William and Kate this, Royal Wedding that. Kate Middleton had a Dirty Dancing themed stagette, while Prince William’s bachelor party is rumoured to have had a water theme: speed boats and wakeboarding and a boat-borne pub crawl.

Sounds like fun. But while I doubt Will spent a lot of time worrying what Kate was up to at her hen party, I wonder if Will’s stag gave Kate a royal freak out?

Mention the words “bachelor party” to many a bride-to-be and her body stiffens, her heart quickens, and within seconds she’s laying down the rules and regulations for her guy’s night of fun. I recall seeing an article a few years ago with the no-nonsense thesis: “Don’t let your man’s bachelor party destroy your wedding.” As if we’re our fiancés babysitters.

We women drag (yes, drag) our men to wedding fairs and cake tastings, torture them with endless questions about linens and centerpieces and party favours (questions to which there is likely no correct answer), then shoot down their suggestions and get mad at them when, later, they are less than eager to share their opinions. But let the men find something they can get actually excited about planning — the bachelor party — and watch out.

A co-worker of mine told me about his brother’s bachelor party, held in Los Angeles. “All the women were spazzing because we were leaving the country, like we were trying to hide something. We rented a couple of over-priced hotel rooms, went golfing, toured L.A., drank some beer and went to bed.” Most of the men, he said, received at least two phone calls from their partners per day while they were away. “We had to explain what we were doing, what we were going to do next, and what we thought we would be doing in a few hours. They made it difficult to have fun.”

You could say it’s part of the wedding tradition, the bride losing her shit over her man’s desire to go out and party it up with his guy friends. But it shouldn’t be. More likely than not, he devotes most of his Friday nights to spending time with you and has watched enough chick flicks and taken you out for dinner enough times that he’s earned a night or weekend of guy time. And given that you’re getting married, he’s already committed to spending the rest of his life with you, so really, give the guy a break.

The Bridezilla in you doesn’t take too kindly to his ideas regarding the wedding (which is half his, by the way. And the cotton candy machine he wanted and you vetoed could have been fun). So leave him alone and let him have a party. This isn’t The Hangover. The guys won’t be taking roofies, stealing tigers, or marrying strippers. Obviously, I can’t know this for sure, but I’m reasonably certain that bachelor parties aren’t as reckless and destructive as Hollywood makes them out to be. They certainly aren’t worth getting our panties in a bunch over when there are plenty of other things to stress about.

You know, like seating charts and save-the-date cards.

This morning, as I completed picking up after my Boston Terrier in the back yard, I looked down at my plastic-wrapped hand and thought, “Why am I doing this?” I only had to remember the conversation — more like protest — with my wife the last time pooper-scooping came up to know the answer: “Because that’s the guy’s job.”

Oh really. The guy’s job, huh? I started thinking about guys’ jobs and realized that, while I always clean up after our dog and always deal with garbage/recycling days and dump runs and fixing everything around the house, I also do a few, dare I say, girl jobs.

I take care of all the cooking and grocery shopping and I manage the finances. Typically these types of tasks have been looked after by the wives of the world. Still, I find myself clipping coupons for diapers and just about everything else when I make my weekly trip to the local grocer.

Come to think of it, I also do my fair share of laundry, vacuuming, dusting, and clutter-busting. But there is one area my wife has me hands down — our baby son, Andy. She definitely does the lion’s share with him. Not to say I’m a dead-beat dad or anything. I’m not like a few of my guy friends who happily boast they can count on one hand how many diapers they’ve changed. I changed more diapers than that on the first day in the hospital, mainly because my wife was recovering from a C-section. But it still counts, right?

I’m almost more woman than man. I work as a teller at a financial institution. I’m almost the only guy working in the branch save for a couple of managers. My supervisor even jokes, on those odd days when I’m a bit crabbier than usual, that I need to take Mydol. I’m also included in “Good night, ladies!” whenever she takes off for the day.

So I guess the next time my wife assigns me dog doo duty because “it’s the guy’s job,” I can take some pride in it. It’s good, honest, manly work. Might even put some hair on my chest.

I was driving with my friend the other day to get his tuxedo fitted for his wedding. Naturally, we were talking about all his old girlfriends.

