Ai os homens!...

No mês passado, declarações do chefe cozinheiro Gordon Ramsey criaram a maior polémica no Reino Unido. Este senhor afirmou que o seu país natal criou (uma geração de) mulheres que sabem fazer coktails, mas que são incapazes de cozinhar seja o que for.

No decurso da polémica, saiu no "The Independent" um artigo denominado "Why men are crap" com uma compilação de reacções àquelas declarações e a outras, de outros senhores igualmente "simpáticos".

Passo aqui a citar algumas dessas reacções, que achei verdadeiramente perspicazes e engraçadas . O meu objectivo não é lançar a discussão sobre o assunto, mas sim proporcionar-vos o prazer de talvez reconhecer nestas palavras o homem que há em vós (para os homens) e/ou o que há nos homens que conhecem (para ambos os sexos). Dou de barato desde já que há excepções e peço desculpas antecipadas por manter os comentários em inglês, mas se me pussesse a traduzir nunca mais saía daqui.

Emma Richards disse: "What are men crap at? Most things! But maybe that's not specific enough. So how about not being able to remember anything, not being good at attention to detail, and having an apparently genetic inability to do two things at once. Not that I'd want to fall into the trap of making sweeping generalisations, which on recent evidence seems to have been the case with a few other people. Speaking of which, some men are pretty good at talking about themselves, or in a derogatory way about other people, to generate publicity for themselves. Does that count as a strength?"
Jo Brand disse "In my experience, the main things that men are really terrible at doing are small domestic things. Things like wiping down a surface properly. I don't know what it is. Maybe they can't squeeze a cloth dry or something. But there's always a crusty ring of crumbs on the side of the surface when they've finished, which means you then have to do it all again.
And I think I know the reason why men can't multi-task, too. Multi-tasking for women means doing lots of things at the same time, all rather shoddily. So if you're trying to get the kids to school and write something and do the Hoovering all at the same time, the Hoovering will always be a slightly cursory job. You'll Hoover the areas that everyone's going to see, and that will be that.
I don't know a single woman who's ever used all those add-on jobs that you put on the end of the Hoover. But if you ask a man to Hoover, it will take him two days. He'll go into every area, he'll put all the furniture out in the garden. He will, in other words, do it properly. But it doesn't give much scope for doing everything else at the same time."

Baroness Julia Neuberger disse: "I love men, and on the whole they are good at things I'm bad at, like map-reading. But they tend to be bad at remembering to do things - their wakeful nights are not filled, as mine are, with lists in my head, or even worse, waking up and making a list. That need to make lists and then do everything on them seems to be a female trait. Perhaps men think the world will continue - or at least there will be meals at home - whether they make lists or not.
The last thing men are really bad at is shopping. The fact that they have been told that there is a really good shop nearby where you can get what is needed seems not to sink in. They still come back saying they were unable to buy the strainer, funnel and pie dish that you desperately needed, and think they have done very well by trying and struggling through the crowded streets. In my book, trying at shopping is not good enough. You also need to succeed. "

Sarah Beeny disse: "The difficulty is finding something men are good at! Cooking, maybe, but at least when women cook, the kitchen looks something like it did when it started. When men cook they use every saucepan and dish and make the place look like a bomb has gone off. It takes months to clear up and they require months of praise just for cooking.
Also, men aren't able to go to the shops. You can have no loo paper, no milk and no teabags in the house, but if a man goes out for a newspaper, that's what he's going to buy. He'll then go back to the shops if he needs milk and teabags and he won't go out for loo paper until he needs the loo. They just can't compute large amounts of material at the same time. And the last thing men are really bad at is keeping their one black sock out of a white wash. "

Finalmente, Rebecca Loo (desta só consegui encontrar hot sites; acho que era a baby-sitter dos Beckham) disse: "I love cooking, it's one of my favourite pastimes, but I don't make a big deal about it. On the rare occasions that men do cook, they make such a massive deal about it, like they deserve a medal or something. And they make a real mess in the kitchen, too.
Another thing that really annoys me is that men are completely blind! You'll be having your dinner and he gets up to get something and you're, like, " Can you bring the salt, babe," and you know it's right there on the side in front of the kettle but he just can't see it so you have to get up anyway. They can't see things that are right in front of their faces. Men are also crap because they don't realise that women are just totally romantic and all they'd have to do to get exactly what they wanted would be to treat us like princesses the whole time. But then, what would we have to talk about?"