The Real Cause of the #MeToo Crisis and the Only Answer

I honestly don’t know what the problem is with the Gillette ad.  It caused such hysteria and controversy by suggesting that boys should be raised to be kind, gentle, and considerate.  Now, don’t get me started on the hypocrisy of a company that dresses models up in latex outfits for raceday calling men out for treating women like objects.  I could go on about why we want a razor company to tell us how to behave or the fact that they are obviously using a marketing tactic that simply piggybacks on an important civic conversation.  Sure, in many ways the whole thing is despicable.  But if you have a problem with the message of the ad, you really should take another look.

There is nothing inherently wrong with the message.  Treating women with respect and not bullying people moves us toward being better men.

But the controversy does thankfully reignite the conversation about “toxic masculinity.”  It is such a thing.  It is masculinity that sees women and girls as conquests instead of someone to care for.

So pay attention, because i am going to tell the only viable solution to this problem.

Masculinity is a real thing.  Men are wired differently from women.  Men are made to protect.  You can call it evolution if you want.  But I call it design.  We are the protectors.  In a prehistoric era threats were all around in the form of hungry lions, weather, and nutrition.  In order to raise offspring, men needed to ensure that their homes were safe.  Women needed to give birth and nurse infants.  This is not conservative women bashing, this is fact.

The thing is, there are still threats.  We may live in places where lions are not a threat, and grocery shelves are stocked, but there are still threats.  These threats come in the form of porn on iphones, sexual predators, and cultural influences that have shaped men into the reason for the #MeToo movement.  Yes, there are cultural pressures to be a #MeToo causing toxic male. And men are uniquely designed to protect their families from these things.

Protect them from everything I just mentioned for starters.  Movies that overly sexualize women.  “Locker room talk” which existed long before I was in middle school.  All these things pressure boys to use their good masculinity in unhealthy and painful ways.  But you know what combated that for me?

My Dad.

Sure, I had all those cultural pressures.  But my dad raised me to respect women.  Starting with my sisters and my mom and then out toward the world.  Even without sitting down and lecturing me. Because I watched him do it.  I saw an example in front of me every day of a man that treated women with respect, protected his home, and cared gently and honestly for those he loved.  This is something that only a man can do.  Model healthy masculinity.

Today 33 percent of children live without their father.  Now, If you are a single mom reading this – kudos to you.  That is probably the hardest job in the world.  And you deserve crazy amounts of respect and praise for all you do to invest in your kids and care for them.  But those guys?  They need to hear these facts.

   63% of youth suicides are from fatherless homes (US Dept. Of Health/Census) – 5 times the average.
   90% of all homeless and runaway children are from fatherless homes – 32 times the average.
   85% of all children who show behavior disorders come from fatherless homes – 20 times the average. (Center for Disease Control)
   80% of rapists with anger problems come from fatherless homes –14 times the average. (Justice & Behavior, Vol 14, p. 403-26)
   71% of all high school dropouts come from fatherless homes – 9 times the average. (National Principals Association Report)

Absent fathers are a serious problem. 

They are the leading cause of the very real issue of toxic masculinity.  Now, does that mean that no predator comes from a two parent household?  Of course not.  But a father should be the one to teach his son to stand up for women, not “go along, to get along.”  When a man says something derogatory about a woman in the presence of other men, men who have been trained well by their fathers should stand up for women and call these men out.

And fathers have been made irrelevant by a movement that has called our protection and our provision “chauvinism.” They were made irrelevant by recent history of social programs and cultural movements that treated them as unnecessary and they slowly backed away because what was good in their masculinity was not desired.

Now for sure, there have always been tyrannical men who lived with their families and there probably always will be.  Monsters who emotionally, physically, and psychologically destroy those closest to them.  These types of monsters ushered in an era of “mad men” behavior that made women (rightfully so) want to escape that sort of toxic behavior.  And no one stood up and said ” wait, we don’t need less masculinity we need better masculinity.”

Toxic masculinity became conflated with all masculinity and we threw the baby out with the bathwater.  In this example the baby is good, kind, caring, protective, sheltering, leading, shepherding masculinity.

Now, let me say that I fully support the #MeToo movement.  And I support every effort to influence men to be better even if it comes in such shallow ways as advertisements for razors.  I think it is good that we want to call men to be better in our culture.  But let’s not forget that this still requires us to call them to be men.  Let’s go back to letting men do their job. Let’s hold men responsible when they are absent fathers.  Let’s hold them responsible when they fail to care for the children they make.  Let’s call men not just to be men, but to actually teach their sons to shave!

The only real cure for toxic masculinity is calling a new generation of men to stick around and raise another generation of men to be better than the last one.

All of the solutions we come up with to all of our problems are far too short sighted.  We want to fix it in a few years or even months.  It takes a generation.  Maybe even two.  And the only way to do that is to focus on the next generation.  We need masculine men.  Men that know how to change oil, cut down trees and kiss skinned knees.  We need men who will wash the dishes, take out the trash and gently kiss their wives.

We need real men to raise another generation of real men.  Will you be one of them?

Let me add one thought to this.  Because I hope if you are a man that has really blown it, you are still reading this.  It’s ok that you blew it.  It’s ok if the last time you saw your son was when he was two and now he’s in prison, or you are.  It doesn’t matter.  What matters is what you do now.  You can admit that you blew it.  The good news about Christianity is that we are never beyond redemption.  It also means you get to change.  If your son is 30 or 40 you can still say “I’m sorry, I blew it.” And ask for his forgiveness.  And if he refuses, your father still forgives you.  And I can guarantee you that that there are fatherless boys within a mile of your house, that would love someone to teach them to shave.