He told me he’d done some online dating. A couple years ago he made a profile on plentyoffish.com to see what he could snag, which surprised me a bit, perhaps because I’m old-fashioned and still not convinced that online dating is valid. For his part, he is a charismatic, intelligent, and attractive guy, an extrovert, and a whiz on the dance floor.

Out of 11 dates, not one of the prospective romances worked out for more than a few weeks. I asked him to list each girl he’d met, and what went wrong.

I learned a useful lesson.

One of the lovelies had a trailer full of crushed cigarette packs and moldy cats. She wore a Slayer T-shirt, and actually horked while they were talking.

The next girl presented herself online as an intellectual. She turned out to be morose. Forget morose, she was monosyllabic. She glowered at him and answered every question like it hurt to lower herself to the level of his banal conversation. Later she wrote him a verbose e-mail, dated 15 minutes after he dropped her off, saying that she’d had an interesting, somewhat enjoyable time, and would agree to more dates, perchance.

He decided to up the “cheerful” ante on his profile. His next date could not stop talking in a sing-song voice that approached the end of each sentence like a mountain-climber, reaching a shrill, questioning, almost pleading summit. “I’m, like, so interested in going back to school, because I love kids, but I was thinking I’d like to maybe do business or something?” as the glass in his hand shattered.

The next date smiled and laughed so much he figured she was insane.

I won’t bother going through the entire list. Just think of that scene in American Psycho, when Patrick Bateman is sitting in a restaurant with his fiancée. She’s prattling on about their imagined wedding, and he’s completely ignoring her, drawing a woman being mutilated by a chainsaw on the tablecloth with crayons. That sums up the romantic connection on the majority of the dates.

However, just when he was giving up hope for online dating, he found himself completely enamored with one of the girls who asked to meet him. “She had so many of the same characteristics that I’ve since found in Jen [his fiancée]. Obviously I was completely interested. But it was strange; every girl I didn’t feel any connection to really wanted to see me again. This girl, on the other hand, didn’t seem to want anything to do with me.”

Still, he was excited about finally meeting someone he was interested in. She read books, didn’t complain about her job; she didn’t spend the first date listing the shortcomings of all her ex-boyfriends. She was funny and insightful. He was enthralled.

When he e-mailed to ask if they could meet up again, she was pretty busy. He wrote back, telling her that he’d see her whenever she had time. Her reply came a week later, and they set a date for a Saturday, three p.m., at a coffee shop. When quarter to four came around and she still hadn’t shown up, he checked his phone for the 10th time, and grabbed his car keys.

He e-mailed to ask if he’d mixed up the dates, or if something had happened to her. Her excuse was a very short e-mail about having to work. No apology.

He wrote back, telling her to get a hold of him if she ever felt like hanging out, but he knew she wouldn’t. For some reason, coming across as actually interested, instead of being aloof and noncommittal, had failed. To make things worse, he felt like a creep whenever he wrote her another e-mail.

Here’s the lesson part. A while back, I came out of a busy pizza joint on a Friday night with my girlfriend. She and I had been seeing each other for a couple months, and I really liked her.

She asked if I noticed that women kept glancing at me; apparently, even a guy looked over. I hadn’t, but it got me to thinking. To the women in the pizza place, I suppose I appeared confident and uninterested, sitting there with my girlfriend, which created intrigue, maybe a challenge. Whereas when I’m in public and I don’t have a girlfriend, I feel like a lecher every time I make eye contact with an attractive woman. Even if I’m not necessarily looking.

So, fellas, if you’re single, it’s imaginary friend time. Pretend you’ve got an invisible girlfriend, and she makes you the happiest man alive. Then watch the competition line up.

Just don’t talk to her in public.

I’m doing some research right now which includes a lot of pictures from the 1870s and 1880s. Times were tough in old Canada back then; you had to be pretty rugged if you weren’t some city slicker from Ottawa. She’s an unforgiving country, though fair if you’re willing to work for her favour.

