Damsels in Distress and Dragons

In the good old days, a man could show his worth and character, and therefore impress and get the girl, by slaying dragons or protecting her honour.  All he had to do was wave a sword about, smell and act like a real man, inherit a castle with a yearly allowance, slap a cad in the face with kid gloves and have no obvious breeding problems, and he was pretty sure he would get to marry and breed.  Life was good for a man, getting a wife was easy - he just had to stay one step ahead of the plague, famine, marauding armies, poverty and of course dragons.

So what happens in today's world for men?  There are no dragons to slay, women's honour has long gone, we have turkey basters, a drivers licence, our own money.  Who needs a man?  They did themselves out of a job when they killed off all the dragons, gave women the vote and sent us out to work.

But, there is one last bastion, one last frontier where a man can prove his worth to a woman. Every woman knows - even the bra burning Germaine Greer loving feminists know - that a man is at his most sexiest when he saves us. It makes us go all girly and weak and we love it. 

So where is this fantasy world when men are men and sheep are scared?  The world of IT.

The dragon has been replaced by technology. 

I can hear all the feminists shouting at me from their laptops.  But I want them to ask themselves honestly - how many female IT support people do they know?  I work in, and own a IT support company - in 11 years I have not yet met a women technician.  Sure there are women programmers, designers, sales people.  But not support. 

I know a little bit about computers.  Enough to use them, abuse them.  But when it breaks, I call a man.  And they come and save me - and all the other women in thousands of offices all over the world.  They deftly cut down the beast and restore peace to our offices.  We swoon and thank them and make them cups of coffee as we look adoringly at the way they confidently cut down that jammed printer, how they wave a sword at the blue screen, how they brave terminal servers and Microsoft to defend us.

I tell my techs, they are the last of the real men.  That by fixing a girls computer you are being a hero worthy of a knighthood.  That when you arrive to an office where technology has gone wild and you alone tame it - there will be a line of thankful women lining up to have your babies.  They don't believe me - but just ask around and seek out a women who has a story to tell about how the IT Dude rode in on his black steed, pulled his sword from the scabbard and saved the day.  The Technology Knights are alive and well.

Dedicated to all our hard working knights staff at Enable!