunch syndrome, we are told, peaks in the early fifties, at about the age when women decide to divorce or split because they can afford to; it is now socially acceptable, the children have left home, and the new life, sometimes even the new career, calls.
The menopause, which once marked the end of interesting life, is now a new beginning - and men have noted it.
They age faster than women - and they do not want to age alone, so the "new" older man has the waistline and the sagging jaw attended to, not to mention getting rid of the embarrassing breasts (man boobs or moobs) and eye-bags.
The stubborn yellow fat - up to five pints at a time - is sucked out.
And soon he looks good upon her arm again, virile and attentive. The suit hangs well again, and the waist band closes, and perhaps the loved one decides to stay. Not that she needs him, of course, but at least now, like her latest designer handbag or shoes, he is a visually pleasing accessory.
If he's a single, older man about town who dates via the internet and is looking for a long-term partner, he certainly needs to look good. So do women, of course, but older women have the advantage: they need only to come over as kind and friendly, which is comparatively easy.
Men need to look strong, dependable, prosperous, determined and clean cut. Properly male, in fact. And that means a jawline that doesn't sag.
The irony is that women aren't all that keen on it. Ask around and you'll find that the idea of cosmetic surgery for men is disturbing to women. It seems like cheating - if not a touch desperate. Do we really want our men to act as our accessories?
Unlike dogs, the man who wants to please doesn't please. In the same way the man who stays at home to look after the children risks losing the sexual interest of his partner.
It is irrational but it happens. What a woman thinks she wants is not necessarily what she really wants.
Certainly we want our alpha men but we want them born that way. Perhaps that's a hard-wired Darwinian response from women, as members of a species rather than as individuals. The woman searches for the perfect man because of the genes he may contribute to her children.
Babies may be the last thing she wants rationally, but never mind. This man attracts, that man doesn't. If he has altered himself surgically, how can she know what he really is?
Or perhaps it's all the feminists' fault? The gap between men and women has narrowed so much over the decades that the sexes are intrinsically the same, and it's happening so fast that it makes us uneasy. Equal pay, equal opportunities, Health and Safety makes wimps of us all... what's the difference between the male and the female? Except, of course, that women occupy the moral high ground, live longer, look better longer, are more employable and need men less than men need women.
They can even get their babies (preferably female ones, much more promising than boys, after all) from the sperm bank if they want to. So why should men not envy and emulate women, as once women envied and emulated men?
What you envy you aspire to be. So it follows that the trend is for men to have their hair styled, wear make-up, shave their chests, show their feelings, cry in public, have liposuction and in general deny the testosterone effect as much as possible.
We are all oestrogen-based now. Society itself has become feminised.
We see it in education, the church, indeed in pretty much all our institutions. The touchy-feely wins.
We prefer consultation to confrontation. Governments feel the need to apologise. We all talk the language of sharing and caring.
Women have gone through the stage when they exhausted themselves to be Super Woman.
They've also cracked what it is to be an Alpha Mummy. Been there, done that, got the organic children and top flight career, to boot. Now she's met her own expectations she wonders, what next? And the answer comes loud and clear - let's improve the men.
It is not enough for them just to bring home the bacon - do please remember we eat only white meat and fish, mindful of cholesterol - they must look handsome and desirable and be an Alpha Husband while they do it. No more smoking, no more obesity. No more mess.
Men, get your faces lifted, your bodies trimmed and become, like us, nippy, healthy, energetic: we, the favoured ones, the women. And if lipsoction hurts a bit, too bad.
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Thursday, July 19th, 2007, 12:15
Bag yourself a 'must have' male
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