Studying these pictures, I notice a definite trend among the men: thick, black moustaches, lustrous and glistening in the winter sun — a symbol, if you will, of integrity and strength. These men had earned their stripes; they had hacked and burned and hammered their futures out of an unrelenting environment. And they wore the result across their top lip.

My father has sported a moustache for as long as I can remember. The only picture I’ve seen of him without one is a black-and-white in which he’s goofing off with some army buddies. He is 16. Once, when my brothers and I were very young, he decided to shave it off. My mother says we screamed in terror, and then cried every time he was in the room, until it started growing back.

So the moustache is, for me, an emblem of male authority. But not for me only. A couple of years ago, I grew a moustache for the benefit of a Hallowe’en costume. I was working construction at the time, and we were building a concrete highrise in downtown Vancouver, so a lot of time was spent running hoses and craning buckets of cement from street-side. My job was to land the buckets behind the cement trucks that were pulled up on the street. Ordinarily, when someone comes to a jobsite with a delivery or any administrative duties, that person heads to the office, regardless of who’s milling about on the sidewalk. However, as I had this moustache, time and again delivery guys, truck drivers, and even developers and architects would approach me as soon as they jumped out of their trucks. It was bizarre; the moustache was their automatic totem of leadership. You could almost see them thinking, “Ah, that must be the superintendent.”

Such power is not wielded easily. It’s like going into Tim Horton’s with a broadsword on your back. People fear you. It’s no accident that we associate moustaches with the police. I’ve got a book titled Mountie: 1873-1973 A Golden Treasury of Those Early Years. It’s a photographic record of . . . well, the title’s pretty informative. Anyway, the book is crawling with hard looks and black moustaches. If there’s a cop or even a citizen without a moustache in any of the pictures, he looks really young, and scared. A moustache, on the other hand, seems to cause the eyes to toughen. They squint. They gaze through you, past you. Onward to the horizon. Oh, he’ll give you directions, the mountie will, maybe even help you find a hotel for the night or a stable for your horse. But his concerns are larger than you, and you recognize this with one glance at his lip-decor.

I look around me today and I see this thing which I call the half-beard. It’s like a beard, but it’s not. In between the smooth cheeks and pink neck is this shadow region of very short, very styled hair. The half-beard is beyond stubble (don’t even get me started on the half-stubble-beard), but skin is still visible beneath: it’s anywhere from two millimetres to one or two centimetres long. There are no stray hairs top or bottom. It looks careful and time-consuming. It looks like a Lego beard.

I suppose it’s meant to portray both an inward ruggedness and an outward sense of social propriety. You, there, with your half beard. You think you look like a gold miner freshened up for a crazy weekend in town, spending some of that gold dust before heading back out into the wilderness. But I see you, man. You’re in line at the grocery store, sighing quietly to yourself and wondering if maybe you should put that second bag of Doritos back. Yes, they’re on special, but you don’t even really like Doritos. You can’t decide. Do you even have room in the pantry? You better sigh again while you think about it. It’s not like the line’s moving.

Like, come on man. Do you want a beard? Do you want to shave? Just make up your mind, because you’re annoying me. Those mounties didn’t fight crushing blizzards and scorching prairie summers and deliver diplomacy at gun-point to maintain order during the growth of this country so you could spent 45 minutes perfecting the line across the middle of your tender neck-flesh in comfort. Next time you get pulled over, tell that cop that you respect his facial prowess. And if you have a moustache or a full beard of your own, maybe you’ll both hear, faintly, the howl of a prairie wolf out there on the horizon.

Either the media gods have been listening to my pleas or there’s a refreshing new trend in advertising these days.

Over the last few months, TV commercials have not only been advertising products and services, but have been encouraging something a little more surprising: gender equality. Amazing!

I first noticed it when Jason Alexander, more famously known as the rotund George Costanza on “Seinfeld,” joined the cast of Jenny Craig. Traditionally, diet and weight loss commercials have featured female spokespersons, while exercise equipment and work out programs tended to feature men (Tony Little, Tony Horton, Billy Blanks . . . need I go on?). You might well suppose that women are expected to eat less or take a magic pill to slim down, while men are expected to pump iron (or whatever the current gadget is) to bulk up. Left out of this advertising equation is the fact that plenty of men out there need to slim down, and plenty of women want to tone as well as trim.

