Tag Archives: Masculinity

News

How to avoid being the victim of toxic masculinity

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Telling a woman how to make wise decisions protects her
Telling a woman how to make wise decisions protects her

I see that Gillette has come out with a male-bashing ad that blames all men for the sins of a few very bad men. I thought it might be a good idea for me to write something to women to help them to avoid being the victim of toxic masculinity. My post will have two parts: 1) choosing good men and 2) policies that produce good men.

Preparing to evaluate a man

If you don’t want toxic masculinity, then you have to choose a man who is not toxic. Men must be evaluated, and the toxic ones must be rejected – even if they are attractive and produce feelings of desire and excitement. How do you learn how to evaluate men? Well, you have to know how to talk to them about the things that are relevant to their roles as husbands and fathers. It’s not enough to ask a man “how did your day go?” Shallow questions don’t protect you from toxic masculinity. You need to ask questions that actually surface the true character of the man, and whether he has done anything verifiable to prepare himself to lead a family. The only way to evaluate HIM is to have prepared YOURSELF in advance. You prepare yourself by reading serious papers and books about men and marriage and parenting. Only then will you be able to judge how much he knows, and how good he is at doing what a man does in a committed relationship. It’s just like a job interview.

For example, men should be pro-life, because they should care about protecting the weak from the strong. If you – as a woman – do not understand how to make a case for the right to life of unborn children YOURSELF, then how will you be able to evaluate men to determine whether THEY take seriously the obligation to protect the weak from the strong?  If you don’t know anything about pro-life legislation and Supreme Court cases, then how will you evaluate a man’s knowledge of those areas? You have to do YOUR homework first, so that you are able to evaluate the character of a man.

Which policies create men who are toxic?

Fatherlessness creates toxic masculinity.

If a man is growing up without a father, then he will never see a man treating a woman well, even after she has lost her youth and beauty. The first thing that children notice about their fathers is that he lives at home. But they also know that he gets up early each day to go to work for the family. And they know that if there is anything scary, like a spider or a noise, then father is the one who protects the mother. Father is the one who teaches a child that authority (and punishment) is not done out of anger, but out of love. Father is the one who sets moral boundaries, lives out moral rules, and reads the Bible to the children. Fathers demonstrate how to control superior strength, because can never act towards his wife in a way that could destroy the marriage.

Boys learn the complexity of women by watching their fathers interact with their mothers. Growing up with a father and a mother is the complete opposite of pornography. In porn, boys see only the woman’s outward appearance with no context of a commitment, and no long-term plan where husband and wife are partners. Porn reduces her to an object designed only to please his needs. Marriage shows cooperation between man and woman in order to make the relationship stable and productive. Boys in father-present homes have a much broader and deeper database of interactions to draw on when dealing with women. In particular, boys learn what skills and abilities a man demonstrates to a woman in order to signal to her that he is interested in marrying her.

So, if you oppose toxic masculinity, then you have to be against fatherlessness. You have to be for marriage as the best place for children to grow up. And to be for marriage, is to be against every policy that threatens marriage. You must be against no-fault divorce. Against single-mother welfare. Against the Sexual Revolution. Against recreational premarital sex. Against delaying marriage for fun and careers. And against feminism – which teaches women that evaluating a man for traditional marriage roles is “sexist”.

People on the secular left complain the most about toxic masculinity but they are the ones doing the most to promote policies that create it. Secular leftists can’t tear down the theism that rationally grounds morality, and then complain when institutions like marriage – which are built on objective moral values and duties – are destroyed. It doesn’t matter if a secular leftist wishes for toxic masculinity to disappear. If they say nothing about women choosing hot bad boys for relationships, then they are in favor of toxic masculinity. If they say nothing about the destruction of marriage and fatherless children, then they are in favor of toxic masculinity. You can’t kill the engine that produces good men, and then complain that the bad men who are left don’t treat you well.

Conclusion

To review: to avoid toxic masculinity, you should 1) prepare yourself (by studying) so you can evaluate men for their ability to perform distinct male marriage roles, and 2) promote policies in which boys are raised in homes with a father loving their mother in a lifelong commitment. If you deny either of these things, then you’re not opposed to toxic masculinity at all. You might say you don’t like it, but you’re not doing anything to avoid choosing it, and you’re not doing anything to produce young men who avoid it.

I think that women today are complaining about “toxic masculinity” precisely because they feel entitled to choose men based on outward appearance, give them recreational premarital sex, and then expect that those men will treat them with respect and care. It doesn’t work that way. Hot bad boys don’t respond to recreational premarital sex by transforming themselves into faithful husbands with impeccable moral character. If you want good character, then evaluate men to find it and then choose it. Period.

