For a Christian man, seeking Godly masculinity in a post-feminist world is a complicated affair.
Well, it is and it isn’t. The simplistic and liberating way to look at all things in this life is to obey God and keep His commandments, and imitate a solid number of Godly examples of men all throughout Scripture. I’ve written a lot about this already.
But then comes the matter of interacting with today’s society, law, and culture. With some glimpses of the conflicting schools of thought regarding some desperate attempts to reach for traditional masculinity and femininity versus feminism’s efforts to destroy them both, I fear a feedback loop, because flaws in the former led to the latter. Some of what I am about to illustrate, I hope, will clarify this statement. But the short of it is, the fact that men are perceived as stronger is, effectively, what makes them weaker.
How so? Well, a man is strong, and therefore he doesn’t need protecting. And when people are many times over more interested in protecting women from men than vice-versa, then that’s the irony at work: I am effectively dwarfed and defenseless before the sheer power of women, because of the fact that I’m expected to be stronger.
I don’t make promises in this regard, but you could say I’m a “MGTOW” because I err on the side of singlehood for this reason. Am I saying “all” women are dangerous to men? No. Not at all. I think many women today probably make wonderful wives while they pursue Christ wholeheartedly, albeit with their fair share of human error just like a man.
The following is a story about a man who was caught on camera defending himself from a woman who started attacking him with a stiletto: link
On the one hand, I was happy to see that his plea of self-defense was accepted and he was acquitted of charges of assault against the woman who attacked him. On the other hand, many people recognize the man by his jacket and he is subject to antagonizing. He was a very tall man who struck a woman who first attacked him. And many people simply won’t have it; a man is just not to hit a woman for any reason.
Why not? Well, because men are too strong to be allowed to hit women. And effectively, then, women become the most staggeringly dangerous adversary a man can possibly face, not DESPITE the fact that she’s seen as weaker, but BECAUSE of it. Feminists will scream “girl power” at the spectacle of a strong and (to them) imposing man being defeated in any and all capacities by the allegedly underdog and oppressed sex, and that is a beautiful thing to them. And then, traditionalists likewise don’t really offer an alternative, because likewise they see the man as stronger, and not needing protecting–since who needs to protect a big, strong man?–nor allowing him to protect himself.
As MGTOWs are very smart to figure out, traditionalists and feminists have a lot more in common than they like to admit. In both cases, the stronger men are, the weaker men are, effectively.
I repeat something to women, whom I love dearly, to hear me out, please: please see the difference between accusing ALL women of being monsters to men, and the accusation that men are truly in far too much danger simply to say, “ah forget the modern world, I’ll just be an old-school man’s man and settle down with a family.” We have a fight on our hands we didn’t ask for, and many of you (women) did not ask for the modern world either. We cannot pretend that it doesn’t exist. The other side of the coin of traditional masculinity/femininity is that women seeking traditional femininity don’t see protecting men as a “feminine” thing to do.
To that I would say, look at the Proverbs 31 woman: She opens her arms to the poor
and extends her hands to the needy. (Proverbs 31:20)
Yes, women can rescue men. In fact, that is crucial for breaking today’s vicious feedback loop of traditionalism and feminism causing men to become weaker and weaker. How would women feel if:
*No Domestic Violence shelters existed for women?
*Women were deprived (effectively) from a basic human right to self-defense against men?
*You could scarcely find any writing advising you what sorts of men to seek and what sorts of men to avoid for marriage?
*You saw that men initiated 70% of divorces and women were subsequently destroyed by family court left and right?
*If you felt demands on you to be women of good character and to treat men well without any regard for the injuries you face emotionally and culturally as women?
*No spirit of gentleness and compassion, and respect for your situations, but only demands for your roles as women?
*A man could accuse you of a crime and he would be automatically believed unless blatant evidence (like a video recording) proved him wrong? And then, you were twice as likely to get convicted, and then destined for a sentence two to three times as harsh?
Would this cause you to think an extra ten times before going anywhere near any man? I’d think it would. If our culture were that resistant to protecting you, but only liked to put demands on you, that is an abusive lack of love. Would that be the same as accusing every last man of being a direct danger to women? Of course not. But I don’t see anyone pulling any punches when it comes to protecting women. And men need to learn to do the same, with women’s support. And this needs not to be mistaken–by anyone–of hating women as a gender.
On men’s side, we must abandon machismo. The manosphere is an explosion of anger to the blatant, untreated injuries of men in an otherwise total absence of a discussion regarding so many of those real situations.
Rather than gather in rage and anger over the hurts, why can’t men gather in the trenches with a mutually protective spirit all over again, with gentleness and compassion toward one another? Why not–rather than anger–we provide a safe place for one another to be honest about our pain and seek healing? I don’t mean to be misleading, because those avenues DO occur in the manosphere, but the remaining anger is a matter of machismo; we still fear the loss of our masculinity, like the realities of our vulnerabilities makes us unmanly. We don’t want to admit our hurting and disadvantaged state, which tends to be met with more contempt still in the mainstream culture of feminism/traditionalism which continuously demands that men be strong, productive, and less needy. However, if we fail to abandon machismo and embrace the realities of our vulnerabilities, we contribute the same poison into the world that caused our problems in the first place.
I want to focus on the positives in that regard: MANY good things are happening in the wake of men’s rights issues being exposed. Many women are demonstrating a genuine, unselfish sense of justice for men’s sake and supporting them in circles that are protective of men. More admirable still, many women are turning the other cheek to men who (inexcusably, in my opinion) demonstrate a retaliatory anger toward women in general when men’s indignation ought to be steadfastly aimed at an oppressive culture, not an oppressive gender; many women are showing understanding and patience for some of the awful, misguided bitterness of many men. Such women are absolutely crucial for the healing of the culture. A page called “Women Against Feminism” on Facebook caught the attention of Time magazine with a mere twenty-five thousand likes–many of those being men–as women who (in many cases) spoke out against feminism as a man-hating entity. The effect of women toward restoring the culture is huge and vital.
As I seek masculinity, personally, my reference is the Bible. Again, take King David, who was a King, a musician, and a ferocious warrior all at the same time, and did not have a single problem pouring out his deepest vulnerabilities to God. THAT is how we break the feedback loop that has caused men to be seen as too strong to need protection, too strong to admit to the reality that a woman can indeed harm a man. We need to reconcile what our current culture has had a total impasse at reconciling to break the cycle: acknowledging that vulnerability does not conflict with masculine strength. Quite the contrary, a lack of ability to acknowledge vulnerabilities is the worst enemy of our strength.
Modern traditionalists who oppose the ideals of post-feminist mainstream–if they really want to reach their destination–must understand the true nature of the dimensions of masculinity and femininity; it is just as important, on each side, to realize the ways men and women are alike as they are different. Read Proverbs 31: women must be strong too and be rescuers of others; read the story of Ruth and Boaz: yes, women can be pro-active pursuers (in a sense) too. On the other side of the coin, men can express vulnerabilities like any Godly man portrayed in Scripture, as such is crucial for their (or anyone’s) strength.
In the midst of the confusion of the world, speaking for myself, I find Scripture as my guide and standard through the tosses and turns of the culture.
Self-Defensive Christian Man 