Toxic Masculinity
“Iron sharpens iron; so one man sharpens another”
Proverbs 27:17
On a sunny day last week, I revved up my chainsaw and trudged out just beyond our garden and henhouse to cut down several trees. I notched a large dead tree and then began the cut on the other side. Suddenly the tree snapped near the ground and fell. With chainsaw in hand, I stumbled backward. Fortunately, the tree fell in the general direction I wanted. After my heart slowed to a normal pace, I began cutting on another dead tree. This went well until I heard the snapping of wood and the tree wobbled. Unsure where it would fall, I again stumbled backward, but this time my feet tangled in bramble, and I fell. The tree thundered to the ground across two fences and terrorized our chickens but missed me.
Kyle cuts wood with his son on a better day.
Later, my wife said, “You’re 68 years old. Maybe we should hire professional loggers.”
“I’ve been cutting down trees on this place for more than twenty years,” I huffed.
“That’s kind of my point,” she replied.
For the next several days, my wife and I discussed how to complete the job. I insisted I could do it. She insisted she wanted me alive at the end of it. While we talked I thought about the concept of masculinity and how it has changed over the years. Was I just getting old or were men becoming weak and wimpy?
The next day I had a meeting with other writers. As I climbed into the car I said, “Go ahead and see if we can hire loggers to cut down the trees.” My thought was that, after her call, we would have a better idea of the cost and when the job could be done, but I didn’t say that part of my thinking.
As I drove to the meeting I recalled a recent podcast episode of The Comments Section by Brett Cooper. During the show on the Daily Wire, she discussed Ali Lopez, also known as Gorlock the Destroyer, a transgender TikTok personality who presents as female. Lopez recently went viral with comments about masculinity. Under normal circumstances, I would never have heard about an obscure influencer like Lopez but like a broken clock is right twice a day, Lopez seemed to have stumbled onto a truth about masculinity in the modern age.
Lopez’s comments were reported by several podcasts and media outlets. The New York Post quotes the influencer as saying that “dating in the modern age comes with its difficulties, including declining masculinity in society. “‘It’s getting out of control,’ Lopez said. For example, Lopez ideally wants to find someone who can handle things that have been ascribed in the past as traditionally masculine, like fixing a flat tire. But that’s not easy to find these days. “At least for me, you better be able to do more than what my dad can do. Because if I have to call my dad to do something for me and not you. Why are you here?”
Since the dawn of recorded history, a person’s sex has largely determined their role in society. Men worked outside of the home as hunters, farmers, warriors, tradesmen, etc. Women cared for the home, family, and children. While the modern age offers more choices, reproduction still has a huge influence on the part we have in society. Though, today, many people of both sexes are asking, what is the purpose of men? If a woman can’t change a tire there are tools to assist her or she can phone the auto club. Many feminists say the only role for a man in modern society is that of a sperm donor. Lopez calls upon men to be masculine, while, at the same time, abandoning what it means to be a man in order to adopt a progressive counterfeit that provides more questions than answers.
I was born into the Baby Boom generation, so I grew up with different cultural expectations than Generation X, Y, or Z. I’ve married only once, and I’m still married to her forty-six years later. However, because of my military career, there were times when she had to care for the house and children alone. Although we were both in our early twenties when we married, she always rose to those occasions when duty called me away.
Because that cultural role has been changing, I think it took me longer to learn how to be a man, a gentleman, and a husband than it should have. Actually, I’m still learning, but for the remainder of this post, I want to focus on two areas that I have come to understand are central to my identity as a man.
Provider
As a Christian, I try to live by scripture, which states that, “Anyone who does not provide for their relatives, and especially for their own household, has denied the faith and is worse than an unbeliever” (1 Timothy 5:8 niv). Even non-Christians know that from the dawn of recorded history, men have provided for the women and children of their family. Among stone-age tribes, men would have been the practical choice for hunters as they were stronger than the average woman and never hindered by pregnancy. Despite education, medicine, and the industrial age, this remained the reality until the invention of machines to perform much of the heavy labor and the discovery of reliable birth control.
Today, a woman has the option to live as a traditional wife and mother or be a provider. Choosing to pursue both paths at the same time is difficult and probably a strain for all involved. Birth control and the decision to have children should always be the prerogative of the woman. But from conception to adulthood, the man should support the mother and child emotionally, financially, and as discussed below. The best method to achieve that is within a loving marriage where responsibility is shared.
Yes, times have changed, and the way men interact with women has, and will continue to change, but the inclusion of a man in the family should always add to prosperity.
Protector
Several times my wife has awakened me during the night because she heard a noise. Never have I said, “I checked it out last time. It’s your turn.” You probably found it amusing just imagining what a wife would do and say in such a situation. That’s because, throughout human history, men have been expected to protect the women and children in their family. Today there is less worry about an invading horde riding into town with the intent to rape and pillage, but violence does remain a concern along with large spiders, mice, wasps, and hornets that men are regularly called upon to handle.
All able-bodied men should protect home and family from hazards large and small. The Bible tells us there is no greater love than to give your life for another (John 15:13). I will always stand between my family and harm. That is the reason God gave men greater physical strength—so that a wife could be secure enough to willingly take on the long responsibility of childbirth and motherhood and so children could grow and prosper. As Brett Cooper pointed out in another podcast episode, “It’s not wrong to want a stronger more masculine man.” Upon that simple concept, families, villages, towns, cities, and nations were built.
Stand True
The modern progressive culture largely rejects traditional masculinity, preferring a more effeminate version, but we shouldn’t accept this modern form of manhood. The apostle Paul instructed the men of his day to, “Be on the alert, stand firm in the faith, act like men, (and) be strong” (1 Corinthians 16:13 nasb). Christian missionary, author, and speaker Elisabeth Elliot said, “Stand true to your calling to be a man. Real women will always be relieved and grateful when men are willing to be men.” That sounds like something both Gorlock the Destroyer and I could agree upon.
When I came home from the critique meeting, my wife said, “I called the loggers. The trees are down, the bill is paid. They’re gone—and you’re alive.”
Once again, she had risen to the occasion.
In modern times, have men become useless? Is masculinity now toxic or is it evolving? Let me know what you think in the comment section below.
