This weekend, I came down with a man cold. My wife has long since learned that the man cold is far, far worse than anything women experience. Childbirth is nothing compared to the man cold. The grim specter of darkness grips an otherwise hale man, and lays him low with aches and not-feel-goods the likes of which women will never understand.

Obviously, this is largely hyperbole. I do believe that the man cold is a real thing, and is not something women get. Women, by and large, get colds. So do children. And dudes, who are really a group wholly different than men.

Men are used to waking up in the morning with a little bit of ache, and then they apply coffee or tea, it goes away, and life is great. It’s like a super power, but all men have it. We are, otherwise, impervious to those illnesses that our families get.

The man cold is, quite simply, when that super power goes away. Suddenly no longer bullet proof, a man with a man cold is vulnerable to the strife of the world around him, and he is suddenly very small.

I wonder if this is what it feels like to be a woman? To not feel in control of the world around you to a degree that equals your level of self-value. If it is, then I understand feminism a bit.