Ease is the goal, but also the road to that goal that many of us aspire to create in today’s society. You can see the beginnings of a movement back towards the assertive, the hard working, and the ambitious, but we’re still a very passive, weak, an “everything is okay” society. If we infuse some grit back in to our youth, even by asking more and expecting more from them, we’d be better off than we are now.
The Rise of the Emotional, Effeminate Male
Ask a man and a woman who’ve just been in a nasty fight, what they were fighting about, and they’ve give you two different stories. The man will note the physical cause of the fight – him not taking out the garbage on time – and the woman will mention the emotional root of the problem – his lack of respect for her feelings.
Men and women are different. We think differently, we argue differently, we feel differently. To understand that feminine essence is important, it’s a must if we’re going to build strong, fulfilling relationships, but that’s different than the call for more men to “get in tough with their feminine side”.
MEN AREN’T WOMEN. Stop trying to turn us in to them. We can understand the feminine, but we don’t have to become it.
Understanding is good. Getting in touch with can be a bad thing. When we ask men to be more emotional, rather than to understand their emotions or those of their lady, we take him away from his masculinity. We create the emasculated male that we want to get rid of.
Are women the cause? Partially. But so are men. A lack of understanding the differences between men and women is the root of the problem. A lack of the appreciation of our differences is as well.
Ladies, love your man’s assertiveness, his logical way of thinking, his ambition and desire to make a better life for you. Men, love your lady’s emotional nature. Understand that her emotional intelligence is far greater than your own. Don’t try and beat her at her own game, simply try and understand how this intelligence comes to fruition, how it influences her reactions to certain situations.
We see it in fashion, in the household, and in the dynamics of our relationships: women playing “doll” with their man. They dress him, try and change who he is, then cry at the mess they’ve created. But this isn’t simply the woman’s fault! My goodness men! If we’re so weak that our masculinity can be taken from us in the way we think, act, dress, and feel, then we weren’t very strong men to begin with!
The “metrosexual” male has become popular, even desirable. The man in touch with his feminine side is nice, at first, but what happens when he’s crying more than you? We need to be careful when we blur the lines between the masculine and the feminine. They are different. Appreciate and love this uniqueness of the sexes, don’t try to combine them, you end up with an emotional wreck akin to Dr. Frankenstein’s monster.
Within the Cause, is the Solution
There isn’t one cause for the emasculation of men in society, but many. We’re no longer taught values that stand as an anchor for when things in our lives go awry – as they always do – leading to men who quit, run, cry, and whine. Our education system failing to teach our young men to compete, to set big goals, and to appreciate the gift that failure can be. Technology and porn create soulless men who see women as objects, and lazy men who’d rather play video games than play with their kids.
The emasculation of men doesn’t happen suddenly, but over a lifetime. If a boy grows up without healthy role models in his own home, he misses out on the archetype of what a good person, and a real man is. He doesn’t have a reference point – whether it’s taught by his father or his mother, he needs to be taught.
As he enters the school system, if he’s taught that no matter what he does, he’ll do well, he’ll have no incentive to do anything great. He’ll have no reason to try anything new, to push himself to fail, and to extend himself in his life and in his work. If he’s rewarded regardless, why try?
As he enters the work force, he aspires to get a job where he has to give the least amount of effort for the maximal amount of pay. His ambition is non-existant. He looks to the wealthy and wants what they have, he resents them, but wouldn’t dare put the work in and take on the risk that would be involved with elevating his status.
When he gets married, his wife tries to change how he looks and how he feels. And she succeeds because he lets her. He’s so far lost from his masculine essence, that doesn’t know who he is, let alone teach his son how to be a man, or his daughter how to be a woman.
Thus, the cycle is set. The emasculation is perpetuated and passed down to the next generation, and we’re all fucked as a result.
Men, we start with ourselves.
Take a step back and look at our own emasculation – no matter how small, it’s there. Identify how, in our own lives, we’ve drifted from our masculine Self. Understand how we can be more assertive in our relationships, and in our work place. Get in touch with what we really want in life. Identify the object of our ambition – that thing we’d do anything to accomplish, even work days and nights trying to bring this ideal to fruition. Then work. Work relentlessly, and with an unmatched passion and persistence.
As we become stronger, more ambitious, more assertive men, we will be those archetypes that the coming generations will learn from. We’ll give them values to stand upon when life inevitably hits a rough patch. We will show them that a real man stands firm and FIGHTS! He faces his demons. He is a warrior at his core and in his heart. He isn’t a coward, a worrier.
He becomes a warrior habitually, over time, as he fights his daily battles. Being a man isn’t a moment in time, it isn’t something we do once, but who we are everyday. Let us make that change first. And let others follow in our footsteps.
“Be brave, my heart. Plant your feet and square your shoulders to the enemy. Meet him among the man-killing spears. Hold your ground. In victory, do not brag; in defeat, do not weep.” ~ Archilochus
