Nepali Times

Because his logic is often backward, the Ass can’t figure out why women need another festival to celebrate the fact that they are downtrodden. What’s the fuss about anyway? They are already assured 33% of all civil service jobs and ministerships. Even if they make up only 3% of the current cabinet, so what? It’s the thought that counts. 

In case you hadn’t noticed, our nascent republic has females as President, Speaker, Justice, Editor-in-Chief, and Head Bartender. Parliament has also passed legislation allowing daughters to inherit parental property, and is working on a new law requiring parents to force their daughters to marry certified dorks, thus making doubly sure that the property remains in safe hands. We have no problems with girls joining the rank and file to stand shoulder to shoulder with us, we just want them to be grateful, that’s all.

This Tij, women will fast, as they have for millennia, so that their present or future husbands have health, wealth and a ministerial berth in the new coalition. Those who, for technical reasons, do not wish their current spouses to have any of the above can of course just secretly stop by at the Mt Everest Bhojanalaya and gorge themselves on buff momos. 

Methinks Parliament may be overstepping its bounds. At this rate there will be no jobs left for men. What is it doing to help broad-minded men like us who, the last time we checked, were still allegedly holding up the other half of the sky? Ok, ok, one-third. What we in the Central Non-Working Committee of the recently formed All-Nepal Federation of Alpha-Males and Drones (Revolutionised) want to know is, how is Parliament going to guarantee that this epidemic of politically correct legislation in favour of members of the female persuasion will not leave us he-Asses high and dry and out in the wilderness?

Should we guys be getting worried? You bet. And what should we gentlemen be doing about it? Kicking butt. Yes, taking a leaf out of the book of the Great Helmsman himself, who said (and I quote), “To be offensive is the best form of defensiveness”, we men have no recourse but to follow this wise dictum and start behaving in an even more obnoxious and loathsome manner than we already do. And all of us who wear Y-front undies must launch a multipronged campaign throughout maledom, starting just about right now, to reassert our manhood and reclaim our past honour. We will protect the bastions of our maledom from female encroachment till the last man is left standing.

But, some good news at last — just when we card-carrying members of the unfair sex were feeling a trifle beleaguered, comes word that Kathmandu is getting its first male beauty parlour. At last there is a place us boys can go and get our blackheads squeezed by professionals without any danger of those things getting infected and erupting into pus-filled carbuncles and aunties.

So, let this be a warning: we are not going to sit idly by while women outscore us in SLC and take away our jobs. This Tij, we will counter-attack by sitting outside Parliament till all our demands are met. Which means we want 33% of all jobs traditionally held by women to also be reserved for men. Only through affirmative action can men also have a chance to prove themselves to be as good housewives and homemakers.