News

ISIS murders two thrill-seeking millennials who were cycling across the Middle East

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It turns out that the world is a dangerous place after all
It turns out that the world is a dangerous place after all

I saw this interesting article about a man and woman who decided to quit their “boring” public sector “jobs” and cycle through Africa and then through the Middle East. In this post, I want to focus on their worldviews, how people responded to the news of their deaths, and on why women are so attracted to men who don’t lead them, don’t protect them, and don’t provide for them.

PJ Media reports:

On August 7, the New York Times ran a story by Rukmini Callimachi about Jay Austin and Lauren Geoghegan, a young American couple, both graduates of Georgetown University, who decided to quit their humdrum office jobs and go on an epic bike ride and camping trip that would take them all over the world. “I’ve grown tired of spending the best hours of my day in front of a glowing rectangle, of coloring the best years of my life in swaths of grey and beige,” Austin wrote. “I’ve missed too many sunsets while my back was turned.”

I couldn’t find anywhere that said what their degrees were in, but I expect that they did easy non-STEM degrees and were swimming in debt. Rather than work their way out of it, they decided to quit their jobs and go on an adventure through Africa and the Middle East, to prove to the world that evil was not real, and that all the liberal nonsense they learned in school was true.

More:

They biked through Kyrgyzstan and entered Tajikistan. It was in that country that their journey came to an abrupt end this past July 29, when five ISIS members deliberately plowed their car into the two adventurers, killing them…

The plan they had chosen involved pointless risk-taking:

Austin, a vegan who worked at the Department of Housing and Urban Development, and Geoghegan, a vegetarian who worked in a college admissions office, were both 29 years old – old enough, one would think, to have some idea of just how dangerous a route they had mapped out. A number of the countries they passed through are considered either “not free” or “partly free” by Freedom House. In several of them, it’s not uncommon for roving criminal gangs – or, for that matter, police or soldiers or border officials – to rob, rape, or kill innocent travelers without provocation and with total impunity… Other perils include wild carnivores, extreme weather, unsanitary food preparation, and substandard medical care.

Now the first thing that pops out to me about this was “where are the woman’s parents?” and then second “why did this woman choose this man, given that men have a role of protecting women?” But, you see, parents these days are terrified of telling their daughters “NO”, and women like Lauren are very attracted to men who want to take them on “adventures”, instead of marrying them and providing for them and their children. Adventures are desirable because there are no responsibilities or obligations. You get to show off to your boring friends how special you are, and how much fun you’re having.

Let’s take a close look at Austin’s worldview, which Geoghegan found so attractive:

“With…vulnerability,” he wrote, “comes immense generosity: good folks who will recognize your helplessness and recognize that you need assistance in one form or another and offer it in spades.”

[…]But to read Austin’s blog is to see no hint of hesitation, on the part of either of them, to keep on cycling – no sign of fear that their luck might run out at any moment. Their naivete is nothing less than breathtaking. “You watch the news and you read the papers and you’re led to believe that the world is a big, scary place,” wrote Austin during their trek. “People, the narrative goes, are not to be trusted….I don’t buy it. Evil is a make-believe concept we’ve invented to deal with the complexities of fellow humans holding values and beliefs and perspectives different than our own.”

This was a man who did not have an accurate view of the world. He had enormous confidence in his own opinions, and he didn’t bother informing himself with anything that would have contradicted his optimism. He was reckless and dangerous. And yet his “lack of fear” must have been very attractive to a woman who didn’t want to “waste” her youth on responsibilities and obligations. She preferred his happy sounding words to any real demonstrated ability as a man. He didn’t have a plan for her future. All he had to offer was fun and thrills in the moment, and that’s what she chose. And I’m certain that if things had continued, they would have broken up the relationship the minute that either of them had to fulfill some obligation that they didn’t feel like doing.

And how did this arrogant, reckless optimism work out for him and his girlfriend?

Even before Austin and Geoghegan met their untimely end, they had problems. In Namibia, Geoghegan picked up a stomach virus. (As Austin wrote on his blog: “she curls into the fetal position and rests, eyes closed, fighting chills and nausea and fatigue. There’s little that we can do at the moment. I give her some ibuprofen.” Whereupon they resume biking.) Also in Namibia, they were almost hit by a car while bicycling along a highway. In Botswana, they both got sick. In Zambia, Austin had a serious bike crash that sent him flying and left him bleeding all over. In Malawi, he got malaria. In Tanzania, a man tried to bully him into forking over some money. In Ceuta, a driver tried to run him over, and another rear-ended him. In Spain, Geoghegan got conjunctivitis. In Marseilles, she had to be hospitalized for an ear infection that had rendered her deaf. Given the dangers they braved, indeed, they were fortunate to have made it as far as Tajikistan.

