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I read a provocative post yesterday authored by psychiatrist Dr. Julie Curwin: Where Have All The Real Men Gone?
Provocative, I say, because the good doctor challenges the modern view that annihilation of the “patriarchy” is a necessary tonic for all that ails us. Provocative, too, because she boldly states that men and women are different. Heresy upon heresy!
It's an entertaining piece, whether you agree with her premise or not. I particularly appreciated the reminder of “Chesterton’s Fence” — the maxim that one should never change a rule or alter a tradition without first understanding why that rule or tradition was created in the first place.
Dr. Curwin’s efforts motivated me to dig up an article I penned some years ago in response to a man-hating diatribe by journalist Rachel Giese published in The Globe and Mail. Not much has changed, unfortunately, since I wrote it.
I’ve reproduced it below (edited a bit for clarity and length).
In Defence Of Men
I sprouted to life on a glorious spread of sixty green acres in British Columbia’s Fraser Valley, seventh son to an immigrant dairy farmer.
My education in things bovine began almost before I could toddle unassisted through my father’s barns. I absorbed early, for instance, the startling news that cows have four stomachs. Which isn’t true, actually: they have one stomach with four chambers – but for a small child the “four stomachs” simplification evoked wide-eyed wonder.
Cows can stuff enormous quantities of plant material at astonishing speed into the largest of those chambers, called the rumen. Boluses (or “cuds”) from that internal vat are later regurgitated to be chewed at length and at leisure prior to being re-swallowed and properly digested. (The average cow fritters away eight hours a day repetitively chewing her cud — monotony is bliss for some of God’s creatures.)
Thanks to cows, “rumination” entered the lexicon as descriptor for chewing things over. Which of course is what I do in this space.
When I took in Rachel Giese’s indigestible screed in The Globe and Mail titled “For women, misogyny is a daily reality”, I filed it away to chew on later (the only other option being to vomit it outright). But the passage of time didn’t it any more palatable.
Giese linked the twisted actions of murderous van driver Alek Minassian to the demonic actions of Parkland school shooter Nikolas Cruz. That both men and women, and both boys and girls, were killed in the two attacks mattered not: she leveraged those savage events into a tirade against manhood.
“Angry young man slaughters many,” she began, factually — referring to Minassian — before unleashing a tirade of man-hatred:
“Misogyny exists in the grinding daily reminders faced by women, reminding us that we are still not fully entitled to enjoy our ambitions, our imaginations and agency over our bodies without men’s permission or interference. Every woman lives at least sometimes by minute-to-minute calculations of threat levels – is this just a harmless jerk or someone I need to flatter or placate to protect my livelihood, or my life?”
Crikey. “Every woman.” “Minute to minute calculations of threat levels.” What kind of hell-scape does Giese inhabit, exactly?
She laments that women, in their anxious discussions of the perpetual danger they are in,
“must also take care not to offend by remembering to add an apologetic ‘not all men, of course’ because misogyny means that men’s feelings are more valuable than women’s safety.”
I did a bit of digging to get a better sense of the sort of person who hates men so much. By her own account, Giese is “an award-winning journalist” with a long list of credits. And she’s the author of the best-selling book “Boys: What It Means to Become a Man.”
I didn’t have to till the online soil much to turn up clods of Giese-ian commentary. An offering in Chatelaine on “toxic masculinity” titled "Why Masculinity Needs To Be The Next Big Conversation In The #MeToo Movement” contained this gem:
“Just as my friends who are parents of girls grew anxious over their daughters’ princess obsessions and a world that blunted their strength and ambition, I worried about the messages my son and other boys received about their worth and value as men. Sociologists often use the metaphor of “the man box” to describe the social rules of masculinity: In order to be a “real man,” a guy has to be stoic, aggressive, financially successful, sexually rapacious, physically courageous, muscle-bound, risk-taking, tough and in control.”
