Boys should be boys

There are many times I don’t agree with Dennis Prager, but I do consider him a great thinker. And I think he’s one of the few national media personalities on the forefront of the war against boys in today’s society. As a father of a four-year old, this is an  issue I am truly concerned with.

I graduated college almost 15 years ago. My school was about 60/40 female-to-male. As a happy, straight male, this was a great thing. But my freshman year, I noticed that the women’s crew, cross country and other teams were actively recruiting women to join the team — no experience necessary! Meanwhile, it was a dogfight to join any of the men’s teams. Despite the fact I played football and baseball in high school, there was no way I was fit to be on the same field as my college teams.

As the years progressed, I noticed some other things. Colleges around me were dropping men’s teams. Wrestling, baseball, swimming and diving, tennis….gone. That’s when I learned the lesson of unintended consequences. While Title IX proponents were praising the advances of women’s sports, men’s teams were getting cut left and right to meet the easiest standard, “proportionality.”

Title IX is a great thing for women’s sports. My college’s softball field was pathetic, and Title IX forced them to revamp it. But should women’s opportunities be expanded at the expense of men’s opportunities?

Unfortunately, many feminists say “yes.” And since this has been the trend of thinking and teaching for years, we are now reaping what we have sown.

Prager brings up a point that really got to me: Unless a boy plays a sport, most never see a male until dad (if he’s still around) comes home at night. Think about it: How many male day care providers are there? Heck, if there were, I bet most people would suspect him of being some sort of creep, or completely inept. How many male schoolteachers are out there? Fewer and fewer.

And because we have been taught that men and women are equal, and there are no differences between them, the school system is failing our boys. Increasingly, more and more boys are being prescribed Ritalin. While there are certainly cases of ADHD amongst kids, it’s almost a certainty that those kinds of drugs are over prescribed. With fewer and fewer schools having recess, it’s giving boys no chance to let off steam, instead keeping them sequestered in chairs all day — something that boys aren’t hard wired to do.

Fortunately, people are starting to get it. Christina Hoff Sommer’s “The War Against Boys” is a seminal work on the case. And now, “Boys Should Be Boys” by Meg Meeker gives us sound advice for us raising our kids in this culture. She argues that male values have been completely undermined. And male masculinity is degraded or brushed off. And she’s right.

In my father’s teenage years, shows like “Father Knows Best” or “Leave it to Beaver” or the many westerns out there helped mold what men are supposed to be — confident, smart, masculine role models. In my teens, the portayals of men became uber macho and violent (think “Rambo,” “Rocky” or “The Terminator”). Modern portrayals of men are nothing more than buffoonish cartoons (Homer Simpson or any Chris Farley character). Want proof? Just watch commercials. How many portray dad as lazy, stupid, or just an idiot.

What I find most interesting (and disturbing in a way) is that most, if not all of the research and criticism of this is done by women. I believe that most men have been taught to kowtow to the radical feminists. We can’t ever criticize something that empowers females, lest we be considered sexist. Yet women are free to poke fun at anything and everything men do, say or stand for and they get a “you go, girl!”

Cynthia Good can (allegedly) vandalize a “Men Working” sign and she gets praised. Bring up the fact that her magazine can be considered anti-male? You’re a sexist pig.

It’s time for men to stand up and be counted. It’s not in our nature to band together in some show of brotherhood. So I say we do it the way our dads and grandfathers did. Let’s be the type of men we want our sons to be. Let’s be great role models. Take a couple hours for lunch and meet your kid at elementary school or daycare. I’ve done it before and you’d be amazed — kids are starving for male attention. Let’s start concentrating on the little things that really add up.

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