One of the most frequently used woke terms is “toxic masculinity.” How is it defined? Green Hill Recovery defines toxic masculinity as “the need to aggressively compete and dominate others” and states that it “encompasses the most problematic proclivities in men. These same male proclivities foster resistance to psychotherapy.” It goes on to explain:
“Traits of toxic or unhealthy masculinity can include:
- Unconditional physical toughness
- Physical aggression, fear of emotions
- Discrimination against people that aren’t heterosexual
- Hyper-independence
- Sexual aggression or violence
- Anti-feminist behavior
Healthy or positive masculinity is not sexist. It does not discriminate against people that identify as a different gender or sexuality than the male, nor does it have an aversion to acknowledging emotions and vulnerability. Toxic masculinity fosters discrimination against anyone who does not fall into the realm of heterosexuality.”
These definitions can be misused to label anyone with traditional Judeo-Christian moral values as toxic.
Back in 2017, Laura Hollis wrote a column for Jewish World Review in which she decried a growing tendency to label all (emphasis mine) masculinity as toxic, finding it analogous to the process by which opposing discrimination morphed into anti-racism, which in turn became the foundation for the doctrine that all whites are racist. She quoted two examples of defamation of men:
“Earlier this week, a nurse named Taiyesha Baker who worked at Indiana University Health posted a tweet which read, ‘Every white woman raises a detriment to society when they raise a son. Someone with the HIGHEST propensity to be a terrorist, rapist, racist, killer and domestic violence all-star. Historically every son you had should be sacrificed to the wolves …’ IU Health later released a statement saying that the nurse in question no longer worked for them.”
Hollis continued: “That may be one rash tweet. But author and columnist Stephen Marche published a serious piece in The New York Times on Nov. 25, ‘The Unexamined Brutality of the Male Libido.’ Drawing precisely the wrong conclusion from the Weinstein et al parade of horribles, Marche invokes the notion of Freudian repression and intones soberly, ‘If you let boys be boys, they will murder their fathers and sleep with their mothers.’ He concludes, saying, ‘It is not morality but culture – accepting our monstrosity – that can save us. If anything can.’”
Equating every man with Oedipus is truly over the top. But that was only the beginning. Hollis went on to describe what has since become a cultural obsession: “Over the past couple of years, there has been an explosion of media coverage – almost a fetishizing – of transgender and other gender-nonconforming individuals. It isn’t limited to Caitlyn Jenner, Chelsea Manning, or other adults…. While heterosexual and ‘cisgendered’ men endure a barrage of criticism and suspicion, the media fawns over men who wear makeup, dress like women, and cut off their genitals.”
At this point, let me observe that I view the real toxic masculinity as going through the motions of transgendering in order to compete against biological females in athletics, depriving them of awards, scholarships, and endorsements; to share locker rooms and restrooms with women; and even to insist on being imprisoned in women’s facilities where they can rape the inmates. Witness the Paris Olympics, where Italian boxer Angela Carini, saying she had never been hit so hard in her life, quit in tears 46 seconds after being forced to fight an opponent who previously failed a gender test.
The symbolism here is profoundly disturbing. “There have always been men who exploited their power over women (or children, or other men). But this is not characteristic of all men, and saying so is a terrible slur. The solution is morality – a return to sexual restraint, and personal and professional decorum,” Hollis wrote. “What we need are more men who are trained to be gentlemen, not boys who have been indoctrinated to be feminine.”
Unfortunately, this sound advice was ignored. Instead, during the succeeding years, the uproar over “toxic masculinity” has spread from the intellectual sphere to the wider society. Not surprisingly, one of the first sectors to be infected was academia. Effectively proceeding from the false premise that all men are potential rapists, the Obama administration changed the Title IX rules regarding sexual misconduct to make it more difficult for accused men to defend themselves, including a presumption of guilt unless proven innocent; suspension or expulsion based on accusations; and not being able to confront the accuser because seeing the accused could be traumatic for her. The Trump administration reverted to the old rules; the Biden administration reinstated the Obama rules.
It didn’t take long for men to realize how vulnerable they were. Many reacted by retreating from the dating scene, all too often substituting pornography, and more generally by increased passivity. This is harmful to society in terms of decreasing family formation. The U.S. birth rate is 1.6-1.8 children per woman, well below the replacement level of 2.1. Countries in Europe are already declining in population, for which they compensate by admitting large numbers of Third World immigrants who may not share Western values (as we are now also doing). On the other hand, reduced fertility fits in with the program of radical environmentalists for drastically reducing the global human population.
