The arguments that feminists make against masculinity haven’t changed in decades. But every few weeks, someone — usually a woman in New York — writes a feminist criticism of something that happened in popular culture. <\/p>\n\n\n\n
Every few weeks, someone — maybe a young man or maybe a man who hasn’t been exposed to their narrative — is exposed to feminist propaganda for the first time.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
None of this is new. Every month or so, some corporation attempts to market to the women who purchase things for men by launching a campaign saying it wants to redefine how we think about masculinity. <\/a><\/p>\n\n\n\n I addressed this in the “Reimagining Masculinity” chapter of an e-book I released for free in 2012, titled No Man’s Land. <\/em>This material was originally part of The Way of Men, <\/em>and is included in the French edition. It represents the preliminary research I did while writing The Way of Men<\/em>, and my engagement of the main arguments advanced by feminists and many members of the Men’s Movement.<\/p>\n\n\n\n I am re-releasing this book below, for my readers who have never read it or even heard about it. It’s something you can cite every time you come across the same arguments, repeated over and over, as if some writer in New York came up with a brand new idea.<\/p>\n\n\n\n <\/p>\n\n\n\n <\/p>\n\n\n\n If you were a science fiction writer freelancing for a men\u2019s magazine in the 1940s, you might have dreamed up a lurid dystopian future where women rule. You might have described a \u201cNew Girl Order,\u201d or titled your tale \u201cThe End of Men.\u201d For your bizarro tomorrow, you may well have envisioned a world where boys were punished, drugged or expelled from school for the kinds of things you remembered doing as a kid. Males would be referred to as \u201cthe second sex,\u201d regarded as \u201clouts\u201d and relegated to low paid, low status jobs. Women would be sexually promiscuous, even marching together as \u201cproud sluts[1]<\/a>,\u201d while men would be legally required to ask for explicit verbal permission for every kiss[2]<\/a>. When it came time to reproduce, females would often raise children (hopefully female children) on their own. Fathers would be considered quaint but ultimately disposable.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Your readers, back then, would have had quite a chuckle.<\/p>\n\n\n\n However, if writers for America\u2019s major newspapers and magazines are to be believed, that future is not far off. While their phrasing could be a touch fantastic and things may not yet be quite as bad as they say, there seems to be a growing consensus that unless major changes occur, the future is no man\u2019s land.<\/p>\n\n\n\n In May of 2000, Christina Hoff Sommers challenged the prevailing wisdom about sex and education when she wrote for The Atlantic<\/em> that it was, \u201ca bad time to be a boy in America.\u201d[3]<\/a> Throughout the 1980s and 90s, feminist authors including Carol Gilligan and Mary Pipher had convinced educators that schools favored boys and shortchanged girls. Sommers made the case that, perhaps at least in part in response to overzealous attempts to help girls achieve parity, the evidence showed that girls were actually getting better grades and had higher educational aspirations than boys. Boys were dominating \u201cdrop out lists, failure lists, and learning-disability lists.\u201d Girls appeared to be more \u201cengaged\u201d in the educational process. Boys were still scoring better on some standardized tests (like the SAT) but this was because few \u201cat risk\u201d boys were even bothering to take the test. According to Sommers, the partisans of girls were writing the rules, programs to aid boys had a very low priority, and the gender gap in academic achievement was widening.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Businessweek <\/em>published a cover story in 2003 confirming \u201cThe New Gender Gap.\u201d Michelle Conlin claimed that boys were becoming \u201cthe second sex\u201d from kindergarten to grad school. She reiterated Sommers\u2019 conclusions, and described a bleak educational landscape where boys were being labeled as troublemakers or \u201ctouchers,\u201d and a disturbing number were being diagnosed with Attention Deficit Hyperactivity Disorder. Conlin identified what she called a \u201ccreeping pattern of male disengagement and economic dependency\u201d that started in youth and snowballed through adolescence, the college years (or comparative lack thereof), a declining male voting rate, and professional underachievement.[4]<\/a> In the same issue, Thomas Mortenson, a senior scholar at the Pell Institute for the Study of Opportunity in Higher Education, told Conlin that the \u201cnew economy\u201d was \u201ca world made for women.\u201d[5]<\/a><\/p>\n\n\n\n Peg Tyre followed up for Newsweek<\/em> in 2006, and found that things had only gotten worse for boys in education. From 1980 to 2001, the number of boys who said that didn\u2019t like school rose 71% in a study conducted by the University of Michigan. When her piece was published, males had become a minority on college campuses, representing just 44% of the student body.<\/p>\n\n\n\n I was able to observe some of this first hand when I was asked to participate in a \u201c21st<\/sup> Century Manhood\u201d workshop at a nearby private high school. The school was co-ed and extremely liberal, but the workshop was boys-only. It was well attended, and the boys had a lot to say. While the boys were clearly economically privileged, their female peers were too, so in their world class wasn\u2019t a factor. There was a general consensus that the young men felt like wherever they turned, even when it came to athletics, \u201ceverything was about what the girls wanted.\u201d The teen movie jock vs. nerds status hierarchy also seemed to be inverted. It was the natural \u201calphas\u201d of the group who seemed to be the most frustrated and disenfranchised. They told me that they were constantly being corrected and told what to say and how to feel. While feminists frequently claim masculinity is merely a role that men \u201cperform,\u201d and that feminism frees men from having to conform to an unrealistic ideal, it was clear to me that these boys felt as though they had to watch everything they said and did, and that they never felt they could simply \u201cbe themselves.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n Media consultant Guy Garcia wrote that, \u201cIf men were a brand, their value would be dropping, because society is simply not buying what they\u2019re selling.\u201d[6]<\/a> In his 2008 book, The Decline of Men<\/em>, he argued that men were preoccupied with outdated expectations and \u201chypermasculine\u201d rituals of violence, and that while women were attaining more academic credentials and making more money, men were \u201copting out, coming apart, and falling behind.\u201d[7]<\/a> He imagined a future when, in a romantic role reversal, men who wanted to get married would end up waiting hopefully by the phone for Ms. Right to call, because men may have very little to offer their affluent, career-oriented female prospects. However, Garcia also worried that men might \u201cyank at their chains and pull the entire temple down with them.\u201d[8]<\/a><\/p>\n\n\n\n In the same year, pro-feminist sociologist Michael Kimmel warned parents about the lure of \u201cguyland.\u201d[9]<\/a> Frat boys, the young men who in decades past would have been preparing to pursue careers and get married, were becoming less interested in doing either. According to Kimmel, \u201cguys\u201d were postponing those traditional markers of adulthood well into their thirties. He acknowledged that the media showed married men begging for sex and being routinely \u201cinfantilized\u201d by their wives.[10]<\/a>Kimmel wrote, \u201cIf that\u2019s your idea of adulthood, of marriage, and of family life, it makes sense that you\u2019d want to postpone it for as long as possible, or at least take the time to figure out a way to avoid the pitfalls so that your own life doesn\u2019t turn out that way.\u201d He observed that guys were often living in clusters together well after college, perpetuating frat life, working \u201cMcJobs,\u201d drinking, gambling and \u201chooking up\u201d with girls for casual sex. Kimmel explained that while young women were coming of age excited about their prospects and believing anything was possible for them, more and more young men were becoming addicted to sports, porn and video games.