Emasculating Men

Contrary to "popular opinion" it's not cool to ridicule men for being masculine.  I make a legitimate attempt to justify masculine behavior in men - and for that matter, the fact that there is both feminine and masculine characteristics in both women and men - and that's okay!

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Hello again, ladies and gentlemen, and welcome to another episode of Freedom's Creed. In my effort to bring you the best content possible, I'm always asking other people, especially people in my family, a topic that they would like to hear me discuss on the podcast. And this particular episode comes to you courtesy of my wife. She actually suggested that I talk about this topic, and I'm only too happy to do so. And like her, I believe it is a topic that needs to be discussed, and we cannot afford to let society shape the narrative on where this could go, if you know what I'm saying. As I often do on the podcast, I love to define words. My kids can attest to the fact that this is something I used to say to them all the time, that is, words mean things, or at least they used to mean things. The definition of emasculate or emasculation, as given to us by Websters, says to deprive of strength, vigor, or spirit, to deprive of virility or procreative power. I like to dive a little deeper on things, and so I went to the internet and looked at Wikipedia. Now you may laugh, and I have sometimes laughed as well, when someone reads something from Wikipedia. But guess what? You can go and you can find the definition of words elsewhere on the internet, at medical sites, at other informational websites, and so forth. But I think this definition is very much to the point of this idea of emasculating. They say on Wikipedia this quote, emasculation is the removal of both the penis and the testicles, the external male sex organs. It differs from castration, which is the removal of the testicles only, although the terms are sometimes used interchangeably. The potential medical consequences of emasculation are more extensive than those associated with castration, as the removal of the penis gives rise to a unique series of complications. For purposes of the podcast, I'll be talking not so much about the medical or the literal consequences of emasculation, but the societal impacts of emasculation and the way that people sometimes portray men in our society. In many ways, in some segments of our society, there is a deconstruction of what it really means to be a man that's taking place. And the narrative is troubling if you're paying even a little bit of attention. For instance, there are some social constructs that have been bandied about by academia and by other well, let's just refer to them as interest groups for the purposes of the podcast. Some of those constructs include things such as there's no such thing as masculinity, or worse yet, masculinity is labeled as associated with the idea of the patriarchy. And patriarchy is automatically, it seems, painted as evil since the entire world was controlled by the wicked nature of males and that blasted patriarchy. Now, again, one of the reasons I like to go to the dictionary is so that we can have sort of a basis of understanding of the meaning of words. And unfortunately in our society today, the dictionary loves to shape the narrative when it comes to words and what they mean. And especially as it relates to the word patriarch or patriarchy, there is a sullied history of patriarchs, men, who exacted horrible things on society, particularly women. But for this podcast, we are talking about the most basic understanding of the word patriarch and also the word matriarch and what it means in our society today. Not what people want it to mean, but what it actually means. And for the definition of patriarch and matriarch, Webster seems to get it right in this regard. Now, granted, they have a lot of other definitions of these words, but the definitions that I'll be using for the podcast are patriarch, which is quote, a man who is father or founder, unquote, and the definition of matriarch is quote, a woman who rules or dominates a family, end of quote. That's an interesting choice of words that a matriarch is a woman who rules or dominates a family. We could probably debate this idea of domination, as in my view, it takes both a man and a woman to procreate and to be dominant together, ideally. But of course, we know that people are fallible and weak and don't always have the best interests at heart for those that they live with or those who are associated with them in a family unit, so to speak. And of course, we know that the definition of a family has evolved to take in a wider range of people, not just those biologically related to them. And that's a good thing, I think, in our society when done with the best intent of those involved, especially children. Now, the most dominant, or I would say the most common and most prevalent use of the word matriarch and patriarch can be traced to, as I said, the family, where the mom may be referred to as the matriarch and the dad referred to as the patriarch. It's pretty basic. What's not so basic is that these two terms are rarely used in our society today. Instead, what often happens is that people use the terms in a negative or with a negative connotation, particularly denigrating the patriarchy. It's rare that the same