 
Remember Hal Johnson and Joanne McLeod from the BodyBreak ads? They had it right, promoting a healthy diet and exercise for both men and women.

 
The Corona beer ads have raised their game too. In last year’s edition, we saw a couple sitting on a beach as a woman in a bikini walked by. The man made no attempt to disguise his ogling, and his partner calmly squirted him with a lime.

 
This year, Corona has changed sides.

 
A muscular man strolls by in front of the sunbathing couple, and this time the woman gawks. A battle ensues in which, while she is distracted, he shakes her beer bottle, but the point is made: women look also. Thanks Corona!

Then there’s my favourite of the moment, Old Spice’s “I’m on a horse” man.

 
Too many romance novels, soap operas, and chick flicks leave too many women dreaming of the man Old Spice is poking fun at — strong, sexy, manly and sensitive, nurturing, and emotional. The ridiculousness of Old Spice’s perfect man illuminates, at least for me, the unfair pressure placed on men to be all things to all women. And instead of using a sexy woman to sell a man body wash (Axe), Old Spice uses a sexy man, making fun of the perfect man, to sell men’s body wash to women. I love it!

Advertising has a long way to go before I’ll give it a thumbs up for representing the genders equally and realistically, but I’m enjoying the direction it’s taking.

Today, for the first time in my life, I was concerned for my safety based on my gender.

Working in a northwest Calgary neighbourhood, I was informed by a resident that a “perv” had reached inside a woman’s bedroom window (in a house just down the street) and fondled her breasts in the middle of the night. She indicated to me the address of the man she suspected as being the “perv.” Just minutes before I had been on his doorstep.

I wasn’t afraid, though — just a little uncomfortable. I thanked the woman for the heads up, and told her, “I’m not worried. I’ll be fine.”

“You have to be!” She said. So I asked why. “Because,” she answered, “you’re a woman.”

I’ve always rejected the notion that I should live my life on edge and constantly on guard simply because I am a woman. I resent the term “weaker sex,” though I do acknowledge that yes, most women are smaller in size and stature, and therefore not as strong, as most men. So does that mean it’s time for me to admit that I am less safe in this world because I am a woman?

I’ve always known my risks — girls learn from an early age to be extra careful. We are made aware of all the potentially dangerous situations: Walking to your car alone, drinking too much while out with friends, leaving a drink unattended, using public transportation alone at night, to name a few. Not to mention methods of prevention: Use the buddy system, always tell someone where you’re going and call them when you arrive, stick to busy streets and well lit areas, don’t wear your hair in a ponytail because it’s easy for an attacker to grab, and so on. We are told throughout our lives how not to get attacked. How not to get raped.

And then the onus is on us. But why should we live in fear?

Women need to be informed and aware, not afraid. Knowledge is power. Of course, we should also be aware of dangerous situations and take preventative measures. I walk alone at night on a semi-regular basis and I’m seldom afraid. I’m always paying attention and I’m always making smart choices. I walk on the sidewalk where there’s adequate lighting, not only because it’s safe but because the sidewalk is safer than the street and the lights help me see where I’m going. But that’s just common sense, not fear.

We also need to talk to the boys.

Tell them when they’re young. Tell them throughout their lives, as vigorously as the women have been warned, not to attack or rape. Tell the boys: if you see a woman walking alone at night, leave her alone. Insist that men do not abuse their position as the “stronger sex.” Instill in them the same concern for every scenario . . . if a woman’s bedroom window is unlocked, keep your hands out of it! A good friend of mine once said, “We wouldn’t have to protect our drinks if men would stop slipping drugs in them.”

Not that I was so composed as I walked my route. (I deliver mail.) After five or six warnings in half an hour, I started panic. I felt unsafe. There I was in broad daylight, a strong, confident woman capable of self-defense, shaken. Waiting for something bad to happen. And then I was angry, because I should not be afraid.

Telling me I’m more vulnerable makes me so.

