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The World Needs More Men
It’s OK to be a man. And it’s OK to act like a man.
Unless you go to college. College, it seems, thinks being a man is nothing more than a catch phrase for being an unrepentant rapist even if you’ve never had such a disgusting thought in your life, nor actually committed the violent act. In college, being a man means you’re unable to find love, incapable of dealing with your feelings, have (or one day will have!) contributed to the degradation of all women everywhere and, therefore, must be neutered in public and private.
College can be a nasty place.
The University of Wisconsin-Madison (a school you go to when you’re not smart enough to get into Cal-Berkeley, and a school you send your kids to when you hate them) has initiated the “Men’s Project.” The six-week course:
…creates a space for critical self-reflection and dialogue about what it means to be a man and how masculinity impacts us and those around us
Sounds harmless enough. Until you realize that you don’t reflect on what a man thinks about what it means to be a man. Rather, you reflect on what some social justice harpy says you should reflect on. Mainly, why are you such a disgusting, violent freak?
Don’t believe me? Here’s the first line from the Men’s Project on the campus website: (emphasis theirs)
Media, hook up culture, alcohol, violence, pop culture; expectations around masculinity impact all of us
I’ve been a man all my life. My father was a man. My grandfathers were both men. My great-great-great-grandfather was a man, as was his father before him. And never once did any of them think being a man was about alcohol and violence.
That’s just a lie. Yes, a lie. An untruth. Garbage. Nonsense. Pablum. White noise.
Crap.
Just two lines later, in the same paragraph:
These conversations can help us better understand ourselves and empower men to work as allies to promote gender equity and social justice.
No. They can’t. Nothing associated with social justice can help men, nor can it ever empower men (or women, or thinking people in general) because being a man has nothing to do with gender equality and social justice.
Facts are tricky things, in that they can’t be explained away by dreams, wishes, and hopes. So, to try and help the social justice warriors who think they understand men, let’s go over a few fact-based ground rules.
- There is nothing wrong with being a man. Nothing.
- Being a man is different than being a woman. This is not “unequal.” This isn’t a bad thing.
- Men act differently than women. This is not “unequal.” This is fine.
As Dr. Helen Smith discusses in her book, Men on Strike: Why Men Are Boycotting Marriage, Fatherhood, and the American Dream — and Why It Matters, men today have increasingly opted-out of being men precisely because of creations like “Men’s Project.”
Dr. Helen:
…why should men participate in a system that seems to be increasingly stacked against them?
As “Men on Strike” demonstrates, men aren’t dropping out because they are stuck in arrested development. They are instead acting rationally in response to the lack of incentives society offers them to be responsible fathers, husbands and providers. In addition, men are going on strike, either consciously or unconsciously, because they do not want to be injured by the myriad of laws, attitudes and hostility against them for the crime of happening to be male in the twenty-first century.
Said differently, an entire generation of men are refusing to act like men because an entire generation of social justice lying jerks have told men that acting like men is a crime against themselves and humanity.
At Gettysburg College, male students are required to watch a movie on “toxic masculinity.” The film, The Mask You Live In, attempts to link the idea of masculinity to violence. In this case, to perpetrators of mass shootings, including the Sandy Hook Elementary School shooting that left 20 children and six adults dead.
According to sources, the film maintains that the statement “be a man” is the single most destructive thing a growing boy can hear.
No. The single most destructive thing a growing boy can hear is, “Can you introduce me to your friend?”
There is no doubt that Dr. Helen is correct. Men, in truth and in the main, don’t want to be like women. Men want to take care of women, or the ones they love. They want responsibility, and want to provide. They seek it out. Men act differently than women. They’re not violent — that’s not being a man. Being protective, and being willing to physically defend or protect their loved ones is not something we should denigrate. It’s important. It’s valuable. And, yes, it’s worthy.
Violence for the sake of violence, like the Knockout Game, is not the mark of a man. That’s a criminal.
No subject I have ever talked about on radio has gotten a more positive, passionate response as my conversation on what it means to be a man. I said at the time:
There are many males out there but there are very few men left in the world.
Men are not violent. Men are not afraid to protect what is their responsibility, to defend what is their responsibility, to care for and to nurture what is their responsibility.
Men are different than women and it’s okay. There is no problem with this. There is no problem whatsoever with having certain biological imperatives and those being different than women and finding how good those things work together in the creation of families and in leading a life. Men are not rude or crude to women and anyone who tells you otherwise is lying.
But being a man doesn’t mean you’re there to accept nonsense and garbage and be hurt because somehow, that’s the right thing to do.
We need a society that raises men. Men are different than women and that is quite all right. Anyone who tells you otherwise is someone you need to exclude from your life.
That includes all those involved with the “Men’s Project” at The University of Wisconsin-Madison. And those involved with this sickening film at Gettysburg College. And any group, anywhere, that wants men to stop being men. Being a man is good, and the world needs many more of them.
And if you want to know what a society that hates men looks like, check out the tweet of this “man:”
How do you plan to spend the cold days of December? http://t.co/Rwf5AYc3bG #GetTalking pic.twitter.com/PBQ397yLf4
— Barack Obama (@BarackObama) December 17, 2013
That was sent by this “man:”
Reposted from WIBC.com.
Published in Culture
Honest question related to this line of thought: Are these notions anti-species survival, or do they simply work against the proponents’ reproductive fitness?
I mean, yes, the notion would be anti-species survival if it could be implemented to apply to the entire species. Fortunately, these horrible anti-males do not have the power to do that, and their actual power seems to be in relative decline even as they’re screaming a lot more and gaining more attention. Won’t they eventually reach a point where they’re only going to succeed at removing themselves from the gene pool?