contempt that people sometimes have toward the patriarchy is applied to the matriarchy, but it does happen. None of us are perfect, women aren't perfect moms, men aren't perfect dads. But after all, I am talking about the emasculating consequences of men in our society, so let's continue on. Now it's certainly true that we are all ignorant of at least something. Many people are ignorant of a lot of things, and that's not to say that it's terrible or it's a bad thing. When we're ignorant about something, we need to educate ourselves about it so that we are no longer ignorant on that topic. But when ignorance prevails in society, there are those in our society that capitalize on this ignorance by attempting to shape the narrative usually in a destructive or denigrating fashion, and this certainly applies to the case of the patriarchy. I want to speak briefly about the traits of masculinity and femininity. I have a hard time saying that word, I don't know why, it just doesn't roll off the tongue like I would like it to. Femininity. There you go, I did it. I'd like to read the definitions of these two words as per Webster's dictionary. The definition of masculinity is quote the quality or nature of the male sex, the quality, state, or degree of being masculine or manly, challenging traditional notions about masculinity and femininity. I found it interesting that there's a word that's associated with both of these definitions. In this particular case, it's the word notions. Webster's definition of femininity is quote the quality or nature of the female sex, the quality, state, or degree of being feminine or womanly, challenging traditional notions about femininity and masculinity. There were other words, of course, in the definition of both of those terms, besides the word notions, one of which is the use of the word traditional. A lot of times in our society in twenty first century America, traditional family, traditional masculinity, traditional femininity, and so forth gets kind of skewed by society. Oftentimes when people hear traditional values or traditional family, they get a little offended because maybe it doesn't apply to them. Doesn't change the nature of those terms, but it's just that they're going in a different direction, I suppose. And that leads me to the definition of notion. There are a couple of definitions of that word that I want to focus on, which the first is, quote, an individual's conception or impression of something known, experienced or imagined, a theory or belief held by a person or group, closed quote. It seems that society's notions, or at least a segment of our society's notions, about femininity, about masculinity, about traditional values, is fluid, meaning it's open to change. I would consider myself more of the traditional value type person, that masculine means one thing and feminine means another. It's not to say that men don't have or can't have feminine characteristics, or that women don't have or can't have masculine characteristics. I mean, I didn't know my wife when she was in grade school and in high school, but she tells me that she was somewhat of a tomboy, and that's not hard to believe. She has a couple of brothers. They played football in the front yard or at school or whatever, and it wasn't touch football, it was tackle football. Can't imagine my wife doing that, but she did so. A sport like football is not something that you would readily associate with being feminine, yet it is something that my wife did because she liked doing it. I get it. In our society, in our world, you can do something that's traditionally considered to be feminine if you're male, or you can do something that's traditionally considered masculine if you're female. Who cares? Well, here's something that I do care about, and I have listed what I think are five consequences of sort of the non-literal emasculation of men. In other words, destroying all that is good and positive about being masculine. I'm not even getting into the literal definition of emasculation where the penis and the testicles are essentially taken away from a man through surgery. We're not even going to go there. Well, I already did earlier in defining the literal definition of emasculation. But I'm just talking about five consequences of the societal definition, if you will, of emasculation when it comes to men. These consequences, by the way, are what I would consider to be quite negative. One, men may be timid to act as a male role model for good. Two, men who don't offer ideas or suggestions in the workplace for fear of being labeled toxic. Three, men who are afraid of taking on leadership roles for the same reason as number two, being labeled as toxic. Four, failure to teach boys how to be good men, masculine men, and five, the possible loss of creativity and ingenuity simply because a man may not feel as though he can be that creative in a society that has him pegged to be the enemy in the minds of some people. Those are some terrible consequences, and I think we can all say that we've probably seen evidence of these consequences play out in our society. Now, my approach is this I'm not interested in just pointing out the negative or the problems in our society or with a particular thing. I want to come up with solutions for a particular malady or something that's going on in our society that's not good. So naturally, I'm here to say that