My Man Card

As a former fraternity member, I'll be the first to admit that fraternities have contributed so much to society. The beer shower, Animal House, the popped collar...would these things even exist if it wasn't for the college fraternity? Despite all of these contributions there is one fraternal outcome that has made society a little worse. It's the term 'Man Card.' 

To be honest, I don't know if the birth of the term Man Card actually came from one of my frat-tastic brothers or not. All I know is that the first time I heard it I was in college. I think I've hated the term ever since. For those unfamiliar, Urban Dictionary gives us the following definition:

Man Card: Requirement to be accepted as a respectable member of the male community. Can and should be revoked by other respectable males for doing non-respectable-male things.

So if you're going to use it in a sentence, it would be something like: "Bro, I can't believe you watch Oprah. That's so not cool bro, I'm gonna take your man card, bro." It doesn't always have to be bracketed by multiple 'bros' but it usually is. 

I've got a few problems with the term. First, it makes you sound like a damn meathead. Honestly, there is no way to use the term without sounding like a complete idiot. One of the Fox football announcers used it today and it really annoyed me. I can't remember which one. They've got like six guys on the pregame show. The first time that I thought about writing on this topic was a couple months ago. I think it was a night when I was eating sushi, drinking wine, and watching Sex and the City, the movie. Oh, and that was after a little shopping trip to Ulta Cosmetics. I just felt like someone from a neighboring college was going to come over with a paddle and his greek letters on and say something about needing my man card. And then calling me his bro. The thought almost ruined the second half of the movie for me.

Editor's Tangent: Why the hell did Carrie end up with Big? Seriously...Aiden was 10x the boyfriend that Big was. This never made any sense to me. Carrie always seemed like the rational one, but I really disagree with this decision.

Editor's Tangent #2: I wonder if Samantha (Kim Cattrall) gets a smaller percentage of the residuals from the TBS episodes than she did on HBO. Honestly, she's barely in the TBS version. Most likely because all of her scenes involved her doing things that are not suitable for TBS. It doesn't even make sense on TBS. Here's a typical scene from a typical SATC marathon that I typically watch: [Carrie voiceover] "MEANWHILE...Samantha was going downtown while I was shoe shopping uptown." And then they just cut to Carrie's shoe shopping, with no other mention of Samantha. We all know what we'd see if this was on HBO. Ugh.

Aaaaannnd we're back. So back to the whole overuse of Man Card thing. It doesn't make any sense that a guy would lose guy points for doing things that are typically reserved for women. Think of this idea in reverse. If a girl happened to like football and beer and books about war, would she somehow lose her woman card? I think not. I hope I didn't just give some sorority somewhere an idea.

 It would make more sense if a man who did things like watching Oprah, Ellen, or Real Housewives; or tried Pilates a couple of times; or occasionally reads Cosmo would instead have some kind of punch card for these female-leaning activities. Each time a guy did one of these types of things, they would get another hole punched on their card. Once the cards is full of holes (shaped like Austin Powers' necklace medallion), perhaps he could send it in for some kind of woman card. He wouldn't have to turn in his man card (because in my little world, that term is never used again) but would instead have some kind of dual citizenship. You could put it on your resume, sort of like fluency in a foreign language. Oh, and it would also give you free entrance into the studio audience for a taping of Ellen. She gives away the best prizes to her studio audience. And it's like an every episode thing with her...not just once a year like with Oprah.

So that's all I've got for now. Even if my punch card/dual citizenship idea doesn't get off the ground, just do me a favor and never use the term Man Card. Oh, and if you happen to know how I can get tickets to Ellen, let me know, Bro.