HE to Mark Caro: What “manned a grill” means is that some beefy or bearded or broad-shouldered dude (i.e., someone like me in the latter case) strapped on a clean white apron and commandingly assumed responsibility for grilling meats of one kind or another during am outdoor 4th of July party. Melted butter and sauce brushes. He “took over” the grill and, you know, handled the chore of grilling stuff with a certain confident panache…exerting a Dwayne Johnson– or Ben Affleck– or John Wayne-like sense of authority. Not a complex concept.
Teary-eyed wokester girlymen (i.e., Ben Whishaw in Women Talking) could never and will never be accused on “manning” a grill.
Friendo: “Mark Caro is a reasonable guy, not a wokester. He’s basically saying that the idea of ‘manning’ anything isn’t cool…that it’s a trigger term that’s only looking for trouble. It’s bizarre how there’s an ongoing effort to eliminate masculinity. On the left obviously. Good lord, a healthy society needs men to be men. Which means that our current society, at least as represented in many urban blue regions, is somewhere between moderately unhealthy and unhealthy as fuck.”