Christina Hoff Sommers is the author of The War Against Boys. The Ph.D. scholar cites one example after another of how America’s academic, political, and cultural “elite” have maligned and tried to re-define masculinity.
Speaking on behalf of those cultural “elites,” Gloria Steinem said, “We need to raise boys like we raise girls.” Bear in mind that such convoluted thinking followed the so-called “girlhood project” of the 70s: Raise girls like boys. Giving birth to a daughter instead of a son was, for some parents, somewhat of an embarrassment.
On campus and off, workshops, seminars, and projects exist with a sole focus of “transforming” boys. A “boy’s masculinity” is seen by cultural “elites” as a “problem.” Despising patriarchy, off-track feminists work feverishly to construct a new version of manhood.
Sommers asks, “How well do [these people] understand and like boys? Who has authorized their mission?”
David Kupelian is the author of How Evil Works. He asks, “Why would our culture so denigrate masculinity? And why — this is the flip side of the same question — are we becoming so increasingly feminized as a society?” He continues, “Today’s high level of gender confusion and role reversal, manifested most obviously in the dramatic upswing — and near celebration — of homosexuality, is one of the great cultural mysteries of our time. The bending and sometimes breaking of traditional gender roles permeates our society in obvious and subtle ways.”
Sexual confusion abounds — in clothing, college dorms, and the workplace. There is sexual confusion when girls “try out” lesbianism or bisexuality because it’s “chic.” There is sexual confusion when girls wrestle boys and women are put on the front lines of war.
George Gilder is the author of Men and Marriage. He writes, “To the sexual liberal, gender is a cage. Behind cruel bars of custom and tradition, men and women for centuries have looked lovingly across forbidden spaces at one another and yearned to be free of sexual roles.” Hmm. Reminds me of a beautiful garden where a woman was tempted to reach for something that was not good for her to have.
I’m grateful that my grandmother took one look at my newly born dad and knew, without a doubt, that she would raise him to be a boy. More than that, she would allow him to be a boy. When our sons were born, I didn’t argue with God or tell Him He’d made a mistake. Nor did I force them to become more soft and sensitive. There’s no denying that I had to walk a fine line. They needed to be aware of how girls think and like to be treated, but also be allowed to drive go-carts at high speeds, climb windmills, blaze a Yellowstone trail, and prefer science fiction to chick flicks and discussions of logic rather than emotion.
I’ll admit there have been (and continue to be) lots of times when I wish my husband better understood me as a woman. I wish he could “read my mind.” But, he’s not a woman. Therefore, we do think, love, perceive, react, and communicate differently. I’m glad my husband isn’t confused about his gender. When the enemy is at the door, I will be eternally grateful when he steps in front of me to face evil. That’s what my brother did one night when a deranged man was breaking in. My brother did not send my sister-in-law to the door. He engaged the enemy. He protected the household. He knew what his role was and he played it well.
I wonder. Would Daniel Boone have aggressively tamed the wilderness if his mother had raised him to be “in touch with his feminine side”? Would husbands and fathers have sacrificed their lives on a ship named Titanic if that culture would have despised chivalry? And what if young men stayed home and tens upon thousands of young women of child-bearing age stormed the beaches of Normandy, Omaha, and Iwo Jima?
There is nothing wrong with boys. Just because a boy fidgets doesn’t mean he needs some sort of drug. There is nothing wrong with boys who want to roughhouse or jump in a muddy stream, but balk at the suggestion of shopping. Instead of disfiguring distorting, or denying boyishness or girlishness, why don’t we stand in awe of the uniquely different male and female anatomy? Appreciate the boundaries of male and female gender and grow a healthier, safer society because of them? Celebrate the male and female eyes of the human race and be better for it?
A war against boys hurts girls, too. Eventually, it weakens society. Messing with creation is nasty business with hopeless consequences.
So, that’s why I called the parents of Joel Northrup to say “thank you.” Joel took a stand as a gentleman and refused to dishonor or confuse a girl on a public wrestling mat. He is not ashamed to be a boy, to be a male person. He is not ashamed to practice his faith which tells him to regard women as the weaker sex, not because they are less than him, but because he is called by God not to take advantage or abuse them. In putting his faith into practice, Joel honored a created boundary that will serve him — and women — very, very well.
Ezerwoman's Blog 
An Agnostic Responds (Hope Abounds!)
Posted in Biblical manhood & womanhood, Commentaries of others, Culture Shifts, Faith & Practice, Identity, Life issues, tagged biology, Christianity, decadence, decency, evil, evolution, hope, morality, purity, society, wrestling on March 3, 2011| Leave a Comment »
It’s important that you hear from this gentleman, not only because he agrees that “equal” does not mean “the same,” or that he encourages me to continue mentoring Biblical manhood and womanhood, but because he proves that Christians help build bridges for the benefit of the human race when we ask questions that help people think. When we enter into dialogue on moral and ethical issues. When we appeal to what was once called “common sense.”
This gentleman wrote, “I am an arrant agnostic — a self-styled poet-philosopher-canary-priest-with my spiritual roots in nature. But I could not agree more vigorously with your objections to the decadence — as in Roman — of allowing (or more accurately) of forcing boys to wrestle girls. I have been following this issue for at least ten years.”
It was obvious that Bill had carefully studied the most physically intimate of all contact sports. He offered many sane and sensible reasons why boy/girl wrestling is a terrible idea. He is concerned that civilization is wounded by such foolishness. He wrote, “I believe in self-sacrifice for others, in kindness, in consideration for others before myself. I remember the mantra of our YMCA boys’ camp: God first, others second, me third. Today, as we watch boys and girls in violent combat on wrestling mats, that mantra seems to have become ‘Me first, me second, me first.'”
Then, he really caught my attention. “The values you mention in your blogs are simply ignored in our modern culture,” wrote Bill. “Even as an agnostic biologist, I think your Christian values are essential to any civilization that wants to live above the animal level of material-sensual gratification.”
I thanked Bill for taking the time to write me. He responded with a second e-mail, explaining that he had become a writer after leaving the scientific community. But, after some time passed, he wanted to get back in touch with biologists. For a few months, he subscribed to the blog of an evolutionist. Bill found the site “instructional in professional matters,” but disappointing in its Christian bashing. “Christianity was dismissed as sheer stupidity without any redeeming value.” Bill explained to me that he felt “uncomfortable in this steady current of arrogant meanness,” so he unsubscribed. He didn’t agree with such hatred being poured upon an institution (Christianity) “that embraced all of life, from birth to death, from reason to faith, from beauty and goodness to ugliness and evil.”
Then, wrote Bill, “this wrestling incident occurred, and because the young man cited his Christian faith, it catapulted the small, cloistered world of wrestling into the national spotlight and presented to view the grotesque, distorted values that have evolved there. It seems like a microcosm of society at large and the moral decadence we have enshrined as moral good. And against all this, the best aspects of Christianity began to emerge from the smoke — the dignity, the calm, the pure, measured decency of 2000 years of Christian ‘evolution’ (can’t help myself!). Anyhow, just wanted to express this to you.”
Thank you, Bill. You remind me that Christianity is needed in this hurting world as much today as yesterday. I’m so sorry that we Christians do such a poor job of following Jesus Christ and are more easily influenced by false teachings.
But, I am encouraged to stay the course by a secular biologist who sees that good and evil, right and wrong, morality and decadence really do exist. Each rises from a core belief. Each has a consequence.
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