<\/p>\n\n\n\n By 2009, there was growing evidence that boys were falling behind in school, and that many young men were more interested in partying, getting laid or goofing off than they were in getting married or investing in their own futures. Women were doing well and men were having fun and everyone was making money, so most people didn\u2019t really care too much.<\/p>\n\n\n\n However, two events brought \u201cthe decline of men\u201d into the spotlight.<\/p>\n\n\n\n The first was what has become known as \u201cthe great recession.\u201d The severe economic downturn of the late double-oughts included a real estate bust that resulted in layoffs and work shortages that disproportionately affected men in construction and related industries. The term \u201cman-cession\u201d became popular to describe a substantial gap in unemployment between men and women. Men were losing their jobs at a disproportionate rate, and projected job growth pointed to female-dominated service-sector industries like healthcare.<\/p>\n\n\n\n The second event that brought attention to the trouble with men was a milestone for women. In late 2009, women were poised to claim over half of the workforce. Maria Shriver and the Center for American Progress released a triumphant report, titled A Woman\u2019s Nation Changes Everything<\/em>[11]<\/a>, which named women \u201cThe New Breadwinners.\u201d Oprah Winfrey wrote an epilogue to the report, which told women it was up to them to turn the world \u201cright side up.\u201d The Economist<\/em> put Rosie the Riveter on its cover, and announced that in a \u201cquiet revolution,\u201d women were \u201ctaking over the workplace\u201d in what was \u201carguably the biggest social change of our times.\u201d[12]<\/a><\/p>\n\n\n\n In 2010, Hanna Rosin claimed in The Atlantic <\/em>that it might be \u201cThe End of Men,\u201d and asked if modern, postindustrial society was simply better suited to women. Rosin wrote that for every two men who earn a B.A. degree, three women will earn one, and that in the fifteen job categories projected to grow in the United States, all but two were already dominated by women. She mused that, \u201cthe U.S. economy is in some ways becoming a kind of traveling sisterhood: upper-class women leave home and enter the workforce, creating domestic jobs for other women to fill.\u201d Even working class women seem to be running the show at home, as fathers were increasingly absent or simply irrelevant\u2014stripped of authority in household matters because they weren\u2019t earning as much as their wives or \u201cpartners.\u201d And for the first time in history, couples all over the world\u2014even in once strictly patriarchal South Korea\u2014are more often hoping for baby girls. [13]<\/a><\/p>\n\n\n\n For Newsweek<\/em>, Andrew Romano and Tony Doupkil complained that even though women were making more money, men were still doing half as much housework and avoiding \u201cgirly\u201d jobs in the booming healthcare industry because they were sticking to a \u201cmusty script of masculinity.\u201d[14]<\/a> In the Los Angeles <\/em>Times, Neal Gabler wrote that modern men had become \u201clouts,\u201d and concluded that \u201cin a world of unrelenting pressures and of threatening sexual equality, men just want to be boys.\u201d[15]<\/a> Days later, in The Wall Street Journal<\/em>, Kay Hymowitz wondered where all the \u201cgood men\u201d had gone. By \u201cgood men,\u201d like Garcia and the others, she seemed to mean a financially successful man who was willing to leave his male friends and the activities they enjoyed\u2014sports, video games, gadgets, action films and sex with multiple women\u2014to commit to a woman and help her raise a family (for as long as she wanted him to).[16]<\/a><\/p>\n\n\n\n Women want men to compete with them in the workplace, yet cooperate with them for the purposes of reproduction. Anthropologist Lionel Tiger identified this source of \u201csubstantial tension in\u201d his 1999 book, The Decline of Males.<\/em>[17]<\/a>Indeed, The Decline of Males<\/em> predicted many of the problems that the writers above have been hashing through over the past decade. Playing on the words of Marx, Tiger understood that men were not only becoming alienated from the means of production but also from the means of reproduction.[18]<\/a> The invention of the birth control pill, combined with the rise of feminism, the industrial\/information economy, and the welfare state had produced a \u201csingle-mother system.\u201d State intervention, intended to help children in need, had created a new kind of family: the bureaugamy.<\/em> Tiger defined bureaugamy<\/em> as \u201ca family pattern involving a mother, a child, and a bureaucrat.\u201d[19]<\/a><\/p>\n\n\n\n The patriarchal kinship system that demanded paternal investment was dismantled by feminists, technology and the legal system. It was replaced with a system that gave women control over virtually all aspects of reproduction, and where a woman could rest assured that the state would step in and provide for her children in the absence of a husband or father. Divorce, most often initiated by women, offered a way for women to seize control of their families at-will, even when a man had chosen to make a paternal investment. Men had become peripheral players in the lives of their offspring, and they could be cut from the team by coach mom at any time. The managing bureaucrat would then determine what role the father would have in his children\u2019s lives\u2014at best he might be offered a co-parenting role, at worst he could be reduced to a mere paycheck.<\/p>\n\n\n\n America may not yet be a matriarchy, but her family structure has become matrilineal, or at least matrifocal. The practice of giving a child his or her father\u2019s surname is a vestigial gesture, an outdated social norm from an earlier time. If women were to stop doing it altogether, or if they were to insist that their names come first in a mother-hyphen-father configuration, any enduring illusion of patriarchy would be shattered. One has to wonder if, in the absence of that illusion, men would invest in fatherhood at all. The switch to a bonobo culture\u2014where males are mere inseminators and helpers\u2014would at that point be explicit and complete. Why wouldn\u2019t <\/em>men simply shuffle about alone or in small, impotent groups, playing games and seeking masturbatory short-term gratification? Why would <\/em>they make the investment or the sacrifices necessary to be good husbands and fathers, when a woman could take it all away on a whim?<\/p>\n\n\n\n None of the scolds have managed to come up with a plan for getting young \u201cguys\u201d to stop drinking, hooking up or playing video games, and start families instead. All they\u2019ve managed to do in exhorting men to \u201cman up\u201d is invoke the \u201cmusty script\u201d of a patriarchal system that no longer exists.<\/p>\n\n\n\n To Kay Hymowitz\u2019s credit, in her book titled Manning Up: How the Rise of Women Has Turned Men into Boys<\/em>, she also recognized that there were \u201cdemographic, economic, technological, cultural\u2014and hormonal\u201d[20]<\/a> reasons why males have been falling behind or opting out, and why for the first time ever, \u201cyoung women are reaching their twenties with more achievements, more education, more property, and, arguably, more ambition than their male counterparts.\u201d[21]<\/a> She shrewdly noted that it was not only feminism, but also the Playboy mentality[22]<\/a> that had worked to erode the love-marriage-baby carriage moral and social prescription that, for so long, encouraged young men to think seriously about their careers and marriage from an early age. More than the others, she also sympathized with the much maligned American male\u2014stuck staring down life in the \u201ccold intimacy\u201d[23]<\/a> of a domesticated office and treated like a disposable putz.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Hymowitz wondered, \u201cwhere do boys fit into the girl-powered world?\u201d[24]<\/a><\/p>\n\n\n\n She didn\u2019t have an answer. Most seem to shrug their shoulders. Some talk and write about making the educational system more boy-friendly. That couldn\u2019t hurt.<\/p>\n\n\n\n The writers above agree, for the most part, that few industries in any peaceful, global, post-industrial economy favor the aptitudes or the temperament of males. However, as we will see, the very idea that males have a natural temperament chafes against established biases toward cultural determinism and the orthodoxy of feminist sex role theory.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Instead of critically evaluating our society\u2019s plans for the future and trying to create a system that is better for both sexes, most writers have simply demanded that men change their temperaments.