Is this what a man is now? Someone who recklessly risks the life of a woman? Why doesn’t he get a real STEM degree, get a real private sector job, and buy her a real house that she can feel safe in? Because this isn’t what women are looking for today. They want fun and thrills and adventure. They push away men who try to get them to behave responsibly, and they put their trust in men who tell them what they want to hear: that they should follow their heart. And no one has anything to say about it. We tell young women that they are right to value fun and thrills and adventures. We tell young women that they are right to choose irresponsible bad boys who give them all the feelings.

The secular left was very supportive of what Austin did to his girlfriend:

The Times article about Austin and Geoghegan drew hundreds of reader comments. A surprising number were by other people who’d bicycled or backpacked in far-off, dangerous places. Most saw Austin and Geoghegan as “heroic,” “authentic,” “idealistic,” “inspiring,” “a Beautiful example of Purity and Light.” Sample reactions: “Their candle burned brightly before it was extinguished.” And: “Good for them! They followed their dream.” Then there’s this: “I only see the beauty of two people taking steps to live the life they envision….The good experienced in their journey far far outweighs any negative.” Easy to say when you’re not the one in the body bag. “What is more dangerous,” asked yet another reader, “exposing yourself to the world and its dangers, and living a full vivid life, or insulating yourself in a safe box, in front of screens, where the world and its marvels and dangers cannot touch you? Jay and Lauren understood that safety is its own danger. They are awesome people.”

He was a bad leader, and he led her into a disaster. But that’s what she wanted, and everyone is celebrating what a great man he was.

No one is taking responsibility for letting it happen:

Her parents, Robert and Elvira Geoghegan, said in a statement that her trip “was typical of her enthusiastic embrace of life’s opportunities, her openness to new people and places, and her quest for a better understanding of the world.”

[…]Santovasco, Austin’s mother, said her son and his girlfriend were in the wrong place at the wrong time.

“For them to be in this one place where they decided to kill people is unfathomable to us,” she said.

These days, it’s very fashionable for people to want to follow their hearts. Many people who believe in God don’t really think about how to deny themselves in order to serve God. They think that it’s God’s job to sort of guarantee that they will be happy if they focus on their own desires. All they have to do is be reckless in their decisions, and have no fear, and God will make them fabulously happy. What the story of Austin and Geoghegan tells us is that hedonism is actually a secular life plan. Christians should not be doing things like that with their lives.

Personal

What is masculinity, and why do leftists oppose it?

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Air Force TACPs confirm target locations with their map
Air Force TACPs confirm target locations with their map and GPS

My friend Adina shared a splendid article from the American Thinker with me. People often ask me why I speak about policy and politics so much on a Christian apologetics blog. My usual answer is that things like money and religious liberty are central to how Christians run their lives. But this article made me think of a deeper reason, one that’s been the driving force in my life for a long time.

First, let’s see some of the article, then I’ll talk about why this article is a key to really understanding men like me.

Excerpt:

An ongoing mantra of the left is that everyone is a victim, with a singular carve-out for white men.  A large group of the female population has embraced this chant.

While there may be a number of grievances put forth by this movement, there also comes a theme that is particularly dangerous: the feminist attack on masculinity.  This is derived not only from feminists; it comes from the left in general.

There has emerged a war on masculinity.  Why?  Because masculine men are harder to control under tyrannical socialism.  The modern beta male, on the other hand, craves socialism.  This is why the left has branded masculinity as toxic: it stands as a roadblock to their endgame.

That’s the thesis of the article, and here is a snippet that I want to talk about:

The feminist hatred for masculinity is only another tool in the toolbox of communism.  Masculinity tends to make a man individualistic.  Individualistic men are capitalists, not communists.  They are men who cherish individual liberty, and they rely on themselves rather than on government.  Self-reliance is a four-letter word for leftists, and masculine men are generally self-reliant.  Beta males like Pajama Boy rely on government, and such modern men, devoid of any semblance of masculinity, are ideal for leftist indoctrination.

Were the frontiersmen communists or capitalists?  How about the cowboys?  How about the Navy SEALs or Army Rangers?  Sure, the press may find in the military a few Che Guevara t-shirt-wearing idiots and parade them all over the place, but I am willing to bet that the majority of SEAL Team 6 comprises masculine capitalists.

