Many of us are still willing to talk and listen to each other openly, but it’s becoming more and more fashionable to remain deeply divided on even the most trivial facets of life, never mind those of real significance. Through this endless bickering, most of the population keeps itself paralyzed.

That, in my mind, is what keeps many boys from taking that vital step into true adulthood and true manhood. They’re afraid of the endless screech of the critics. We could talk about what drove this wedge between people nowadays, but I doubt we could trace it back to any single thing. What’s done is done.

In the old days, a boy could often count on his dad or other male relatives to help him make that transition into manhood. These days, fathers are very often not in the home, or they just don’t care about their kids because they see them as the products of a failed marriage, or the father isn’t mentally mature enough to handle kids in the first place. Often times, the mother isn’t ready, either.

This kind of thing was once considered a tragic circumstance; to come from a broken home meant not having the benefits of what was called the nuclear family; no dad and none of the great stuff dads brought to the family. It meant lasting psychological issues for the kids and lifelong difficulty in feeling truly a part of their own communities or wider culture. Nowadays, the reverse is true. Nearly everyone I grew up with watched their parents divorce at some point, as I did.

I know I’ve gotten awfully windy here, but I guess it’s just that I hate seeing things deteriorate into another session of cow-eyed bickering for its own sake. The way I see it, now more than ever, it’s so difficult for a guy to really – I mean really and truly – grow up and become a worthwhile, stable and confident man. Our culture is so wracked with dissention and endless criticism that it leaves most young men shaky in their self-identity. They end up going through the motions of life, but are never really able to just take hold of the wheel and steer their own ship. They sink into the background, work in jobs they don’t like and live unfulfilling lives. They do it because nobody ever wanted them to be men. They were always the products of failure, and would only grow up to pass this inconsistent, unhappy nature on to their own children.

It’s time for all men to stand up for yourselves and ignore the shriek of the mindless horde. You are a man, damn it! A man who has needs and wants that are just as valid as anybody else’s. If the eternal critics don’t understand that, then to hell with them. They’re lives are already forfeit because that’s how they want it to be. The fearful and bitter will spew that kind of filth until they choke to death on their own bile. The internet in particular is a safe environment for such invertebrate scowlers. Ignore them! To be ignored is to have every fear of insignificance confirmed and every shred of power stripped from their words.

I enjoyed your article, Brett, and I enjoy this website in its entirety. It’s about time we, as a collective, celebrated and embraced those features and ways of manliness which have been largely forgotten in these paranoid and divisive times.

So where did that belief come from — since it didn’t come from me?

My experience from the comments on this article is that much of what you get when you read an article, you bring yourself. (Jung called it “projection.”) The last commenter at least noticed that the things he imagined about me weren’t in the words; and they weren’t. But they also weren’t in my thoughts. If I didn’t say it, there’s a strong likelihood I didn’t think it. (And especially if I said the opposite! For example, I got a comment condemning me for promoting rampant procreation, though I actually spoke of “moderation.”)

On tradition — not that tradition was the topic of this article, but still — I’ll go with the site owner’s thought that some of it is good and some is bad. Let’s keep that baby and throw out the dirty bathwater.

If this post had been whole-heartedly right-wing, chest-pounding, anti-gay male it may have made a great piece to debate over (I would stand on the opposite side of the author, but that does not prevent me from enjoying debating with someone coming from a different perspective as me). Instead it reduced itself to this sort indecisive, waffling commentary on why modernity is bad and tradition good.

Let’s pretend the above WAS firm in it’s convictions instead of waffling:

I believe that all things change and evolve. When we the human race lived as cave-men or even when the pioneers in the US were settling the West there were many children who went without a father figure (or at least a decent one) by many a supposedly “respectable” man not even from an “Underclass” (to use the authors words). Women were left home to tend the children and fatherhood considered a secondary form of parental care or guidance. Time’s have changed. What is required of a man has evolved. And you can’t evolve as the world changes….you can’t survive in the world, and neither will your off-spring.

As for bravery and responsibility I think (though it’s hard to tell in the mass of indecision above) the author and I are on the same page: Men and women each have those virtues–they are simply used for different things. Lord knows my girlfriend is much better at walking into the emotional firing range of dealing with her mother than I am. Of course, when a spider shows up in the house it’s my job to take care of it. And she’s also better about getting up early to take the dog out–while I, in turn, tend to be more on top of keeping the kitchen clean.

The reality of manliness is that it does not exist, in the modern world, in the same sense as it did even forty or fifty years ago. Does that mean no it has no place? Or is old-fashioned? Absolutely not, provided one can understand that for most people, in most places, it has evolved. And we as men must evolve with it, because ultimately manliness is about taking care of yourself, your family, and others and we don’t understand what is needed in this day and age, we will never, ever accomplish that.

