man up

When I see stories like this one about how guys are getting their own brand of make-up, I don't know if I should laugh or cry. Have men finally reached a point where all masculinity in their thinking has been drained out of them? From what I see on a daily basis I would have to say yes. From daily challenges ranging from professional to personal, it seems that males of every kind have been taken over by some collective female consciousness. Unlike some who see this as an assault on men and anything do with masculinity, I see it more as a test for all men. A test right now that men are failing miserably at.

A self re-enforcing stereotype is when a well known stereotype becomes so ingrained in society that it becomes true just due to the fact that it's subjects embrace it. It's a defense mechanism against a perceived slight, basically a "well I'll show you asshole" response. There are articles and other pseudo-studies about how most of "gangsta thug" culture is nothing but a self re-enforcing stereotype in it's defense of black culture. So many movies, music, television, and other media portray black males as thugs, they saw their only effective way to respond was a big fuck you to "polite" society. The line of thinking might have gone like "we know we're not all thugs, but if they want to think that then fine, you want thug you're going to get thug". In reality this was the wrong way to go about changing things. People, culture, and society in general usually don't do well when they react first and think second, or if at all. In their natural state all human beings are lazy, thinking does not enter most people's lexicon until absolutely necessary. So when a person, a race, or a even a sex feels they are being slighted, their first reaction is not usually the best.

During the 70's the seeds planted during the 60's feminist movements came to fruition. This on going 15 year war of the sexes came to a climatic battle in late 70's in the form of the Equal Rights Amendment.  The ERA amendment's main goal was the following.

Section 1. Equality of rights under the law shall not be denied or abridged by the United States or by any State on account of sex  

There were many problems with the ERA, mostly due to the fact that champions of this amendment forgot one crucial thing, there actually are differences between men and women. Who knew!! Regardless, 35 of the required 38 states ratified the amendment before the deadline expired in 1979. The amendment failed but the cat was out of the bag so to speak. Women for the first time saw they had real power in shaping attitudes about themselves and society in general. Seeing how close  they came to actually getting this made part of the American constitution they drew the only logical conclusion they could, the USA was ready for women to be more like men. From movies to books to music women drank from the well of this new found power and unfortunately for all of us they got drunk. After decades feeling they were being slighted by a culture dominated by men, women let out a proverbial "fuck you".

      ...R-E-S-P-E-C-T!

Feminists trumpeted far and loud "don't mess with the vagina" and heard they were. Now all women, not just feminists, began to see all the benefits that their bra burning sisters paved the way for. Get drunk like men? Hell yeah! Cuss like men? Hell yeah! Fuck without remorse like men? HELL YEAH!! One thing became very clear as time went on, decades of female pent up frustration bore out one glaring thing...lots of women did not like men very much. So many of these women reacted the only way they knew how, by hating on anything masculine. Seeing how they could not run around and cut men's members off (though I am sure many relished the idea) they attacked the only way they could, by making men more like women.

This of course threw most men for a loop. Men being human beings reacted the way any lazy animal would, choosing the path of least resistance. That path entailed cow-toeing to what women thought they wanted, to become more like them. If that's what it took to keep getting your laundry done, your dinners cooked, and your dick wet, then so be it. From shaving your body hair, to keeping up with men's fashion, to paying top dollar for grooming, men have fully bought into to what they think women want.

But something has happened along the way. A large majority of these men are finding out that changing who they really are as men to placate women are not giving them the desired effect. Becoming "more sensitive" and spending loads of cash and time on the activities I described above is not making them happy. They feel they as though the map they have been given to win women over is nothing but a complete lie, a sham to make them nothing more than a wallet and a penis (of course used only when she feels like it). The reaction was not swift at first to these new facts. For years men had been trained to look inside themselves, think more like a woman when trying to find solutions to problems. Feel your way through the issue, and what ever you do don't use reason.

Predictably this got men nowhere, well at least not the place where they wanted to be. So instead men finally used their option of last resort, withdrawal and counter-attack. From books about game to web sites devoted to men staying single, the battle lines were drawn. They were not going to take this slight and someone was going to pay, so once again the big proverbial "fuck you" was screamed out only this time to women. Men had succumbed to becoming the dreaded self re-enforcing stereotype. So the circle of "fuck you" was joined and for about the past ten years it looked like the battle of Antietam.

Sometimes solutions to the hardest problems are the most simple, and the solution to this problem is literally staring at men right in the face. Men have forgotten what it means to actually be a man. Unfortunately for them now days being a man is often confused with being an over grown boy consumed by fear. Someone caught up in a never ending loop of adolescence because actually growing up is not cool. "Not cool" just being an excuse to hide one's fears of responsibility and personal accountability. Boys righteously point out all women have been corrupted by the feminist ideal while at the same time preying on those ideals to satisfy there own uncontrollable urges. One thing has remained clear throughout this on going battle. Women, no matter how much their personality has been infected by the likes of Cosmo, are still attracted to men. Why do you think books giving guidance to hapless boys about how to pick up women are so popular? Because they twist some of the basics of being men into slick prose that is more suitable for the adolescent mind. But these books are written to get boys into bed with women and nothing more, thus propagating the stereotype that the world is only full of boys (i.e. pigs).

Now that I am married I am starting to understand these things much better. Men do not go through their entire lives looking for the perfect woman because he knows no such thing exists. But the most important aspect of being a man is not being afraid to be one. Not being afraid to love and lose, not being afraid to be honest with women even though it might not help you get laid, and most importantly not being afraid to appreciate women while the cool thing to do is hate on them for not being someones idea of perfection.

In Roissy's anti-marriage tour de force he lists three reasons why a man should ever contemplate getting married. The third one is my favorite.

He has GAME. A man who understands the mentality of women, their different psychological profile, and their true desires and fallen natures, can risk exposing himself to a marriage system that is rigged against his interests from the start. GAME will not only win a woman into your bed, it will keep her in love with you till death… or a beta relapse… do you part.

The only thing I would change is "He had GAME" to "He is a MAN". For a man knows all those things but does it anyways knowing full well it might end up badly. He might be broke and living in some shit hole apartment while his ex-wife lives in the big house. But a man can take comfort in knowing that possessions mean nothing, the experience will make him stronger, that he is unafraid. Because he knows being a man means two things, he will never have any problems meeting wonderful women who want nothing to do with boys and that he won't have to wear make-up to do it.

Comments

[T.]

Great post, zpr. Love it.