Why Men And Women Are Lacking In Value

I've seen a lot of people, male and female, sharing the article "Why Men Aren't Really Men Anymore" in the past few days. I am not going to be one of those people who agrees with it or compliments how "well said" it is. While I agree with the main salient point, that men in general have fallen to a lower standard in modern times than the one they held themselves to before, I find the entire article more than unnecessary.

Why? Because it's aimed at men. Down to the titling, the article seeks to paint men as somehow less than the "good old fashioned gentleman" of old. Sweeping generalizations aside. I could write an entire essay on why I disagree with this article, not out of some misplaced sense of self-righteousness or even some protective affinity for my fellow men. But I won't. In essence, the reason is simple.

I disagree because it isn't only men who do or fail to do these things as the case may be. Men, women, boys, girls, teenagers, middle-aged, all are equally as guilty. I could point out example after example of how it isn't only men who've fallen from grace, but people as a whole. But no, I disagree with the article because it singles out the men, as if men are the only ones who should be held to a higher standard, and then be torn down when they fail.

In a world where a myriad of moral, ethical, emotional, societal, social (and whatever else you like) issues conspire to rob men of their identity or confuse them as to the fact that their identity is their own to decide, do we really need another article saying "YOU HAVE FAILED AT THIS BECAUSE YOU ARE NOT THIS WAY." The title emasculates men, saying they are no longer men because they don't behave in the way the author deems it fit for "real men" to behave.

I'll take it one further, these qualities the author extols belong in every human being, not just men. So before pointing the finger at males maybe we should look inside ourselves. I don't deny that many men are guilty of the failings listed here, but neither do I pretend that there aren't just as many women who are guilty of those selfsame failures.

You've all heard of the feminist movement? I have no problem with that. Women should be equal, all people should be equal. Which means all people should be accorded the same respect and held to the same standard. It's a two-way street. So men, according to this author, maybe we aren't really men anymore. But that's okay, because if you really want to get into it, people aren't really people anymore are they?

People will fail. Does that make them less of a person? Does not "dressing with style" make me less of a man? If so, does not keeping your hair long make you less of woman? Or does not reading books marked for 3+ make you less of a child? I'm not defending anyone, all I'm really saying is, if we're going to start pointing fingers, who do we point at first?

In my humble opinion, to quote the words of V from "V for Vendetta," "If you're looking for the guilty, you need only look into a mirror."

To clarify even further, I can understand why the article was written. I'm sure the author is an older guy, or just maybe a guy with a different value system who sees all these other guys running around, acting this way and wants to make his opinions on that known. Or maybe he was feeling nostalgic and wanted to share a little. It's perfectly valid. But I see a lot of peoples' reactions to it and I just find them... not right.

Rather than using it as another bludgeon against men, maybe we should take the spirit of the material into consideration, as something to make us think about ourselves rather than to point more fingers at this or that demographic.

Certain lines in his article raise my ire, like "Ladies… real men do exist; there aren’t many of us, but we’re survivors and will be around for a while. Come find us." It smacks of self-important, self-righteousness to me. But I'm willing to give the author the benefit of the doubt in this regard, I personally know how hard it is to write something and not offend at least one person with at least one sentence. I'm sure this comment will inflame more than a few netizens.

The only point I'm really trying to make is that what's written is never more important than how we respond to it.

Jared Locke | Elite.

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