Note the mixture of qualities in that last sentence. Financially successful, physically courageous, stoic, risk-taking: all attributes generally admired and sought after (as much for daughters as for sons) by parents who love their children and want the best for them. But blend those terms with “sexually rapacious, aggressive, muscle-bound, and in control”, and presto: they become part of Ms. Geise’s warped misogyny manifesto.
This is what skilful propagandists do: they join truth to lies and then pass the distorted construct off as axiomatic. A colossus of the twentieth century once declared:
“By the skillful and sustained use of propaganda, one can make a people see even heaven as hell, or an extremely wretched life as paradise.”
That colossus was Adolf Hitler.
None of this would amount to a hill of beans if Ms. Geiss was a solitary unhinged loon. But she has hordes of comrades.
Her viewpoints pervade present-day public discourse, abetted by such luminaries as Canada’s vacuous feminist-in-chief, Prime Minister Justin Trudeau. In response to Mr. Trudeau’s repeated assertion that we must simply believe women who say they have been sexually harassed — no evidence required — Don Macpherson of the Montreal Gazette had this to say:
“What did he mean by that? Is it that those women must be encouraged to come forward by being assured that their complaints will be taken seriously and investigated, that harassers will be punished, and that harassment will be deterred? Did he mean that women have justifiably lost faith in the prosecution of sexual assaults by the criminal-justice system… that we need to find a better way?
If that’s what Trudeau meant, then this man agrees with all of that.
Or did Trudeau literally mean what he said, as we should expect from politicians? If so, then any man accused of sexual harassment is not just guilty until proven innocent, but simply guilty, period, his guilt established by the mere fact of his being accused.
“Turnabout’s fair play,” I hear some people saying, it’s payback time for all those innocent women over the centuries who have been — and still are being — raped, assaulted, harassed and intimidated. But that’s revenge, not justice. And if you’re okay with that, let me ask you: would you apply that new standard of guilty-as-charged-because-charged to any man accused of harassment? Even your father, your husband, your brother, your son? If it was his reputation, relationships and career that would be ruined? If so, then let fly the accusations.”
“There’s a dark and a troubled side of life”, June Carter Cash sang many years ago. There are indeed plenty of horrible men lurking in society’s shadows, abusing and preying on women. It has always been thus. And we mustn’t ever tire of exposing the blackness of misogyny to the harsh glare of justice. We must never surrender in the battle against discrimination, racism, inequality, intolerance, and injustice.
But justice is predicated on fairness and morality. Justice is based on evidence. And besmirching the characters of all men because of the sins of a few is unrestrained idiocy.
“The line separating good and evil passes right through every human heart,” Alexander Solzhenitsyn correctly observed. And postmodern feminists and social justice warriors don’t get a pass on that sober assessment, despite the galling moral certitude that attends their every pronouncement.
It’s an incalculable blessing that most of us keep to the proper side of the moral divide and govern our lives with prudence and restraint. Life has a bright and sunny side too, June Carter Cash concluded — and thankfully it’s the side where most of us, on balance, manage to live our lives.
It’s terribly sad that we’ve allowed the rubrics of “feminism” and “social justice warrior” to be bastardized by the shrill and strident voices of the radical left. Because as originally and properly conceived, most of us are feminists and social justice warriors; we ardently support equal rights, respect for women and social justice for all.
Yet many (most?) modern men are afraid to push back against the insistent campaign for their abasement, lest they be painted as misogynists and censured. A simple accusation is sufficient for ruination; and so men bow their heads and remain silent, ignoring at their peril the time-tested truth articulated by Edmund Burke:
“The only thing necessary for the triumph of evil is for good men to do nothing.”
Toronto intellectual and clinical psychologist Jordan Peterson stands as glittering exception. His stalwart refusal, impeccably defended, to cower in the face of demanded political correctness launched his star into the stratosphere.
