In my last post, I lamented at its end that I have crossed the line into believing that we have lost our democracy in America. (See link below)
In this post, I will backtrack ever so slightly from that opinion, but only slightly in that I will offer a reason why we may yet extend the life of our democracy, although extend is not necessarily the same as saving our democracy.
First though, I did some research concerning the topic of the decline of masculinity by entering the google search "decline of masculinity". The range of opinions defining and offering solutions to this problem was astounding. As was the fact that lamenting about the loss of masculinity, or should I say the battle of defining male masculinity, has been with us since the birth of our country.
While I hesitate to assert that any of the articles I perused struck me as the most enlightening, or the most accurate, I did enjoy the one I read in Politico. Here is a link to that article from July, 2023.
If we assume then, that the crisis of male masculinity has been ongoing for as long as America has existed, and perhaps as long as men and women have existed, is there anything special about the current anxiety concerning the loss of masculinity? Or put another way, what factors that exist today are different from those that were cited by those mourning the decline of the male gender in the past?
The one that jumped out at me was education, and the effect that education has on a person's ability to alter his/her life. Obviously, at the start of our nation, education was almost exclusively for white, males, specifically, white males of certain households. While a very few women from families of means were "allowed" to be educated, everyday men and women were rarely represented in institutions of higher learning, and certainly not people of color.
As education became more universal, women, sons and daughters of the working class, immigrants, and minorities were now exposed to advanced learning, which in turn, allowed them to pursue occupations that provided higher incomes, and access to business and government jobs that altered the demographics of who was making the rules, and consequently, who was benefiting from those rules.
If one were to assume that being the breadwinner for a family was one of the definitions of what it meant to be a man, it is clear that as the percentage of women attaining 4 year and graduate degrees increases, then the percentage of families with the male as sole or primary breadwinner will decline. Today, while the male is still the sole breadwinner for a family a little over half of the time, almost 30% of households feature an equal income level between the man and woman, while 15% of the time, the women makes more money.
And, since the percentage of women enrolled in higher education is well past the 50% mark and pushing 60%, it is certainly not inconceivable that 50% of or more of women may earn as much money as their husband sometime in the near future, which will put quite a dent in the concept of masculinity being tied to supporting one's family through a higher outside income.
Assuming that construct is less than satisfying in the chase for a definition of masculinity, and since there are female executives at the highest levels of the business world, and a host of women presidents and political leaders in the world, what does that leave for men to claim as their own domain?
It has only been about 30 years since the term "man cave" was coined. Ah, the man cave. Often the basement or the garage, but generally the least hospitable place of the home which men were allowed to decorate as desired, get as big a TV as would fit, and hang out with their buddies watching sports and drinking beer.
Not necessarily a horrible existence, and certainly a great place to yell at poor sporting performances by the home team's group of men, and the referees who are supposed to render fair judgments, but a far cry from dominating the halls of business and government.
If I were prone to a particular kind of conspiracy theory, I might conclude that the man cave was a clever way for women to throw their husbands a bone.
But I digress.
One area where men still statistically dominate women is suicide rate. Men kill themselves at almost 4 times the rate of women. Drug use is also higher among men than women, and, since there is some evidence that women seek treatment at a higher rate than men, the actual difference may be higher than is documented.
And of course, men die by violence, especially gun violence, at a much higher rate than women, but even worse, men are responsible for an overwhelming percentage of violent deaths, both against other men, and women as well.
Now, aggression in men has long been assumed to be genetic, part of our heritage as the physically larger gender, and entwined with our hunter gatherer past.
If dominance in business and government, and at home in terms of income, are less a part of the definition of masculinity, does that leave only the physical manifestations of a gender with higher testosterone levels?
Clearly, as has happened multiple times since America was founded, and in fact throughout history, the definition of masculinity is changing, has changed.
But be clear, so has the definition of femininity! Is it any less challenging to be a women in today's society than a man? And, is the focus on masculinity just another manifestation of the patriarchal nature of our society?
Frankly, I can't imagine that the role and definition of what it means to be a woman, hasn't changed at least as much, if not more so, than what it means to be a man.
The Weaker Sex. What is my point?
Currently, we have a presidential candidate who has smashed through all the norms of our political discourse. Someone who refused to graciously congratulate the winner of a presidential election that he lost. Someone who ignored his constitutional duties to provide a peaceful transition of power to the next administration. Someone who suggested that if his vice president, a man who steadfastly defended him throughout his four year term, did not do the "right" thing by illegally ignoring the state electors chosen by the American people he would be disappointed, and then tacitly agreed with the rioters on January 6th who chanted Hang Mike Pence. Someone who joked about being a dictator for only one day.
What is amazing to me is that the republicans who are standing up to him are almost exclusively women, not withstanding Adam Kinzinger. It was Cassidy Hutchinson who was the star witness of the January 6th committee hearings, not Mark Meadows who was by Trump's side far more often than Hutchinson.
It was Liz Cheney who sacrificed her political career to serve on the January 6th committee and objectively evaluate the evidence uncovered while a host of her mostly male GOP counterparts first condemned the actions of the mob on January 6th, then kissed the ring of the Mar a Lago resident, and began a process of rewriting history to pretend that Trump didn't ignite the mob with his words then watch gleefully on TV when they ransacked the Capitol.
It appears, at least in this one topic, that it is men who are the weaker sex, as they allow their desire for power and influence to overcome their duty to their country and fellow citizens.
Perhaps then, a new definition of masculinity should include a resistance to the absolute powers of a dictator, and an understanding that their position as the only educated gender, the only leaders in business and government has passed. But that doesn't mean they are less important.
On the contrary.
Acknowledging that power and influence and rule making and following the rules makes everyone stronger when it is shared might be a good start to redefining masculinity. That America is greater because of the diversity of its leaders, economic and political, and that the household is greater when everyone under the roof has equal opportunity, might be a good trait of that definition.
The realization that it is not a zero sum game where sharing in the benefits of our society means men get less if women get more, or when white men lose influence because women and minorities now have a say in the direction and future of our country might be a far better standard to gauge a man's masculinity.
Which brings me back to my claim that there still may be a way to temporarily extend our democracy. Our only hope is that women, who make up about 52% of the electorate, will continue to be the stronger sex and vote for candidates who accept the results of elections, and who believe that women should be treated as first class citizens, and not merely baby factories subject to (usually) male generated restrictions concerning their bodies and their health care.
Anything short of a resounding victory in November for these principles will not bode well for America.
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