From what I’ve gathered is that on the most fundamental level both men and women want to be mentally and physically happy. But in the west the problem is that ignorance is confusing both men and women so that they can never clearly identify the problem and be happy. It’s time to face the facts – its time the west takes a cue from other countries. Most ardent feminists I know live in cities. In cities both men and women sit in a small box sized room all day and stare at a computer, 9 to 5. Since this work is mundane and devoid of mental stimulation both men and women feel unhappy, and since both can do the job equally well (since its purely mental) they will be in competition with each other. But since boys will be boys, their hardwired male brain tells them somethings not right so the result is that they feel emasculated and crushed. Women then complain men are feminine and not manly. BOTH SUFFER. Therein lies the problem – modern industrialisation has made life so comfortable its boring – for both men and women. In this modern robot-like society male heroism isn’t needed, so men have to find manly persuits to feel alive and save their male libido before it goes away forever. Its a sad truth of the times we live in, un inescapable problem. And overpopulation will mean cities will become even more crowded the world over. The ONLY way we can be happy is to return to nature and live close to the earth. Then men will not have to worry about defining manliness and women will not worry about the feminisation of men. The natural order of things would just come about, as God had initially intended. The most beautiful thing I have ever seen is families in devolping countries who work on farms, like my girlfriends parents from Thailand. Both worked equally hard alongside each other cultivating rice, both shared the tasks equally, and both lived life to the fullest and were extremely happy. After work the husband went to market, the wife cooked the meals and bathed the children. Neither squabbled about not having enough time to develope their intellectuality, equal rights etc. The man was happy being a man, the woman was happy being a woman, and both WORKED EQUALLY AS HARD AND HAD AN EQUAL SHARE OF THE DUTIES. As you can guess they remained married till death. But city people or those in the industrialised western world look at folk like that and call them names like country bumpkin and simpleton. The truth is they are scared to really experience life and all its challenges, they just want to have money and live in a problem-free drug induced world. Wouldn’t the world be cured of all its ills if people lived simply and close to mother nature?

Simply put theres no point trying to fight feminism and make men more manly, theres no quick fix solution. The fabric of modern society in developing countries has created a scenario where the requirements of the times do not match the true nature of our genders. Heres the solution – make society less materialistic and more spiritual, encourage people to work on farms instead of the boardroom. Since that sounds ridiculous in this day and age then my friends, accept whats coming, social ills will only multiply

I live in New York City – in the Greenwich Village neighborhood, in fact. And I’m a married (my first and only marriage), responsible father of 2 boys. And I’m not the only one. I have numerous other dad friends in the neighborhood. We take our boys to soccer together on Saturday mornings, etc. – probably about exactly the same things that you do with your kids. Oh, yeah – and I’m not rich either.

So, news flash to Mr. Briggs who seems to think he knows so much about me, my neighborhood, and my friends – most likely without having spent much (or perhaps any) time either visiting New York or spending time with New Yorkers: your assumptions about us are way off base. Many (if not most) people of the people living here are families. And as far as the sizable contingent of people that are not – gay people, young people who are “postponing growing up”, etc.? Not only am I fine with them, I welcome them. They are all (with a few rare exceptions) peaceful, decent people, and make my hometown a more exciting, interesting, open-minded, and diverse place to live. And that is the type of environment that this responsible father wants to raise his children in.

I live in Kentucky and we just had a nasty ice storm that rendered our town and many others without power and sanitary water for days/weeks. During the first days of the storm, my neighbors, roommate and myself instantly kicked into survival mode. Between the four of us men we started to prioritize the needs of survival for ourselves and our women (“they stayed inside next to a propane heater for five days”). Off the bat we went out into the freezing rain and began gathering fallen tree branches and the portions of trees we could move ourselves into a pile for chopping and firewood. We sectioned off one house to isolate the heat solely in the living room (the biggest room in the house, were eight of us slept) and set our only source of modern heat in there to keep us warm when we slept. We then started a make shift fire pit in the back yard (I live in the city and am sure there are laws against this) which we used to keep us warm while cooking, a subject of fun while drinking, and the envy of other neighbors who refused to do anything to help themselves.

Without so many words, I was just amazed at the amount of: survival knowledge, responsibility, cooking knowledge, and determination the four of us shared with one another and am honestly looking forward to another ice storm, I haven’t ate that good in a long time. :-)

Things I learned:
1. If you have a bottle of rubbing alcohol and one full roll of toilet paper. Dump the alcohol into a container and set the toilet paper inside to absorb the fluid entirely. When all fluid is absorbed set the roll into a firesafe container (if inside) or just in a pit and light it up. Even with strong winds the roll will burn for about 15 min and can be used to help start a larger fire.

2. You can use any plastic bag as a water proof addition to your feet, when in a cold and wet environment always remember keeping you feet dry and warm is a high priority.

3. Snow and ice are natures refrigerant, if you think power will be off for a long time take all necessary foods outside, just remember that direct sunlight will warm them up.

I hope that will help any of you who ever have to sit in the cold because of a power outage.

Family law makes it increasingly risky for young men to marry and start a family. Take a hard look at domestic violence laws, family court and child support statutes: there is no due process in family court, the Constitution does not apply.

Those breezy women’s magazine articles about “finding yourself” after a divorce? They wouldn’t be written if women lost their children, homes and livelihoods in divorce the way countless thousands of men have.

Meanwhile we have feminist psychologists (see work by Carol Gilligan at Harvard) attributing pathology upon pathology to boys simply because…they are not girls.

Every day we can read about another female teacher sleeping with one or more teenage boys, and getting sentenced to a slap on the wrist. A male in the same position would get a harsh sentence. The same goes for the casual treatment of women who kill or abuse their children. Why aren’t women held to the same legal standard men are in America? To put it another way, why are men punished far more harshly for their crimes then are women?

You want to be manly in today’s society? Stay unmarried, enjoy life, and think hard about having kids. Get an ironclad prenup if you want to get married. If your fiancee makes a stink – walk away.

I think AoM is a good site, but in many ways, it is an anachronistic view of society today, and it ignores many legal and societal hazards that men experience in day to day life. Because of that, it has little bearing on much of modern life in America today for your average man.