My advice? I think all women should take self-defense courses. We owe it to ourselves; if someone else isn’t going to respect our bodies and our safety, we need to be equipped to do so ourselves. As early as elementary school girls should learn how to compensate for their smaller size, and how to protect themselves and ward off threats. And we should make a life-long commitment to taking courses and encouraging other women to take courses. When schools educate females by placing “No Means No” stickers and posters in the girls’ bathrooms, they should also appear in the boys’ bathrooms. Boys should be active participants in women’s safety.

Not all men are rapists, attackers, or peeping toms and I don’t think we should treat them as though they are. But we should educate them equally so that boys grow up with an understanding of what is and isn’t acceptable behaviour, and what their role is in women’s safety.

As women we should stop allowing fear to dominate us. We don’t have to be afraid to be safe.

Most romantic holiday of the year, hey? Valentine’s Day is more like the Paris Hilton of holidays: It’s there, we all observe it, and aside from the potential for an anti-climactic sex tape, it’s pretty much useless.

I’m not anti-love, romance or grand gesture. I’m a sucker for all the unrealistic romantic drama that is “Grey’s Anatomy” and I love me a cheesy chick flick, but I find Valentine’s Day an unreasonable pill to swallow. Aside from being overly commercialized and materialistic, it’s the most sexist holiday ever.

V-Day as it exists today operates on the presumption that women associate the worth and merit of themselves and their ability to be loved, not to mention their current romantic relationship, on gestures and/or gifts presented to them on February 14th. Every lady I know has a story of a horribly devastating V-Day when she was alone and depressed (though they were fine with singlehood the week before) or disappointed because her man didn’t deliver the diamond ring or sky banner or beach walk she’d had all organized in her imagination. Boo hoo.

I recall the story of an old acquaintance who marched into a pub on Feb. 14 to berate her ex-boyfriend for breaking up with her the previous November and make sure he knew that because of her pain and suffering over said breakup she hadn’t moved on and was all alone and miserable on Valentine’s Day. I believe “Only losers spend Valentine’s Day alone” was uttered repeatedly as she recounted the story to her girlfriends.

I thought we lived in a society where women reject the notion that we need to be attached to a man in order to be whole and happy. I thought women had been fighting for generations to gain independence from men and to be valued for who they are and what they are capable of. And then we all go and sob if Valentine’s Day isn’t perfect?

Ladies, really, it’s a day. One day. Are we so petty and insecure that we can’t be satisfied with being loved and respected 365 days a year? Do we really need to feel exponentially more loved on February 14th than we do any other day of the year?

Which brings me to the heart of my problem with Valentine’s Day. I often refer to it as “International get pissed off at your man day” because frequently that’s what happens. It is impossible for men to do anything correctly on V-Day.

Say you get your special lady flowers and card, maybe some chocolate. Why didn’t you take her out to dinner? What are you, cheap? Or, you make reservations months ahead and take her out for a fancy dinner and split a heart-shaped dessert. Well, that’s original. That’s what everyone does on Valentine’s Day. Where’s the thought? Dinner is so cliché. Or, you take her on a carriage ride and a walk along the waterfront or to some moonlit meadow somewhere peaceful. Doesn’t that sound lovely? You’re in trouble for that one too — you didn’t get flowers. Or a card. Or chocolate. Instead, you took her for a walk (which is free — again, you’re cheap) and she was in heels because she thought you were going for dinner and now she has blisters. Way to go.

It’s also entirely possible that everything seems to go smoothly, she seems happy and thrilled, and then wait . . . what’s with the cold shoulder on February 15th? One of her girlfriends got an engagement ring or a diamond necklace or a trip to the Bahamas. Clearly you don’t love her as much as so-and-so loves so-and-so.

Meanwhile, did you even get him something? Do women have spoil their men on Valentine’s Day the same way men have to spoil women? I’m pretty sure the answer is No.

Men are expected to turn into McDreamy on Valentines Day, which is hopelessly unfair, given that McDreamy is a television character designed to appeal to women’s schmoopy side. Don’t get me wrong, I swoon for him too, but I also know he’s not real. Women don’t like being expected to fit the stereotype of a model or movie star because we know it’s all airbrushing and make up and personal trainers. So don’t expect your man to be a McMan. He writes his own dialogue; he doesn’t have Shonda Rimes to help out.