We have recent proof that chivalry towards women is a good and natural male trait. During the Colorado movie shootings there were stories of unarmed men shielding the bodies of the women they were with. A number of these were just casual dates, but the desire to protect these women came naturally. I don’t remember hearing any stories of women shielding the bodies of their male companions during the same incident.
I think the fact that #s 2 and 3 are labeled as facts when “This is not ‘unequal’. This isn’t a bad thing.” is included, is a testament to how important feminism is. Can you imagine that being said in the 50s?
I have a “2 steps forward, 1 step back” theory of how our culture evolves, where we push for advancement and inevitably end up with silly things that push too far such as “rape culture”, etc. (which subsequently get thrown out).
I think some women want the manly-man, and others want some that are more accepting of the woman being the bread-winner, and why shouldn’t they? The ability to have the choice is the important part.
If a boy who is being “bullied by feminists” into emasculation actually wants to be more manly due to x, y and z reasons, he’ll figure it out and be better off for the journey.
True; women are ready to shield their children.
I am very sure you did. We often speak of collateral damage in the world and there is a harrowing amount of it. But there is also collateral good and caring parents involved in their children’s lives at school, in sports leagues and scouting, and at church do more collateral good than they realize.
I think most modern women want both: a manly-man who is also accepting of a wife with a full-time career — plus willing to do half of the housework and child-rearing.
Where have you been? Crikey, I’ve missed you since the PJTV days.
That is remarkable. Stupidity doesn’t often fluoresce like that.
Well, of course. And men want their wives to do all the housework and child-rearing; and work for income without making a home-making interfering career out of their income producing jobs.
You forgot cooking. She should do most of the cooking, and be good at it.
Thank you. :)
Yes to the Boston meet-up. Are you thinking of an afternoon/dinner event, or one of those fancy weekend-long fetes that some Ricochetti sometimes have?
He didn’t know her well enough for marriage. If you are going to marry someone, those issues are resolved early on.
Back in 1975 my college roommate opened a door for a young woman, who walked through it, turned and called his a chauvinist. He was speechless, but continued to open doors.
I must confess I read these as an adult. Part of may shift from Sifi to fantasy (was a big fan of Ursula Le Guin).
Excellent. It’s amazing how masculinity has been devalued in the western world. It’s not just the demonization of manhood as point out. Even everyday manhood has been devalued across the board.
He had moved in with this girl in graduate school, and he obviously loved her, but perhaps you are right. He needed to grow up a bit regardless. He was in his twenties and hadn’t worked some of these questions out quite yet. I’m sure he had had much Judith Butler and the like forced down his throat.
I do remember I told him basic civility isn’t gendered, but I have no idea how his story eventually ended. This was 5 or 6 years ago. I was actually driving students who had had to much to drink after celebrating the end of term home from a bar.
He was the last one in my car, and it was a long drive.
Setting aside the prescribed cure proposed by the University of Wisconsin, there is something wrong on college campuses with some college men. The incident involving the University of Minnesota football team is horrifying, even if you assume they didn’t commit any crimes and that the encounter was 100% consensual.
The problem is that colleges will not acknowledge their real culpability here. Colleges sell students on the “college experience,” which too often involves drunken parties and irresponsible sex. If they cracked down on drinking and partying a lot of the so called problem of “toxic masculinity” would go away. But they don’t and they won’t because they want tuition dollars.
I actually think a lot of binge drinking behavior is caused by the laws against underage drinking. I understand MADD’s campaign, but I think that children who can go to college, go into the service of their country, get put to death via the death penalty, etc., should be able to go to a respectable pub and order a pint.
As it is, the laws against underage drinking are flagrantly ignored on college campuses–and elsewhere–and binging is encouraged. Alcohol is made into something more mystical than it is, and our students don’t learn responsible behavior.
Of course there are some very, very horrible things that happen that involve young men, but it is unfair to broad-brush boys in general or to consider bad behavior “normal” or indicative of a larger trend. Analyze such incidents. Study them. Figure out how/why they happened. Look at what is tolerated within SPORTS culture as well as MALE culture. Don’t excuse or tolerate such behavior, but don’t use incidents that are clearly evil to condemn all athletes or all men, which is what has been happening.
Indeed. I work with high-schoolers who love bragging about their alcohol tolerance. They say things like this:
To which, I ask:
And, they reply:
Remove the aura of forbiddenness, and the problem might disappear. (Of course, their moral immaturity is a different problem, and one less easily solved.)
The sentiment developed for a reason, though.
When the same people (not necessarily Mr. Katz) who defend classical masculinity also defend Donald Trump’s comments as ordinary, proper male-to-male banter, it’s hard not to conclude that said people are hypocrites. As a maxim, “Righteous in public; ruffian in private” smacks of deceit.
Well I’m sure I would be considered a Neanderthal. I played ice hockey and yes I threw and received some punches out on the ice. I was also a police officer and I threw and received some punches out on the streets. I was definitely and still am not a PC person.
I was the guy in a mandatory hostile work environment lecture paid for by my agency that piped up and told the instructor that my work environment was hostile from the moment I left the precinct after roll call. I received a hostile stare in return.
I still hold the door open for a woman at the bank, or at any other business I’m entering. I don’t sit until my wife is seated at the table, or any other woman that is dining with us. I do not use foul and abusive language in public or in private, with the exception of the hatchet piece 60 Minutes did on the Chicago Police Dept. Nor do I drink to excess.
I know who I am and when I hear nonsense, whether it came from a suspect, or today when it comes from a college professor, or administrator I know that it is nonsense. Now pardon me while I light up a cigar and enjoy a single malt as I ponder the vagaries of human nature and those individuals who do not know who they are.