By the lights of the howling cabal of leftist nutbars, naturally, Peterson is chief among sinners, the worst of intolerants, “alt-right”, transphobic, racist, homophobic, a Nazi. Tabitha Southey excoriated him in Maclean’s as “the stupid man’s smart person”, in the process exposing the ankle-deep waters of her own intellect. Nellie Bowles excreted a hit piece onto the pages of The New York Times, provocatively subtitled “He says there’s a crisis in masculinity. Why won’t women – all these wives and witches – just behave?”
Amidst the vitriol, Dr. Peterson has remained unbowed, serene, and implacably logical, the sort of man admired in verse by Rudyard Kipling:
If you can keep your head when all about you
Are losing theirs and blaming it on you
If you can trust yourself when all men doubt you,
But make allowance for their doubting too;
If you can wait and not be tired by waiting,
Or being lied about, don’t deal in lies,
Or being hated, don’t give way to hating,
And yet don’t look too good, nor talk too wise:
Yours is the Earth and everything that’s in it,
And—which is more—you’ll be a Man, my son!
I wish more men would speak up boldly and in numbers alongside Dr. Peterson. Most men are not misogynists, or homophobes, or transphobes, or racists. We’re simply men — husbands, fathers, brothers, partners, and sons — trying to navigate as best as we can a complicated world, a world made only more troublesome by the pestilent posturing of the radical left.
I was discussing these issues last week with my buddy Al, a “salt-of-the earth” kind of dude and doting father of two. Poor Al, ordinarily entirely unflappable, worked himself into a bit of a lather: “For the love of Pete!”, he exclaimed, flinging his cap to the ground in disgust.
The love of Pete is in alarmingly short supply these days. Which is why I’ve written this essay — for the love of Pete and Tom and Dick and Harry and all the men who are tired of being persecuted and labeled as predatory jerks.
“Boys: What It Means to Become a Man” garnered fawning reviews from those in Giese’s circle. “A must read for everyone who loves boys,” gushed Tabatha Southey, awed by the book’s farcical premise that gender derives from external conditioning rather than from genetics. By Geise’s reckoning, male babies become boys only because we teach them to be boys – they’re as likely to become girls if we simply nudge them in that direction. In fact, that direction is preferred: why settle for “snips and snails and puppy dogs’ tails” when “sugar and spice and everything nice” is on offer?
The CBC chimed in with this:
“Blending reporting, cultural analysis and personal narrative, Giese aims to reset the conversation about gender identity, toxic masculinity and the "boy crisis." With clear-eyed analysis, Giese reveals reasons to feel hopeful for our young men and shows that this emerging new gender reality has the potential to liberate us all.”
If this is liberation, please don’t set me free.
I was a boy, once. Then I grew up. I can express with some street-cred “what it means to become a man.”
I, as a man, would never presume to author a volume entitled, “Girls: What It Means To Become A Woman.” I’d be ridiculed to the ends of the earth, and deservedly so.
The notion that fathers should take advice on raising their sons from a woman who openly denigrates manhood and who denies the very essence of maleness is beyond ridiculous.
It turns my stomach. Fortunately, I only have one.
Dr. Les, thank you for sharing this post. As a woman, I don't understand women like Giese and others who think they know what a man should be. Feminism has gone too far and of course, the university setting and indoctrination has set the stage for this. Now girls/women don't need boys/men in their lives at all or so it is alluded to. As usual, the pendulum has swung so far to the left, it has become stuck. Your words: "I, as a man, would never presume to author a volume entitled, “Girls: What It Means To Become A Woman.” I’d be ridiculed to the ends of the earth, and deservedly so.
The notion that fathers should take advice on raising their sons from a woman who openly denigrates manhood and who denies the very essence of maleness is beyond ridiculous.
It turns my stomach. Fortunately, I only have one." It turns my stomach too, Dr. Les.
Excellent article. The Rachel Giese's of the world and her fellow travelers are a genuine problem. The celebration of grievance has taken on epic proportions in Canada and we need to stop it, before it destroys us all.