Disassembling the American Male

This one’s been weighing on me for about a decade now. And it seems to be getting worse. Americans appear to love the strong, action-oriented male – witness the popularity of Paramount network’s Yellowstone and Eon Production’s James Bond franchise. But they don’t seem to want them in their lives. American society is actively doing everything it can to denigrate and demoralize the American male. A man can’t be just a man anymore. Since the women’s lib revolution of the ’70s, a man needs to be more than evolution, biology and society have historically taught him how he must be, do and behave. That has transformed many of us into something our genes are fighting against, where today men often don’t know where they stand or what is expected of them. Think this is all hooey? You think I’m just whining? Read on for some evidence (Because I’m traveling, I don’t have ready access to the research I did to support this. But, the data is real and can be found in government and industry reports.).

First off, let’s look at affirmative action. Turns out it’s been applied to the sexes, too. In the mid-sixties, over 70% of those attending college were male. After affirmative action and women’s lib took effect, it took less than ten years for that figure to flip. I wasn’t aware of this until my boys began applying to colleges around 2007. I noticed all of the schools they were applying to essentially had two girls for every boy. That’s right, wherever you look college enrollment is still 62% female on the low side up to 70%+ on the high side. In graduate school, the figures soar to 70-80% female. Add to that the disparity that there can be women-only universities, but male-only universities get sued out of existence.

Not only are girls getting preferential treatment and encouragement to enter college, they’re getting preferential admissions treatment. Boys are simply being told they’re not smart enough, or encouraged to do ‘other things.’ They’re not offered the middle and high school programs girls are, nor are they encouraged to try; they’re just being ignored while girls are being celebrated. Think I’m crazy? It plays out on TV every day. All you have to do is watch commercials.

The typical commercial these days celebrates female independence, female brains, female resourcefulness, female everything. The worst part is it does it while doing one of two things – ignoring males altogether, or showing men as bumbling, whimpy, ignorant, and stupid; essentially helpless, or very dangerous. When a woman and a man are shown together, commercial after commercial portrays the woman as knowing the answers, being decisive and confident, leading the conversation, solving problems and in the end, always being proven right. The man, on the other hand, is just the opposite in every respect. He plays the dunce, the inept counterpoint to the all-knowing female. Complete emasculation. And that is if there’s a man in the commercial at all.

Today, it’s staggering how many promotional commercials tout opportunities for women to realize their abilities and potential. Everything from celebrating and increasing awareness of Title IX to literally everything else under the sun. Want to be a fire fighter? Here’s how. Want to be a scientist, an engineer, an astronaut, a doctor? Here’s where you need to go and what you need to do. Ever see one of those commercials directed at encouraging boys? Never. Not ever. Doesn’t happen. Because you’re male, somehow that is just bred into you; you’re born with that know-how, that desire. You don’t need that encouragement. What a croc!

The role portrayals from the fifties and early sixties have reversed. That is not a good thing. It’s not good for anyone, because it doesn’t eliminate the bias or the bigotry, it only reverses it. We seem to have a pandemic of that going on everywhere these days.

I’m for equal promotion of opportunity, equal help for opportunity. This favoring one class, or sex, or race over another ostensibly to rectify past wrongs only creates more wrongs and more problems. It redirects the same problem onto others, doing nothing to eliminate it. Why do we keep making these same, stupid mistakes? Why can’t we promote lifting everyone up? This concept that someone must pay for someone else’s success is idiotic, and it limits the heights to which we can lift ourselves and humankind.

Are there winners and losers? Sometimes, but what individuals do and what heights they achieve should be determined by their effort and their preferences, not by outside forces. We should not be in the business of picking winners before the race has begun. America is supposed to be the land of opportunity, not the place where your destiny is decided for you. If things don’t work out, we should be able to move on and find another opportunity. In this country all have the chance to live full and healthy lives; to travel and experience the world near us or far from us. Our standard of living is beyond mere existence; it’s now one that offers the chance of fulfillment. The level of that fulfillment is what’s in question and what, due to ability, can never be equal. And it shouldn’t be. We need a merit-based society, a merit-based economy. Without that, we guarantee mediocrity, the lack of free will, and the stifling of human advancement.

So, when you see the male/female couple on that next commercial, realize what’s happening here. We cannot reach our potential as an Amazonian society any more than we can reach it as a Misogynist one. That’s not so hard to figure out, is it?