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Masculinity, the theory goes, can be whatever we want it to be\u2014so why not \u201creimagine\u201d a masculinity that better suits the future?<\/p>\n\n\n\n [1]<\/a> Melnick, Meredith. \u201cFrom Legal Defense to Rallying Cry: How \u2018SlutWalks\u2019 Became a Global Movement.\u201d Time<\/em> 10 May 2011. Web. 23 May 2011. http<\/a>:\/\/<\/a>healthland<\/a>.<\/a>time<\/a>.<\/a>com<\/a>\/2011\/05\/10\/<\/a>from<\/a>\u2013<\/a>legal<\/a>\u2013<\/a>defense<\/a>\u2013<\/a>to<\/a>\u2013<\/a>rallying<\/a>\u2013<\/a>cry<\/a>\u2013<\/a>how<\/a>\u2013<\/a>slutwalks<\/a>\u2013<\/a>became<\/a>\u2013<\/a>a<\/a>\u2013<\/a>global<\/a>\u2013<\/a>movement<\/a><\/p>\n\n\n\n [2]<\/a> \u201cThe Antioch College Sexual Offense Prevention Policy.\u201d Antioch College<\/em>. N.p., 1 Jan. 2006. Web. 23 May 2011. http<\/a>:\/\/<\/a>antiochmedia<\/a>.<\/a>org<\/a>\/<\/a>mirror<\/a>\/<\/a>antiwarp<\/a>\/<\/a>www<\/a>.<\/a>antioch<\/a>\u2013<\/a>college<\/a>.<\/a>edu<\/a>\/<\/a>Campus<\/a>\/<\/a>sopp<\/a>\/<\/a>index<\/a>.<\/a>html<\/a><\/p>\n\n\n\n [3]<\/a> Hoff Sommers, Christina. \u201cThe War Against Boys.\u201d The Atlantic. <\/em>May 2000. Web. 2 Mar 2011. http<\/a>:\/\/<\/a>www<\/a>.<\/a>theatlantic<\/a>.<\/a>com<\/a>\/<\/a>magazine<\/a>\/<\/a>archive<\/a>\/2000\/05\/<\/a>the<\/a>\u2013<\/a>war<\/a>\u2013<\/a>against<\/a>\u2013<\/a>boys<\/a>\/4659\/<\/a><\/p>\n\n\n\n [4]<\/a> Conlin, Michelle. \u201cThe New Gender Gap.\u201d Businessweek<\/em> 26 May 2003. Web. 23 May 2011. http<\/a>:\/\/<\/a>www<\/a>.<\/a>businessweek<\/a>.<\/a>com<\/a>\/<\/a>magazine<\/a>\/<\/a>content<\/a>\/03_21\/<\/a>b<\/a>3834001_<\/a>mz<\/a>001.<\/a>htm<\/a><\/p>\n\n\n\n [5]<\/a> Conlin, Michelle. \u201cThis Is a World Made for Women.\u201d Businessweek<\/em> 26 May 2003. Web. 23 May 2011 http<\/a>:\/\/<\/a>www<\/a>.<\/a>businessweek<\/a>.<\/a>com<\/a>\/<\/a>magazine<\/a>\/<\/a>content<\/a>\/03_21\/<\/a>b<\/a>3834010_<\/a>mz<\/a>001.<\/a>htm<\/a><\/p>\n\n\n\n [6]<\/a> Garcia, Guy. The Decline of Men<\/em>. 2008. HarperCollins e-books. Loc. 738. Kindle.<\/p>\n\n\n\n [7]<\/a> Ibid. Loc 77.<\/p>\n\n\n\n [8]<\/a> Ibid. Loc 4190.<\/p>\n\n\n\n [9]<\/a> Kimmel, Micheal. Guyland.<\/em> 2008. HarperCollins e-books. Kindle.<\/p>\n\n\n\n [10]<\/a> Ibid. Loc. 591.<\/p>\n\n\n\n [11]<\/a>Shriver, Maria. \u201cThe Shriver Report : A Woman\u2019s Nation Changes Everything.\u201d The Center for American Progress<\/em>. The Center for American Progress, 16 Oct. 2009. Web. 24 May 2011. http:\/\/www.americanprogress.org\/issues\/2009\/10\/womans_nation.html<\/p>\n\n\n\n [12]<\/a>\u201cWe did it! .\u201d The Economist<\/em>. N.p., 30 Dec. 2009. Web. 24 May 2011. http<\/a>:\/\/<\/a>www<\/a>.<\/a>economist<\/a>.<\/a>com<\/a>\/<\/a>node<\/a>\/15174489?<\/a>story<\/a>_<\/a>id<\/a>=1517448<\/a><\/p>\n\n\n\n [13]<\/a> Rosin, Hanna. \u201cThe End of Men.\u201d The Atlantic.<\/em> July 2010. Web. 24 Feb. 2011. http<\/a>:\/\/<\/a>www<\/a>.<\/a>theatlantic<\/a>.<\/a>com<\/a>\/<\/a>magazine<\/a>\/<\/a>archive<\/a>\/2010\/07\/<\/a>the<\/a>\u2013<\/a>end<\/a>\u2013<\/a>of<\/a>\u2013<\/a>men<\/a>\/8135\/<\/a><\/p>\n\n\n\n [14]<\/a> Romano, Andrew, and Tony Doupkil. \u201cMen\u2019s Lib.\u201d Newsweek.<\/em> 20 Sept. 2010. Web. 24 Feb. 2011. http<\/a>:\/\/<\/a>www<\/a>.<\/a>newsweek<\/a>.<\/a>com<\/a>\/2010\/09\/20\/<\/a>why<\/a>\u2013<\/a>we<\/a>\u2013<\/a>need<\/a>\u2013<\/a>to<\/a>\u2013<\/a>reimagine<\/a>\u2013<\/a>masculinity<\/a>.<\/a>html<\/a><\/p>\n\n\n\n [15]<\/a> Gabler, Neal. \u201cDay of the Lout.\u201d Los Angeles Times<\/em>. 13 Feb. 2011. Web. 24 Feb. 2011. http<\/a>:\/\/<\/a>www<\/a>.<\/a>latimes<\/a>.<\/a>com<\/a>\/<\/a>entertainment<\/a>\/<\/a>news<\/a>\/<\/a>la<\/a>\u2013<\/a>ca<\/a>\u2013<\/a>louts<\/a>-20110213,0,2024755.<\/a>story<\/a><\/p>\n\n\n\n [16]<\/a> Hymowitz, Kay S. \u201cWhere Have The Good Men Gone?\u201d The Wall Street Journal.<\/em> 19 Feb. 2011. Web. 24 Feb. 2011. http<\/a>:\/\/<\/a>online<\/a>.<\/a>wsj<\/a>.<\/a>com<\/a>\/<\/a>article<\/a>\/<\/a>SB<\/a>10001424052748704409004576146321725889448.<\/a>html<\/a><\/p>\n\n\n\n [17]<\/a> Tiger, Lionel. The Decline of Males. <\/em>1999. Golden Books. Print. 233.<\/p>\n\n\n\n [18]<\/a> Ibid. 249.<\/p>\n\n\n\n [19]<\/a> Ibid. 159.<\/p>\n\n\n\n [20]<\/a> Hymowitz, Kay. Manning Up: How the Rise of Women Has Turned Men into Boys. 2011. Basic Books. Kindle. Loc. 1558.<\/p>\n\n\n\n [21]<\/a> Ibid. Loc. 819.<\/p>\n\n\n\n [22]<\/a> Ibid. Loc. 1837.<\/p>\n\n\n\n [23]<\/a> Ibid. Loc. 1910.<\/p>\n\n\n\n [24]<\/a> Ibid. Loc. 1035.<\/p>\n\n\n\n \u201cA beast of prey tamed and in captivity\u2014every zoological garden can furnish examples\u2014is mutilated, world-sick, inwardly dead. Some of them voluntarily hunger-strike when they are captured. Herbivores give up nothing in being domesticated.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n \u2014Oswald Spengler, Man and Technics<\/em><\/p>\n\n\n\n Today, many people would consider it cruel to place an animal in an enclosure that is drastically different from its natural habitat. We design our zoos and aquariums and terrariums to simulate natural conditions as best we can. Enthusiastic hobbyists spend small fortunes attempting to create miniature facsimiles of the natural world. This is to \u201cplease\u201d their captive fauna. Although many suppose that the animal would be \u201chappier\u201d in the wild, insofar as animals experience \u201chappiness,\u201d most seem to believe that animals are dumb enough to be tricked into being reasonably content in a half-assed knock-off of the ecosystem they were snatched from. So we spruce up a small glass box with coral to make it feel <\/em>like the ocean, or hang a garland of palm leaves and call it the jungle. Most animals really aren\u2019t that bright, so maybe it is just as well for Mr. Fish to swim around the ceramic pirate ship so long as he is reasonably safe and his belly is full.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Getting men, especially young men, to adapt to the confines and limitations of civilized society has always been a bit of a challenge. Virile restlessness, athleticism and competitiveness have been trained and tamed by sports and games throughout history. Gaming has provided the shoemaker and bricklayer with the feel<\/em> of conflict, danger and war in peaceful, prosperous times. People always assumed that men were drawn to certain kinds of activities, and that providing some sort of release valve for natural male aggression was healthy. It made men happy to do the things they wanted to do, and ways were found for men to exert their virility constructively\u2014or with minimal destruction.<\/p>\n\n\n\n For most men, even \u201ccivilized\u201d work was more challenging and demanded more physical exertion than it does now. Work was goal oriented; it required skill and practical know-how. It provided a tangible, personal and immediate sense of purpose. Farming, blacksmithing, and building can all easily be framed as symbolic struggles against nature. Work felt <\/em>more like aggression<\/em> and the exertion of will. On our continuum of masculinity, work was more direct and engaging, less removed from the primal struggle for survival.<\/p>\n\n\n\n The industrial revolution pulled men away from physically and mentally engaging trades and replaced those trades with simple jobs and tasks which required little skill or thought. Increasingly, work felt<\/em> like submission. Sports become more popular and important than ever before. Hobbies like woodworking and hunting and various outdoor activities were promoted as manly pursuits. Men bought pulp magazines filled with lurid tales of exotic adventures they knew they\u2019d never have. Men marveled at strongmen, then weightlifters, then bodybuilders. With decreased opportunities for virile action, men were increasingly drawn to opportunities for virile display. Masculinity became increasingly vicarious, virtual and symbolic.<\/p>\n\n\n\n The transition to a service and \u201cknowledge work\u201d economy made things worse for men. The cubicle felt<\/em> even less like active, aggressive work. Some men are particularly suited to it, or they manage to channel their energy elsewhere, but the \u201cjobs of the future\u201d leave a lot of men inwardly dead. The modern workplace often feels like a fishbowl without so much as a ceramic pirate ship to swim around. If anything, these days it\u2019s a bunch of pink plastic flowers. If you accept the possibility that men and boys, like the males of most other large animals, have in general a different nature and a different set of reproductive interests than the female of the species, it is not difficult to see why the modern, post-feminist world has men \u201cunderperforming.