Men, Women And Cars

My punch list of things I need to do so I can start driving my MGB again is down to 4 items. Yesterday, I tackled one of them - getting my front rotors turned. They had corroded a bit as the car sat idle for years while I worked on it in a desultory fashion.

Taking the hubs off to get at the rotors was messy and typically British. It involved cotter pins in odd places, getting grease and dirt all over me and, of course, gashing my one fingers and mashing another. I loved it.

Filthy and bleeding, I took the rotors to a half-dozen different places before I found someone who would turn them. As I drove, I pondered the current Pervageddon where women are coming forward to denounce the cads and bounders who abused them years and years ago.

In all my life working on cars, I've never met a woman who enjoyed doing it. I don't think I've met more than 5 who were even modestly competent at things like changing oil and replacing a flat tire. It's not what they do.

Pervageddon, in my mind, was greatly driven by the religious cult of sexual equality. Women didn't need the protection of men and men were free to either ignore the situations or take advantage of women. There were no chevaliers to rescue the wronged damsels because we had decided to ditch biological facts of life. No, men and women were equal, interchangeable.

Meanwhile, there I was, happily covered in dirt, grease and a little bit of blood, playing with my masculine toy.

The shop that turned my rotors was worked entirely by men. There was one, lovely, delicate, mousy girl at the counter, but in the back, it was all men. While I did this, my wife was baking pies with a friend. Weird, huh?