The solution to the Valentine’s Day conundrum is simple: break up with it. Ladies, release your man from the shackles of this over-emphasized and sexist holiday. If you do, both of you will be relieved of the Valentine’s Day pressure and drama and you’ll be able to celebrate your love the way you should: everyday.

A few weeks ago, I helped an elderly woman at a public lavatory. Her distinguished male companion helped her through the main door but then stood awkwardly, carefully remaining on the outside of the women’s bathroom. I asked him quietly if I might be of assistance, and he agreed. His female partner, her hair perfect and her deep plum nails freshly manicured, shuffled slowly and had great difficulty, but maintained her dignity as I assisted her with the cubicle door. He thanked me profusely, and together they slowly returned to their shopping cart.

Imagine a more comfortable, humane alternative: he and she walking to a nongendered public washroom and he helping her through yet another of her daily challenges. Why separate them?

Gender specificity in public washroom facilities is the problem, as I see it. And not just for the elderly: Any woman who’s stood in line for the ladies’ room at a baseball stadium or hockey arena, while the men sail in and out of the adjoining facilities, knows that equal rights have not yet reached the public loo. The solution? One or two private, nongendered washrooms for those needing that privacy, and non-segregated, multi-cubicle washrooms for the rest of us.

That encounter with the elderly couple wasn’t the first time I’ve wondered at our bathroom politics. A friend and I were out for dinner in a restaurant in Victoria, and I had to use a washroom. There were two public WCs, one female and one male. There I stood with the growing line of women, as the male facility sat unused, the door temptingly ajar. My queue-mates and I began to discuss the stupidity of the situation, and several of us admitted to using a “male” designated washroom in the past. Finally, with their support and because of the absence of men in need, I used the male facilities. Granted, the man I passed on my way out raised his eyebrows, but at least the rather long line for the other washroom was helped out thanks to my decision. And frankly, so was I.

For years I’ve thought about the need for equal rights as I’ve stood in lines at local fairs and concert halls. My husband has taken my young daughter into several male-designated bathrooms to save her the potential disaster that would have been caused by waiting in a women’s line that stretched farther than the Fraser River. Not once have I had to take my son into the female washroom due to line-ups at the male door. And just in case it needs saying, having one male and one female washroom is not equality — not when women take twice as long as men to urinate, based on entry to exit from the facility (as reported in Alexander Kira’s The Bathroom), or when women, according to Dr. Clara Greed, a town planner, sometimes outnumber men 80:20 in a busy mall. (Hear her talk about the sexual politics of toilets here.) Nor is it equal to expect families to cross their collective legs waiting for the one-and-only family bathroom (if they’re lucky enough to even have that option), or to separate into the appropriate gender areas, particularly when single parents are dealing with children of a different gender. Nor is it fair to force transgendered people to make the choice of which bathroom to use.

Port-A-Potties, airplane bathrooms, bathrooms in private homes, and some offices and university toilet facilities are nongendered, but we have a long way to go with our public privies. Based on an impromptu, non-statistically significant poll of friends and family, everyone I spoke to, male and female, regardless of age, agreed that nongendered johns sounded good, with a few provisos: get rid of the urinals (the men and boys I spoke with hated them, anyway), and fully enclose cubicles. I then turned for enlightenment from the next generation — my high school writing students. It was Jonathan who came up with a clever idea to solve the dilemma of people who simply are not yet ready to use multi-cubicle, multi-toilet facilities: provide two single-cubicle washrooms, possibly even initially designating one as male and the other female, while providing group, nongendered facilities in addition.

This means some restructuring, granted, but it’s necessary. As new facilities are built, an opportunity exists to establish the new system building by building. And let’s applaud forward-thinking groups, such as the University of British Columbia, who are already evolving. According to The Vancouver Sun, UBC will soon change the signs on its single toilet facilities to indicate a general area rather than a male or female restricted one. Granted, multi-cubicle restrooms will remain as they are, but at least there’ll be progress on one front.

Bottom line (so to speak)? I want to be able to duck out during a lull in a baseball game, pop into the loo, and then make it back in time to see the next big play. Don’t you, ladies?