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n Unfortunately, when those in the media talk about men in the 21st<\/sup> century, the questions they ask and the answers they offer usually stink of false naivet\u00e9. Like the female reporter who, with a straight face, asked actor Charlie Sheen why he liked to have sex with porn stars, the media remains purposefully and self righteously clueless about the nature of men.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Feminists claimed the moral high ground, appealing to men\u2019s sense of fairness. They convinced men to help them reorganize society and eliminate the notion that males and females should have different sex roles and responsibilities. Men, perhaps egotistically, agreed that The Way of Men was better, and that it was unfair to prevent women from achieving their full potential in the way that men conceptualized both achievement and potential. Western wealth and technology made this social transformation possible. Manly virtues were neutered and simply became \u201cvirtues\u201d\u2014 though the Latin root vir<\/em> means \u201cman.\u201d To make women feel<\/em> equal and encourage them to achieve in the public realm, men were encouraged to change the way they talked about manhood. Strength, courage and honor were de-sexed and reinterpreted in more relative terms. To be inclusive, people invented different \u201ckinds\u201d of strength, courage and honor, so that the weakest boy or the meekest girl could somehow feel strong, courageous or honorable. As part of this massive self-esteem building project for women, the idea of \u201cemotional intelligence\u201d was introduced and promoted, thought it was never really taken seriously. To explain women\u2019s historical lack of achievement, men as a sex were cast as mere bullies. The achievements of history\u2019s great men were reconsidered and judged according to standards determined by feminist ideology. Noble institutions and social clubs for men that encouraged civic responsibility and \u201cmoral masculinity\u201d were renounced as exclusive and patriarchal, or forcibly integrated and rendered impotent and unrecognizable.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Women appropriated everything they wanted from thousands of years of male culture, and men cobbled together a collective identity from what was left\u2014benign macho posturing, fart jokes and beer. Now that imported or micro-brewed \u201ccraft\u201d beer is becoming the new wine, and female politicians pose with guns and run around telling folks to \u201cman up,\u201d I\u2019m afraid all that men will have left is fart jokes. This is troubling to me because\u2014despite the persistent efforts of flatulent friends\u2014I still don\u2019t find fart jokes all that funny, much less a desirable basis for my \u201cgender identity.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n In 1974, feminist Janet Satzman Chaftez imagined a utopia where androgyny replaced gender role stereotypes. She hoped that, perhaps by the year 2000, people would move beyond perceiving themselves as being either masculine or feminine, and instead see themselves as merely being human.[1]<\/a> It is a theme in much of feminist writing that men and women must discover a common humanity and abandon old ideas about the sexes.<\/p>\n\n\n\n However, in the case of women, this has consistently been a case of saying one thing and doing another. Only men are expected to see the world in gender-neutral terms. Women organize consistently as a group to advocate for women\u2019s interests. Even as they have fought for inclusion in every realm once reserved for men, they have created an entire subculture catering specifically to women. As I write this, there is a women\u2019s film festival going on in my town. There are women\u2019s gyms, and a dizzying number of women\u2019s health and health advocacy organizations. Women have their own magazines, television channels, websites, bookstores, and so on. There is, as Hanna Rosin mentioned, a \u201ctravelling sisterhood\u201d of women helping each other as women\u2014not merely as human beings. Women are acting collectively in their own interests as a sex.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Women have not abandoned their sexual identities, they have expanded them. Whereas men are told that they can no longer do the things they used to do, and are asked to repudiate their heritage as males, women are told to embrace their past, to keep doing everything that they\u2019ve always done\u2014and do more!<\/p>\n\n\n\n A common bumper sticker reads:<\/p>\n\n\n\n \u201cFeminism is the radical notion that women are human beings.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n It should read:<\/p>\n\n\n\n Feminism is the radical notion that men should do whatever women say, so that women can do whatever the hell they want.<\/em><\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n The androgynous feminism of Chaftez has in practice become a feminism that sells women strength and power, but permits them to maintain a distinct sexual identity and organize to advance their own interests as a sex. We have not become simply \u201chuman\u201d\u2014we still recognize ourselves as men and women, even in 2011. Chaftez acknowledged that feminism posed a threat to men, because the change would entail, \u201ca loss of many concrete prerogatives.\u201d[2]<\/a> She was right about that. By any straightforward measure, feminism required men to progressively transfer power to women. If advances in technology and global exchange had been slower, this transfer might have been more orderly and even-handed. However, in Chaftez\u2019s lifetime, economic and technological changes happened so rapidly that women were able to capitalize on them and transform the workplace and the social terrain to their liking at once, while men were left standing with their dicks in their hands.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Guy Garcia hopes that this failure to adapt will liberate men\u2014that, broken by economic and social change, men will remake themselves in the shadow of Amazonian triumph. At the Burning Man festival, he wondered \u201cWhat better way to welcome the resplendent return of the Goddess than with the symbolic immolation of the male?\u201d[3]<\/a> Garcia wrapped up The Decline of Men<\/em> with the story of Gerald Levin, who was the architect of the disastrous AOL\/Time Warner merger in 2000. When the merger failed, a reeling Levin started talking about bringing \u201cthe poetry\u201d back into life during an interview with Lou Dobbs. Levin was approached by a much younger woman who wanted him to invest in a boutique wellness clinic catering to celebrities other high profile clients. Eventually, he left his wife of 32 years for his new business partner.[4]<\/a> Levin moved to California, where he now serves as the Managing Director of the Moonview Santuary. The Moonview Sanctuary specializes in New Age therapy and holistic healing, and Levin has said it is now his mission to \u201cbreak down male culture.\u201d[5]<\/a><\/p>\n\n\n\n The dubious notion that humans once roamed the earth in peaceful, goddess worshipping matriarchal tribes offered a way for feminists and pacifists to reimagine a masculinity completely unlike the strength and aggression based masculinity that has been a relative constant throughout history. If people were once \u201cnaturally\u201d peaceful, then all we know of human HIStory could be reframed as an aberration\u2014a fever of male violence that swept over all people in every land. If people were once \u201cnaturally\u201d peaceful, then feminism could be reframed as a return to the natural order of things, instead of a departure from nature. Evolutionary biologists Wrangham and Peterson convincingly argued that,<\/p>\n\n\n\n \u00a0\u201cIt is good to dream, but sober, waking rationality suggests that if we start with ancestors like chimpanzees and end up with modern humans building walls and fighting platforms, the 5-million-year-long-trail to our modern selves was lined, along its full stretch, by a male aggression that structured our ancestors\u2019 social lives and technology and minds.\u201d[6]<\/a><\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n\n\n\n It is most likely that men, armed with greater upper body and overall strength, have used that strength to assert their own reproductive interests over the interests of women and other men in predictable and familiar patterns over and over again. Any other conclusion requires magical thinking.