There has been study after study of late showing that young men are even less interested in dating, marriage and families than young women. They seem to prefer video games, television and yes, pornography to dealing with real females of the species.
At the same time, more and more young women are taking to social media to declare how they are either lesbians or just have no intention or interest in dating or being with men, in part because the men they know have become lazy, self-centered and immature. It takes just a minute or two for another disappointed embittered female to show up on a TikTok reel telling how men are worthless nowadays.
I personally think a big part of this very stylish problem comes from the constant degradation of masculinity. I don’t mean beer-drinking, chest-thumping, skirt-chasing foolishness. I mean true masculinity.
For decades, men have been browbeaten to get in touch with their feelings, to let it all out, that it’s okay to cry, etc. Problem is that when men did do so, they were often told that their problems were all rooted in toxic masculinity, a condition that hasn’t yet been very clearly defined.
I am not, under any circumstances, saying that men can’t have or show feelings. What I’m saying is that they have been urged to do so and found themselves pranked, much like Lucy promising not to snatch the football when Charlie Brown goes in for the kick.
Men who show masculine traits are too often the target of both male and female harpies; that stridence discouraged part of an entire generation from being overtly masculine. Finally many reached the point they no longer cared. At the same time women were being empowered and told to stand up for themselves. Again, a strong woman is a good thing, indeed she’s a necessity if the man at her side is truly going to be strong, but strong people of either sex don’t turn on those who are perceived as weak.
Faced with the biological imperative to be masculine, yet being lashed by society for being male and not having strong male figures to emulate, a lot of young men have simply given up. Sometimes solace is found in drugs, sometimes an imaginary life online, sometimes even criminal gangs. Some are “stay at home sons,” without the benefits of the fellow who won big on a gameshow. They take the easy way out, because they don’t know the right way, and haven’t been taught how to find it. I doubt they want to be losers, but having been told so long that they were, they decided to not even try.
My parents were both strong, in different ways. My brothers, my uncles and the men who helped raise me were strong, masculine men. They hunted, they fished, they trapped; they worked long hours supporting their families. They fought in wars, a long way from home. They dealt with disappointment and disaster, as well as victories. They built things – furniture, automobiles, swingsets, machines, homes, families, yes even an empire or two. They knew right from wrong, and made dang sure the boys watching them knew it, too. That example didn’t always stick, but they knew the dice sometimes fell that way, too, having learned the hard way.
Handshakes mattered, as did helping someone in need without parading your blessing in public. They knew that nothing worth having was free, and they were practicing trust but verify decades before Ronald Reagan stood down the Russians. The fact that some of you might not get that reference is yet another sign of the decline and fall of man.
Men knew what was expected of them, and what to expect in return, but if it wasn’t a square deal, that was okay, because doing right was all that mattered. Young men now know they likely won’t get a square deal, and they’re taught to be ashamed for expecting such.
I am by no means saying every woman should be dependent on a man for everything – that’s biologically, biblically, and sociologically foolish. Men and women have different instinctive skills, strengths and weaknesses. Men and women are wired differently because the Almighty knew what He was doing, and He designed man and woman to work together. A camshaft in an engine can’t replace the transmission, any more than a CPU can replace a graphics card in a computer. A wrench makes a lousy hammer.
Those things are made to be used together, not to replace the other.
Yet somehow we as a society have decided that men can be women, women can be men, men can have babies, women shouldn’t have babies, and the barest hint of testosterone in a man a failure, and grounds for public shame.
No danged wonder so many young men and women are confused to the point of giving up. What their spirits know to be correct is condemned by talking heads and social media influencers. It’s easier to quit and be a sickly, medicated, ambivalently asexual videogamer than it is to stand up and say no.
Thankfully this trend seems to be slightly turning, at least to some extent, since once something is named and hashtagged online, we all know that means it’s official.
There are scores of videos showing women referring to themselves as “tradwives”, short for traditional wives, who want to do nothing more than provide a home and care for the children fathered by her hardworking husband. Some of these folks are naturally just following a trend for the attention, but there are some who are serious about it. Some have had a deep, Bible-based spiritual awakening. Some have just realized something is wrong with society, and they want to fix their little corner of it.
It might be an outgrowth of the hell we all went through with COVID and the Summer of “Peaceful Protests” and four years of being told America is bad, your skin color determines your soul, and electric cars are going to save the planet. There were many people who were genuinely frightened of what was happening during the pandemic, and there were others who realized that maybe their great-grandparents were smarter than they thought.
That security of a home, the bills being paid, food on the table, and a moral compass are vital to the human soul, whether we admit it or not. Silly videos of “womyn” talking about the evil of men are corruption for the soul, as are graphic sexual fantasies played out on a telephone.
Without strong men, society is weak. Yes, we need strong women, but without strong men, society is weak. Call me patriarchal, macho, chauvinistic, old fashioned, I don’t care – I can assure you I’ve been called worse, with the same effect.
Men need to be willing to show other men that it’s okay to be a man, regardless of what society says.
We need to mentor the younger generation, just as the Bible tells us. We need to take responsibility when we screw up and fail, take our successes with humility, and be willing to politely, calmly, maturely call a spade a spade, even if it identifies as a butterknife and society applauds the spade for its courage.
Stand up. Speak. Pray. Study your Bible. Lead your family.
Do the right thing.
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