Another harmful consequence of male passivity is that there are an estimated seven million American men who have dropped out of the labor force, primarily young men who live with their parents, many of whom are addicted to the Internet and/or recreational drugs. Much of this problem has arisen from the cultural war on men, which has reached the point where about 60% of college students are women, and twenty-something women now earn slightly more than men their age, which is a further deterrent to dating. History suggests that having a large cohort of unemployed men is dangerous, as men commit 90% of violent crimes.
This statistic brings us to yet another deleterious effect of the war on men, namely, increased risks to personal safety. Like it or not, men are the natural protectors of women, children, and the elderly, and we now find ourselves in a world where Soros-funded prosecutors release dangerous offenders without cash bail and reduce many felony charges to misdemeanors while prosecuting police officers and civilians who protect the public.
For example, Soros-funded Jose Garza, prosecutor for Travis County (Austin, Texas) is pursuing indictments against police officers, eleven of whom are facing trial. One of them, Officer Chris Taylor, is charged with murder and potentially facing life imprisonment for shooting a suspect accused of holding a gun to a woman’s head in a parked car, who stepped out of the car but then tried to drive away. Fearing he might use the car as a battering ram against other officers, Officer Taylor fatally shot the suspect, Manuel Ramos. Police later said they found no gun in Ramos’s car.
In another case, a 24-year-old Marine Corps veteran intervened to restrain an erratic schizophrenic who was terrorizing passengers on a New York City F train, using a chokehold that he released when the schizophrenic passed out. Unfortunately, the suspect, who was black, died at the hospital, whereupon the ex-Marine, who is white, was charged with second-degree manslaughter. He goes on trial this October 8, facing up to 19 years in prison, and with DA Alvin Bragg’s office prosecuting him, the verdict is a foregone conclusion.
It has reached the point where writer Peachy Keenan has concluded, “In this terrible, ugly, upside-down, zero-trust society I’ve been forced to raise a family in, I have developed new survival rules. I have instructed my husband and son to be cowards. That’s right: to do nothing if they are in a situation where a dangerous psycho is threatening violence to a stranger.
“I have begged them to sit on their hands; to be one of the people who just watches, runs away, or calls 911. It goes against every chivalric instinct in their bodies, but I do not want them dead or in jail. Instead of being hailed as heroes for saving some old lady’s life, they would be tried as killers and put away for life.”
Yet another threat to security comes from decreased enlistments to the all-volunteer U.S. army, which is currently 40,000 recruits below target. Turned off by everything from recruiting commercials targeting every other identity group to Joint Chief Chairman Milley’s fruitless search for “white supremacists” in the military, young white men who have borne a disproportionate share of the casualties in our wars are turning away from the armed services. This world needs a policeman to combat the forces of evil, led by the new Axis of Russia, China, and Iran, aided by North Korea, and only America has the capability and the honorable intent to fill that role.
Having outlined some dangerous consequences of the war on masculinity, we should conclude by examining what true masculinity is. The aforementioned Peachy Keenan says simply, “[T]he ethos drilled into American men is to be strong, be brave, and be prepared to protect and defend your family, your homestead, and your fellow man. This is what men are for, after all. This is why G-d made them stronger than women. Those biceps are not just for deadlifting. Their main purpose is twofold: wielding a spear for the hunt, and wielding your fists or a sword for defense.”
To edify those who are destroying Western civilization by totally blurring the fundamental distinction between men and women, as stated in the Torah (Genesis 1:27), let us cite a more philosophical explanation by Glenn Stanton, writing in The Federalist: “[M]asculinity is a character quality that by its very substance cannot be toxic, and it is not natural to men or anyone else. It is a learned behavior that exists only in behavior. It requires demonstration, and we know it when we see it. It is the opposite of passivity, which we also know when we see it. Masculinity is a quality of character that all men must learn and strive for…
“The masculine male does the right thing, at the right time, in the right way, for the right reasons. He doesn’t shrink away. He steps up…
“Masculinity in any form never requires apology. Masculinity is a public and personal virtue, and every society, without exception, requires as many men as possible to learn it. There is no tipping point toward ‘too much.’”
Stanton concluded, “Rest assured, our problem today is not raising toxic males. It’s raising passive males. Those are males who are not even sure what the right thing to do is, much less possess the courage and assertiveness to know when to demonstrate it or how… We need to… teach our boys what manliness is and what it is not and demand they act on it. If nothing else, there’s a whole generation of young women hoping someone will step up and do so.”
We as a society used to know what manhood is. It was a staple of our movies. Film characters, ranging from Gary Cooper’s marshal who faced down three outlaws seeking revenge without any help from the townspeople he protects in the classic Western High Noon to John Wayne in virtually all of his pictures, showed what it means to be a man. It’s time that we remember.