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Eco-pacifist Sam Keen also believed in a peaceful, matriarchal prehistory, and many of the ideas presented in his 1991 New York Times Bestseller Fire in the Belly<\/em> rest on the assumption that the ideas we have about masculinity were shaped by a \u201cwarfare system\u201d which followed agricultural development.[7]<\/a> However, like Wrangham and Peterson, archaeologist Lawrence Keeley concluded in his grim catalog of pre-historic violence, War Before Civilization, <\/em>that the notion of a pacified past is, \u201cincompatible with the most relevant ethnographic and archaeological evidence.\u201d[8]<\/a> If calls for a return to a feminine system are based on a peaceful pre-history that never was, then there is nothing to return to<\/em>.<\/p>\n\n\n\n While some radical feminists, queer theorists, transgendered persons and others have argued for the eradication of gender stereotypes and a move beyond perceiving people as being either masculine or feminine, the fact remains that biologically speaking about half of humans are male and the other half female. Most people seem to be willing to accept the idea that males and females are at least somewhat <\/em>different. Men and women still maintain and prefer distinct sexual identities.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Indeed, much of the 21st<\/sup> Century triumphalism about the rise of women and \u201cThe End of Men\u201d acknowledges differences between the sexes and celebrates a distinct female identity.<\/p>\n\n\n\n The new way of women downplays the importance of physical differences between the sexes and praises women for their communication skills, their ability to multitask and their preferences for social coalition building and non-violent conflict resolution. The new way of women celebrates female empowerment and the importance of women in shaping history, and chronicles their rise to prominence as a peaceful overcoming of oppression, guided by a desire for justice and equality. Women are taught to take pride in womanhood, and they expect to be able to do just about anything their heart desires.<\/p>\n\n\n\n The problem with the new way of women is that it relies on a transfer of power and opportunity from men, and if this power exchange is to last, men will have to be taught to downgrade their expectations, even as women are taught to expect the world. The new way of women called for a new way of men. Many have attempted to reimagine masculinity in a way that repudiates the old, violent patriarchal \u201cmyths\u201d about men, and provides a more peaceful and sexually egalitarian vision of manhood that is compatible with what women want for themselves.<\/p>\n\n\n\n The mythopoetic men\u2019s movement attempted to do this in the 1980s and early 1990s. In Iron John, <\/em>poet Robert Bly tapped into folklore and tried help men get in touch with the \u201cwild man.\u201d Iron John<\/em> contained some truthful observations, and it got media attention when it was published in 1990. Feminists saw it as a kind of resurgent sexism and mocked it ruthlessly. In 1995, Michael Kimmel edited a collection of essays titled The Politics of Manhood: Profeminist Men respond to the Mythopoetic Men\u2019s Movement (And the Mythopoetic Leaders Answer.<\/em> Most of the essays were criticisms of Iron John. <\/em> The profeminists accused Bly and company of everything from homophobia to male hysteria.[9]<\/a><\/p>\n\n\n\n Had they given Bly a fair read, they would have seen that his \u201cwild man\u201d was really quite tame. Bly\u2019s wild way was explicitly meant to exist in harmony with the feminist project. While it was incompatible with the sci-fi unitard androgyny of Chaftez\u2019s utopian feminism, Bly\u2019s ethos was a response to the way feminism had actually played out on the ground.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Bly stated in his response to profeminist men that it was important for men to \u201cstand up and speak about the pain that millions of women feel\u201d and that as a father he wanted his daughters to have \u201ca fair chance.\u201d He also denied charges that he or any of the mythopoetic men had any interest in reestablishing patriarchy, and even went on to say that the \u201cdestructive essence of patriarchy\u2026moves to kill the young masculine.\u201d[10]<\/a> Like other feminists and many men\u2019s rights activists, he believed that patriarchy hurts most men, too.<\/p>\n\n\n\n In Iron John, <\/em>Bly wrote reverently about the power of the feminine in both myth and reality. His main concern was that men had grown softer and gentler, but that they had \u201cnot become more free\u201d[11]<\/a> because in the wake of feminist advances many young men spent their lives working to please their mothers, girlfriends and wives\u2014while women were working to assert their power at home and at work. He blamed the Industrial revolution for separating boys from their fathers, creating a generation of males who learned \u201cfeeling primarily from the mother\u201d and learned to see manhood from the feminine point of view, and found themselves afraid or suspicious of their own masculinity.[12]<\/a> This observation was astute, and this is likely to be the case for the increasing number of young men who are raised by single mothers. Men have always learned how to be men from older men, and Bly believed that as boys became increasingly distant from their fathers and grandfathers and other potentially positive mentors, they grew up unsure of themselves and uncomfortable in their own skin. His adapted myth of the \u201cwild man\u201d (an ancient, hairy, mysterious woodland mentor) was meant to help men deal with their primal nature and face the challenges of modernity with resolve, but never cruelty.[13]<\/a><\/p>\n\n\n\n Bly understood some of the problems men and boys were facing as they stood in the rubble of patriarchy, looking up to rising women. However, his solutions were forced and his New Agey tone had limited appeal. The idea of grown men going out into the woods to sit in drum circles, read poetry and talk about their feelings was cringe-worthy. It also seemed spoiled and self indulgent. But the biggest problem with Bly\u2019s reimagining of masculinity was that it lacked balls.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Bly wrote of swords and battle, but his battles were the bloodless cartoon fantasies of the most innocent inner child, not the real, bloody conflicts of men. His use of myth was selectively biased in this direction. He cites Homer often and gives King Arthur as an example of a \u201cmale mother,\u201d[14]<\/a> but passes over the prominent themes of bloodlust and honor-seeking in the Iliad and the lurid orgies of smiting and beheading that peppered Malory\u2019s Le Morte D\u2019Arthur.<\/em> Bly advocates the cultivation of an inner warrior but belittles the men whose job it is to make war as mere \u201csoldiers.\u201d Bly\u2019s new age \u201cinner warrior\u201d was told to assert himself, but he could only do so with words. He couldn\u2019t back it up. He was impotent.<\/p>\n\n\n\n In Bly\u2019s own words:<\/p>\n\n\n\n \u201cIf a culture does not deal with the warrior energy\u2014take it up consciously, discipline it, honor it\u2014it will turn up outside in the form of street gangs, wife beating, drug violence, brutality to children, and aimless murder.<\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n\n\n\n One major task of contemporary men is to reimagine, now that the images of eternal warrior and outward warrior no longer provide the model, the value of the warrior in relationships, in literary studies, in thought, in emotion.\u201d[15]<\/a><\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n\n\n\n Bly\u2019s \u201cinner warrior\u201d never makes war, and can only survive in a state where he is protected from men who are<\/em>prepared to use violence against other violent men. The world is still a violent place, and the inner warrior would be a joke\u2014and a helpless target\u2014in the ghetto or the Third World. Bly speaks from a pampered Western upper middle class perspective, where people devote their time to \u201cliterary studies\u201d and \u201crelationships.\u201d The inner warrior attempts to make use of the vocabulary and the virtues that have characterized masculinity throughout history. Without the real world rationales for strength, courage and honor, he is left with a bunch of melodramatic metaphors for a mundane reality.