What games do young boys play?  They pretend to be cowboys.  They pretend to be soldiers.   They don’t pretend to be soviet textile workers slaving under Stalin’s system.  They don’t pretend to be entitled Millennial brats who congregate at Starbucks and talk about the wonders of socialism, either.  Most boys hit the ground embracing masculinity.  Some maintain it, but many have it berated out of them by the weak society they walk in or by their leftist parents.

Masculinity leads a man to seek to better himself in many regards, while collectivism thrives on mediocrity.  Collectivism in this country is sought by the lazy who don’t want to work but feel entitled to free handouts of all kinds.

I can confirm from my reading of SEAL and Ranger autobiographies that they are overwhelmingly conservative in their politics.

OK, so two points about this. First, I grew up in a very liberal environment where masculinity was already under attack starting from elementary school. It started in the public schools with the lazy public school teachers. In college, I saw lazy college students doing non-STEM degrees because they were easy. And then they wanted bailouts for their unpaid student loans.

I really noticed it when I worked for the government during a couple of summers. Most people in unionized jobs just don’t have the marketable skills to make it in the private sector, where people are paid based on performance and can easily be fired for failure to perform. Public schools and government are two places where people who can’t perform go in order to make money without having to perform. Even their raises are defined by collective bargaining, not individual merit. (My public school system even went on strike, and I would see the teachers holding signs in order to get paid more, instead of doing what normal people do, and producing more). Working in the public sector just not acceptable to people who want to work hard and advance by merit.

The more I experienced this, as a student and as a government employee, the more I realized that I wanted to get as far away as possible from laws and policies that reflect a desire to provide security for lazy people. I wanted these people out of my life. I didn’t want them getting my money. I did not want them making the rules that I had to live by. I wanted to cut government funding and enact right-to-work and school choice laws. Just to stop the forced funding of lazy people through mandatory taxes. I didn’t yet realize that there was any masculine-feminine distinction going on, I just knew that these were lazy people, they made poor choices because of their desire for fun and laziness, and they ought to be starving, not getting paid. And as the left started to crack down on free speech, guns, and other freedoms, I started a lifelong journey from blue states to red states. I just wanted nothing to do with these people interfering in my life, and leeching off of me. I wanted to post pictures of a Steyr Aug on Twitter and tag all my female public school teachers and their nanny state allies, who didn’t like guns because “they are loud and scary”. (Note: I do not yet own a Steyr Aug. Maybe some day.).

My second point is about how this denigration of masculinity works out in relationships.

I wanted to get married pretty much from high school. Since I didn’t have a stay at home mom, I decided early on that I wanted that for my children. I can remember thinking about this in my junior year of high school (grade 11). So, I talked to my Dad about it, and he suggested that I not follow my dream of becoming an English teacher, and instead focus on computer science. I was just as good at computer science as English literature in those days – good enough for the class awards every year in both subjects. So, I got the BS and the MS, and then moved to find work that would pay a lot. And I saved a lot of what I earned.

Fast forward to my relationships. What I found is that women who were influenced by leftism had zero respect for my ability to lead in areas like education, career and finance. Since they had been taught that masculinity was toxic, they would often prefer younger, penniless, unemployed students who were more easily manipulated. They resented that I would offer them advice about what to study, where to work, and how to save more, which – along with apologetics and raising parrots – is about the only stuff I’m qualified to give advice about! Basically, they had been trained to see male competence as toxic. Male leadership – even when it was clearly demonstrated from past success – was toxic. And the “best” men were the men who let them make decisions based on their feelings, which mostly involved pursuing fun and being irresponsible – and sometimes even immoral. Men exist to give women “feelings”, and for no other purpose than that.

Well, that’s what I wanted to say about how my experience with anti-masculinity in education, career and relationships has affected me. My masculinity came about naturally, as a result of encountering leftism in different areas of my life. And I think having to deal with it up close just pushed me further in the masculine direction. That is not to say that I am a promiscuous, risk-taking thug. I’m chaste, I’m a software engineer, I don’t drink, I have no tattoos or piercings, I’ve never been arrested, and I’ve saved most of what I earned. But if I could move to a place where government kept out of my business and out of my wallet, then I’d move. If I could find a woman who respected the strengths of men, then I’d marry her.

I basically want to be in a place where the government and the women around me are respectful of my different priorities and different life goals. Unfortunately, I’m living in a time of great foolishness, and much of that has been brought about by leftism. Much of my income is confiscated so that other people can spend it and call themselves “generous” with money they did not, and could not, earn themselves. My liberty is constrained, and the people who cost me money or do me harm – illegal immigrants, criminals, terrorists, etc. – are treated better than I am. All in the name of “compassion”. We are in a time and place where people in high places are at war with masculinity. I wish I could opt out of every nanny state policy, but there’s no opt-out.