there are things that men can do to maintain a healthy masculinity. And some of these include, and this is not comprehensive by any stretch of the imagination, but here's a few things, men in particular, that we can do to maintain that healthy masculinity. One, be respectful to women and girls not condescending. Two, be a good man, a husband, partner, father. Three, don't give anyone, especially women, a reason to refer to you as toxic. And unfortunately, with this one, sometimes merely existing is the only reason some women need. You know what I mean? Let's make it difficult for a so-called legitimate accusation of exhibiting toxic behavior really difficult to prove. And the only way you can do that is to live your life with some standards, men. I have faith in you. We can do this. Number four, defend the rights of women, especially your woman. Be loyal to her. Have complete fidelity to her and to no one else. Do you know that if you just put forth a I don't want to say minimal effort, but if you just take some time and put in the effort that it takes, she will hold you up just like you ought to be holding her up? And I'm no marriage expert, to be sure, but I have been married almost thirty-nine years. So I I think I speak with a little bit of authority on this topic. And I believe if my wife were here at this moment and we were having this conversation, that she would agree with me. Does that mean I have no need of improvement? Of course not. If she were here right now, she would definitely agree that there's plenty of room for improvement. And number five, don't be a jackass. Now, this is the G-rated version. You get what I'm saying, right? You may have a much more harsh term. So fill in the blank on that one if you want to. Here's what I believe, ladies and gentlemen. I believe that it's not a sin to be masculine. I also believe that it's not a sin to be feminine, and that usually men are the more masculine sex, and typically women are the more feminine sex. And you know what? Here's the dirty little secret. That's okay. It's okay for men to be masculine, and it's okay for women to be feminine. And it's also okay if sometimes men have a little bit of femininity, femininity that comes out. I told you I can't say that word very well, so I've already warned you. And it's okay for women to have a little masculinity come out every now and then. That's okay. It doesn't mean that if we're not as masculine as we should be or as we could be and we're a man, that something's wrong with us. And it doesn't mean that if women are not as feminine as they could be, that there's something wrong with them. It's life, it's who we are as human beings. We have an opportunity to be good people, to treat others the way we'd like to be treated, to not hate other people just because they have a different approach or a different view of these terms than what we do. There's never a time that's okay to hurt other people or to treat other people horribly because they don't conform to traditional standards or traditional societal expectations. It just means that we have a difference of opinion on those things. It doesn't make them a bad person. One of the things that I've talked about before, and I have an episode about this, and that is mental illness in our society. It's not something to be trifled with. It's something that should be taken seriously. Yet we have in our society people, legitimate, supposed, qualified people who are affirming the mental illness that some people have with respect to their sex, whether they're male or female, and they think they should be the other sex. It's not a good thing for people who are so-called educators to fill the minds of people who have mental illness, that only affirms that mental illness or essentially supports that mental illness. It's not a healthy thing to do. And it really seems that it is having a very negative impact on the society as a whole, unfortunately. Ladies and gentlemen, I am here to tell you that if you're a man, that it's okay for you to exhibit masculine traits. You're a man, after all. It's okay. What's not okay, what's not cool, is if you act like a jackass and treat women, especially your woman, like she's somehow subservient to you or she's beneath you. If you are equally yoked with your woman, then act like that. Act like you're equally yoked. Do your part. Now there are times in a relationship, I get it, where sometimes you need to be picked up and held up by the other person. And there are times in my married life that that has happened, and my wife 100% has been there every time. And I can only hope that I have been able to reciprocate that same behavior that she has shown to me throughout our married life. Well, ladies and gentlemen, we have come to the end of this episode, and I have a great quote for you. Actually, I'm not even sure who said this, but it's anonymous. One thing I can tell you about Anonymous is that whoever that person is, they have a lot of amazing quotes. Hmm. Okay. Just a tiny bit of humor there. Anyway, in all candor, I would dare say that this is my ideal in my own marriage. And the quote goes like this A good man honors his woman's strengths and covers her weaknesses. He isn't quick to find fault in her because he's too busy bringing out the best in her. End of quote. Ladies and gentlemen, if you can think it, you can plan it. If you can plan it, you can do it.