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Sam Keen also attempted to reimagine masculinity by appropriating the language of violent masculinity for disarmed men. In Fire In The Belly<\/em>, he told men to reject the \u201cmyth of war\u201d and to become \u201cfierce gentlemen.\u201d Keen\u2019s fierce gentleman really had nothing to distinguish himself from a fierce gentlewoman. His virtues were Wonder, Empathy, a Heartful Mind, Moral Outrage, Right Livelihood, Enjoyment, Friendship, Communion, Husbanding and Wildness.[16]<\/a>None of these are particularly bad values, but they aren\u2019t gendered concepts and they have nothing in particular to do with any historical sense of manhood. Feminists, to whom Keen genuflected numerous times, have been in the moral outrage business for years.<\/p>\n\n\n\n In his 1996 magnum opus, Manhood in America<\/em>, Michael Kimmel hypocritically employed the script of traditional strength-based masculinity to shame Bly and Keen in his chapter on \u201cWimps, Whiners and Weekend Warriors.\u201d[17]<\/a>Their attempts to nurture some meaningful connection to the myth and history of men\u2014however carefully edited, pacified and conciliatory to feminists in spirit\u2014were still perceived as too much of a threat to the agendas of feminist activists and academics. As an alternative, Kimmel offered what he called a \u201cdemocratic manhood.\u201d He defined this as \u201ca gender politics of inclusion, of standing up against injustice based on difference,\u201d and suggested that men should embrace feminism, gay liberation, and multiculturalism as a blue-print for the reconstruction of masculinity.[18]<\/a>Kimmel decorates his democratic manhood with a sense of struggle against adversity and vague feel of heroism, but calling this \u201cmanhood\u201d is a crass and condescending manipulation. Kimmel\u2019s profeminist man is a no-man. His masculinity is defined by the rejection of traditional definitions of masculinity, save for its reliance on a narrative of self-sacrifice. This democratic no-man must renounce his own sense of identity and devote his energies to helping others attain a \u201csure and confident\u201d sense of themselves and \u201ctheir rightful share of the sun.\u201d[19]<\/a> He must commit himself to selfless toil on behalf of others, and he must do so without question or complaint. Kimmel assures men that somehow, by giving up the struggle to \u201cprove manhood,\u201d men will finally be free, and be able to \u201cbreathe a collective sigh of relief.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n If proving manhood is no longer necessary, what will motivate males to strive to prove that they are \u201cdemocratic men?\u201d Relieved of all but the most high-minded, abstract and legally optional expectations, what is to stop men from collectively putting their feet up, breathing a sigh of relief, and doing\u2026as little as possible?<\/p>\n\n\n\n The pacified, \u201creimagined\u201d masculinities of Garcia, Bly, Keen and Kimmel all require men to deny their own interests. The only carrots they dangle for men are obscure and philosophical, and therefore naturally have a very limited appeal. Garcia, Bly, Keen and Kimmel have nothing to say to the man who is looking for a way to better his own circumstances or make his own way in the material world.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Sensing that men are pacing their concrete cages, the reimaginers of masculinity have attempted to redecorate man\u2019s pound with questing narratives and talk of wildness. But a spiritual journey is just a story about thinking. You don\u2019t actually go anywhere. The inner warrior never knows what it means to face death head on, or to see the life leave the eyes of his vanquished foe. His victories are petty and his defeats are trivial. The weekend initiate to manhood never feels the earth on his knees, the urgency of hunger or the warmth of fresh blood on his forehead. And the man who denies his own will to power so that others may thrive makes himself a slave.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Kimmel and other feminists frequently goad men who reject feminism and cosmopolitan values by accusing them of escapism and retreat. But the ascetic masculinity that feminists promote requires a retreat inward\u2014guided by a near-religious and open-ended commitment to helping women, gays and racial minorities achieve their own goals. Feminist and pacifists ask men to live passive lives of restraint and self-discipline. There have always been priests and monks and self-flagellators who got off on self denial. A certain kind of man, usually an intellectual, will find this lifestyle to his taste. Men generally seem to appreciate the obsessive fortitude required for internal as well as external battles. Abstinence has its own momentum, and tends to impart a sense of superiority over those who give in to primal appetites. But Kimmel and the others are blind solipsists if they believe a majority of men will ever become equally passionate about their pet projects, or that all men will be equally willing to put aside their own interests indefinitely.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Equality can\u2019t demand that one group restrain itself so that the other group can prosper and do whatever it wants. \u201cEquality,\u201d if such a thing were even possible, would at least theoretically offer everyone the same opportunity to act in their own best interests as individuals, with limited interference from others.<\/p>\n\n\n\n However, like Diana Moon Glampers, the Handicapper General from Kurt Vonnegut\u2019s \u201cHarrison Bergeron,\u201d organized feminists consistently demand a measurable equality of outcome. It has not been enough for women to gain an equality of opportunity.[20]<\/a> If enough women aren\u2019t involved in sports or the sciences or if women aren\u2019t equally represented as generals and captains of industry, feminists demand that resources be diverted away from programs that help men, and advocate for programs that encourage women. Since the success of such programs can only be measured by the success of women in the desired area (whether they are succeeding or not) any self-interested bureaucrat who wants to please his or her superiors had better have the numbers to prove men and women are equal every which way. The net effect in such scenarios always a soft discrimination against men. The hypocrisy of feminists when it comes to \u201cequality seeking\u201d efforts is evident from their apparent disinterest in rolling back programs which have made women more successful than men in a given field of endeavor, and in their vocal resistance to starting programs that help men in areas where men are lagging. The \u201cequality\u201d script is employed by women when it serves their interests, but many take a more punitive tone when it comes to lifting the bags of birdshot from the necks of men. After all, men deserve<\/em> their handicaps for oppressing women. Men born in the wake of second wave feminism are punished for the supposed sins of their long dead forefathers.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Although profeminists from Keen to Kimmel attribute women with the noblest and most innocent equality-seeking aims, the truth is that women are neither good nor evil. They are simply female primates, who, like the male of the species, will band together and skew things to their liking if given the opportunity. Women are ascendant, and they have no intention of making any changes that might compromise their advancements. They will err on the side of caution and make sure they are always a little more equal<\/em> than men whenever it really counts. Not because women are evil, but because they will serve their own interests first.<\/p>\n\n\n\n There\u2019s a concept within the \u201cmen\u2019s movement\u201d known as \u201cMen Going Their Own Way\u201d (MGTOW). It is a feminist concept in the sense that the MGTOW manifesto generally acknowledges the rights of women to vote and do what they want and does not seek to reestablish patriarchy. The MGTOW movement more or less encourages men to serve their own immediate interests and to do whatever they want, too. It is a decentralized movement that advises men to work against feminist laws that favor women or unfairly penalize men.[21]<\/a> The basic idea is simply, \u201cyou go your way, and I\u2019ll go mine.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n While relatively few men would recognize the MGTOW acronym, it is true that many young men are \u201cgoing their own way.