Man Down!

What a glorious weekend to kick-start the summer. The back gardenscape was a-bustle with trimmers and mowers and the sizzle of barbecues as people stopped worrying about man-made global warming and engaged in direct action; actually doing things, manual things, rather than merely talking about doing things on social media. From cock-crow to sunset, from council house to mansion, everything stopped for a well-earned wallow in the warm stuff.

Of course, that paragraph wouldn’t have garnered much credit at Northern Arizona University for its outrageously gendered rendition. Words such as manual, man-made, cock and mansion are aggressively male in character and such a patriarchal imbalance must not be tolerated. Thankfully, as we become more enlightened here in the UK more and more authorities are employing empathy and sensitivity to ensure that the 0.01% are not unduly oppressed by gender assumptions.

To this end, Harlow council have voted to undertake a gender audit of staff, with particular emphasis on titles. No longer will there be chairmen, groundsmen and dustbinmen and the post of general factotum and odd job man will henceforth become the entirely gender neutral and reparative ‘slave’. And anybody with the title ‘manager’ will in future be referred to as a facilitator thus, at a stroke, eliminating the negative connotations of both the male gender and implied authority.

The parks and gardens team are busily rebranding the decorative and highly vocal birds which grace some of their attractions as ‘peabirds’ and in the markets people will be enjoined to purchase ‘persongoes’ when in season. Unnecessarily phallic fruit and veg such as bananas, cucumbers and asparagus will only be available in neutral packaging bearing warning labels asserting the political incorrectness of using such comestibles in a provocative or suggestive manner, especially for the purposes of so-called comedy.

A decision has yet to be taken on the overt display of melons and grapefruit, but being essentially female in nature they are likely to be deemed harmless, rather than malevolent. The word malevolent, of course, means to be evil, like males, so no revision of this word is required. Similarly ‘manhandle’ already contains the essence of the notion that only men would be so brutish as to use force in, say, illegally detaining an intruder; as every sensitive person knows burglars are both brave and desperate and their needs must come first when undertaking any intervention.

The man of tomorrow

So, get with the programme, people; ban the man. Give yourself a personal gender audit and if you encounter any male-related gender indicators, physical or mental report to the Ministry of Truth for re-education and reprogramming. Get your manstruation back in synch, tone down your testosterone and get in touch with your feminine side; we will eradicate gender bias if it means castrating every last one of you knuckle-dragging cavemen.