\u201d And that\u2019s exactly what feminists like Rosin, Kimmel, Garcia, Romano, Doupkil, Gabler and Hymowitz have been fretting about. While there will always be exceptions\u2014the ascetics and the passive, herbivorous[22]<\/a>\u201cbonobo\u201d boys\u2014young men who were raised by women, processed through a feminist-friendly educational system, who see that women probably have better prospects than they do, and who have been relieved of the responsibilities associated with patriarchy see no reason to toil to help women get the things they want, especially in a society that aspires to \u201cequality\u201d between the sexes. As Rosin and others trumpet a future where girls are for the first time more desirable than boys, they must see the gall in asking men to get excited about speeding the plow.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Young men are becoming cynical and distrustful of a system that is designed to favor everyone but them. Scolding lectures from the agents of diversity culture that tell young men they are simply reacting to a loss of \u201cprivilege\u201d certainly don\u2019t inspire them to invest in a future where they have even less \u201cprivilege\u201d\u2014especially if it seems likely that this future will \u201cprivilege\u201d everybody else.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Young men who see no reason to invest in the future are doing what they always do\u2014they\u2019re thinking short term and taking whatever they can get in the present.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Mark Simpson coined the term \u201cmetrosexual\u201d in a 1994 essay, \u201cHere Come the Mirror Men,\u201d to describe a rising male narcissism evident from consumer trends in Western nations. These men, too, were \u201cgoing their own way\u201d\u2014working out, shopping for fashionable clothes and grooming themselves to attract women (or men) by virtue of their appearances instead of their virility, their accomplishments or their ability to provide economically. Simpson has mused that these \u201cmirror men\u201d were more likely to be in love with themselves than with a woman. [23]<\/a><\/p>\n\n\n\n These young men have discovered that good grooming and the appearance of affluence is not all they need to get laid. Pick up artists and advocates of \u201cgame\u201d like the pseudonymous authors of the popular blog Citizen Renegade<\/em> (now \u201cHeartiste\u201d) advise men to take advantage of evolutionary psychology and appear to be \u201calpha\u201d\u2014a primal group leader\u2014when dealing with women. Game advocates say that a man can run game inside a marriage or a long term relationship, but they generally take a dim view of a married man\u2019s chances for well-being and fulfillment\u2014especially financial well-being and sexual fulfillment.[24]<\/a> Game as a sexual strategy seems to be geared toward providing short term gratification for men and women, but also avoiding long term misery. As my colleague W.F. Price at The Spearhead<\/em> has written, there are no more wives\u2014or at least there are very few. Young women no longer grow up preparing for everyday married life, they grow up planning their careers, their wardrobes and their gauzy, frosted Cinderella fantasy weddings.[25]<\/a><\/p>\n\n\n\n There have also been changes in the sexual economy that satisfy the short-term sexual interests of young men. As Tiger noted, available contraception changed almost everything. Women hold more cards in terms of long-term options. Young men know that a pregnant woman can choose to abort or not without input from him, and she can demand child support if she chooses to keep her baby. If he has chosen to make the long-term investment in a family, he knows that a woman\u2014women initiate the majority of divorces\u2014may leave him and demand child support at any time. But when it comes to getting short-term sexual gratification, so long as birth control is employed, \u201cthe market \u2018price\u2019 of sex is currently very low.\u201d[26]<\/a> In the past, premarital sex had high social costs (especially for women) and the social costs of out-of-wedlock birth were even higher. However, now that premarital sex has become a norm, contraceptives are widely available, and young women are more likely to be financially successful or self-sufficient, they can afford to demand less long term commitment from men in return for sex. If they demand more, there are other girls who will demand less, and they will be priced out of the market. According to a recent article in Slate<\/em>, this is exactly what is happening, especially on college campuses where there are more females than males. These young women are \u201care more negative about campus men, hold more negative views of their relationships, go on fewer dates, are less likely to have a boyfriend, and receive less commitment in exchange for sex.\u201d A National Longitudinal Study of Adolescent Health showed that sex was happening sooner in relationships, and that 30% of young men\u2019s relationships, \u201cinvolve no romance at all: no wooing, no dates, no nothing.\u201d[27]<\/a><\/p>\n\n\n\n Michael Kimmel noted similar campus trends in his book, Guyland<\/em>. He blamed the boys for the fact that the girls have gone wild\u2014\u201chooking up\u201d promiscuously instead of dating, because that\u2019s what the boys want. It is interesting that even as Kimmel claimed young women have the world on the string, he more or less admitted that they are so desperate for male attention that they\u2019ll gladly debauch themselves for it. Kimmel validated the alpha vs. beta worldview of \u201cgame\u201d theorists when he wrote:<\/p>\n\n\n\n \u201cWomen sustain Guyland because Guyland seems to be populated by Rhett Butlers, and they are much cooler than the Ashley Wilkeses of the college campus\u2014the guys who study hard, are considerate of their feelings, and listen to them. Those guys are a bit nerdy, good friendship material, but they don\u2019t take your breath away.\u201d[28]<\/a><\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n\n\n\n The actions and the unrehearsed words of women reveal that they want something other than what they say <\/em>they want. When women get the fair-minded, negotiating, household-chore-sharing men that feminists say they want, they mock them as \u201ckitchen bitches\u201d and divorce them, as Sandra Tsing Loh did in a piece of comically unrefined misandry she wrote for The Atlantic<\/em> about her own decision to divorce.<\/em> She mused about a bonobo solution to marriage wherein \u201cthe men\/husbands\/boyfriends come in once or twice a week to build shelves, prepare that bouillabaisse, or provide sex.\u201d[29]<\/a> Hanna Rosin of \u201cThe End of Men\u201d fame responded to the piece with a few confessions about her own husband, who she worried had usurped her in the kitchen by becoming a fine cook who enjoyed cooking for his family. Her feminist solution was to throw a cookbook across the room and \u201cstorm\u201d upstairs. Now she rushes home from work to make dinner before her husband can, presumably, so she can feel more like a woman. And her husband, she said, simply \u201cgot the message\u201d and \u201cceded some of the territory\u201d back to her.[30]<\/a><\/p>\n\n\n\n As things have shaken out in the aftermath of the sexual revolution, men are better able to assert their interests in short-term relationships, and women are better able to assert their interests in long term relationships. This is a familiar comic theme in film and television\u2014men frustrate women by avoiding \u201ccommitment\u201d (to a relationship) as long as they can, and women panic as their biological clocks tick and their viability in the sexual marketplace declines.<\/p>\n\n\n\n As young men, especially young men in disadvantaged socio-economic groups, have invested less effort in education and become less interested in pursuing the kinds of careers that lead to affluence in a global economy, and as the kinds of work many men enjoy has been degraded or exported to countries where labor is cheap, recycled calls to \u201creimagine masculinity\u201d have become increasingly desperate.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Anti-rape and anti-violence activists like Jackson Katz have been talking for years about the \u201cmacho paradox\u201d [31]<\/a><\/sup>and telling young men how it perpetuates violence against women.[32]<\/a> The National Organization for Men Against Sexism (NOMAS) traces its roots to the 1970s. It counts \u201cunlearning aggressiveness\u201d and \u201cun-learning large parts of the male role\u201d among its basic tenets[33]<\/a>, and states in its principles[34]<\/a> that \u201cmen can live as happier and more fulfilled human beings by challenging the old-fashioned rules of masculinity.\u201d \u201cReimagining masculinity\u201d has also been a theme in the men\u2019s movement for some time.<\/p>\n\n\n\n As men struggled after the crash of the early 21st<\/sup> Century real estate boom with the insult of fewer construction jobs adding to the injury of outsourced manufacturing, previously ignored calls to address the \u201ccrisis in masculinity\u201d were finally being heard by a wider audience. In 2010, a Foundation for Male Studies[35]<\/a> was formed in an attempt to create university programs to study the male condition. Its early promotional content seemed to echo concerns from both the men\u2019s rights and the pro-feminist communities that males are more likely to go to prison, commit suicide, or avoid seeking medical treatment. Many prominent men\u2019s rights activists, in agreement with the feminists they identify as enemies\u2014as well as Bly and Keen before them\u2014now believe that \u201cmasculinity has, as it relates to modern realities, corrupt, oppressive and destructive elements that need to change.\u201d[36]<\/a> Some are positioning men as a new minority[37]<\/a>group, a new social identity group asserting its interests by competing for a place at the grievance table alongside other sexual, ethnic, racial and religious identity groups.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Feminists have no intention of allowing men to compete fairly with women as a grievance group, and some have turned their pleas for men to \u201creimagine masculinity\u201d into an impatient command for men to \u201cman up.\u201d Men are being told that they had better get out of their funk and abandon their \u201cmusty scripts\u201d of masculinity in a hurry, because the globalist, feminist future isn\u2019t waiting for them any longer. Women are moving up, and if men need to do \u201cgirly jobs\u201d to help women make ends meet or become stay-at-home dads to pick up a successful working mom\u2019s slack, then feminists say that\u2019s just how it\u2019s going to have to be. Men had better tie on their aprons and learn to like it<\/em>.<\/p>\n\n\n\n The hypocrisy of feminists telling men to \u201cman up\u201d is that it invokes the same ancient masculine archetypes that all those who have tried to \u201creimagine masculinity\u201d have been trying to put to bed. They are ham-handedly trying to tap into the power of the very same \u201cmale culture\u201d that they want to break down. They are telling men to prove their masculinity, after saying that men should no longer have to do that. They are selling men liberation from the \u201cman code\u201d[38]<\/a> and then telling men how they must behave to be considered \u201cgood men.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n In effect, feminists are now saying that a man must be strong, courageous and even heroic in his willingness to sacrifice his own interests for the good of the tribe. From the mouths of feminists, this is crass and manipulative. Males may be faltering in the educational achievement, but they\u2019re not dumb<\/em>. Men in the past have made great sacrifices for honor and glory and the esteem of their male peers\u2014not to mention rewards of booty and women. Feminists want men to shame and abandon the bold manhood of their forefathers for a pat on the head and the privilege of being called kitchen bitches.<\/p>\n\n\n\n The reimaginers of masculinity have failed to connect with mainstream men, and they are destined to fail so long as they refuse to deal with men as self-interested individuals. Their reimagined models of masculinity will fail to inspire the majority of men so long as they actively reject the natural primacy of strength in the male hierarchy of virtues.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Osama bin Laden famously remarked that \u201cwhen people see a strong horse and a weak horse, by nature, they will like the strong horse.\u201d [39]<\/a><\/p>\n\n\n\n All of these \u201creimagined masculinities\u201d are weak horses.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Calling yourself a wild man does not make you wild, and everyone knows it.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Pacifist \u201cfierce gentlemen\u201d and \u201cdemocratic men\u201d are restricted to talking tough\u2014they can say whatever they want because they don\u2019t have to back it up. Tough talkers and civilized blowhards of both sexes can speak their mind with impunity only in a lawful society secured by the threat of violence from armed men (and women). If manliness can be reduced to \u201cassertiveness,\u201d as Harvey Mansfield asserted, then he was right to say that Margaret Thatcher was a manly woman.[40]<\/a><\/p>\n\n\n\n If \u201cmanning up\u201d means taking whatever job you can get to support your family or changing diapers or doing whatever women want you to do, why call it \u201cmanning up\u201d at all? Why not just call it \u201cbeing responsible\u201d or \u201cbeing obedient?\u201d Writer Amada Hess was correct when she observed that Doupkil and Romano\u2019s calls to \u201creimagine masculinity\u201d merely re-codified masculinity as \u201cpersonhood.\u201d[41]<\/a><\/p>\n\n\n\n Reimagining masculinity is a self-esteem building project for impotent men, and an impotence-building project for men with<\/em> self-esteem.<\/p>\n\n\n\n To maintain any kind of civilization, men have to give up a certain amount of their personal sovereignty. The Romans used the fasces<\/em> as a symbol of the collected power of men\u2014a bundle of rods strapped to an axe, wielded by the state. Men agree to surrender some autonomy to the state for the promise of security and order. The state provides a means for men to resolve their disputes and replaces the nasty, brutish and unpredictable violence of total chaos with an orderly dispensation of collective violence. The state becomes the axe.<\/p>\n\n\n\n However, as the state grows, it requires ever greater sacrifices of personal power to maintain order. Men make these sacrifices reluctantly, until over time the state gains enough power to demand and do whatever it wants, with or without the majority mandate of men. Today, our leaders openly mock men who are unwilling to give the state complete control over life and death.[42]<\/a><\/p>\n\n\n\n The desire to reimagine masculinity is a symptom of enslavement. Men have given virtually all of their power to the state. Many European countries have disarmed their citizens, and men are at the mercy of states that claim to act in their collective best interests. Even a century ago, men gathered in the streets to violently overthrow corrupt governments. Today, most Americans couldn\u2019t conceive of doing more than holding a candlelight vigil. Many western men have given up sole proprietorships and crafts and other activities that offer the satisfaction of willed agency and traded this kind of fulfillment for comfortable but unfulfilling busywork jobs at large corporations where men are merely ants and women make perkier workers. As women gain political and financial influence, men are giving up their sovereignty at home, becoming mere peasants to capricious, emasculating queens who can call upon the axe of the state the moment they feel challenged or threatened. A mere whisper from a woman can place a man in shackles and force him to either confess or prove that he is innocent of even the pettiest charges.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Feminists and socialists are content to entrust the state with their care, protection and employment. Chaftez admitted that make-work jobs would have to be created to facilitate her gender-neutral utopia, and she fantasized about a world without the guns that \u201cmany American males cling to\u201d as an \u201cexpression of their virility.\u201d[43]<\/a><\/p>\n\n\n\n The reimaginers of masculinity have realized, perhaps subconsciously, that men still want to feel<\/em> like men. To humor men and better acclimate them to a captive, powerless existence, the reimaginers have taken it upon themselves to decorate the cage a bit. They have attempted to provide safe narratives that offer men the feel<\/em> of expressing a virtual virility without the danger it poses to the interests of women and the status quo. They have brainstormed for ways to empower men without actually giving them any real power. To pacify man, they offered him only the \u201cmother-may-I\u201d masculinities most compatible with the interests of women.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
\n\n\n\nNo Man’s Land<\/h2>\n\n\n\n
\n\n\n\nReimagining Masculinity<\/h2>\n\n\n\n
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