At basically every level, men are disappearing. One minute, they’re here; the next minute, they’re gone. You can track this trend in one metric after another. As I write in my brand-new book, The War on Men, for every one woman who drops out of college, seven men drop out. Men have left the workforce in almost unprecedented numbers; the current employment rate of men in prime working years mirrors that of the Great Depression. Men are also dropping out of church. For decades, women have filled roughly 60 percent of the pews.
The catalog of absence — and failure — goes on. Men have disappeared from many families. As Derek Thompson notes at The Atlantic, 80 percent of single-parent homes are headed by mothers. In the bleakest category there is, suicide rates, men kill themselves far more than women do, representing 80 percent of suicides today per the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.
Why Are Men Struggling So Much?
What exactly are we staring at as we study this pile of data? Quite simply, we are looking at a crisis. A generation of men is ghosting its loved ones, its work environments, and this very world itself. But men are not the only ones who suffer in this maelstrom; women are directly affected by it as well.
There are many reasons for the depressing trend mapped above. The American workforce has suffered horribly from globalist economic policies. The modern feminist movement has attacked manhood relentlessly. Cultural Marxism renders male leadership patriarchal, oppressive, and unjust. Our safety-obsessed society has trained men to fear the world, not enter it wholeheartedly.
The list of ill influences is a long one. But I will isolate just one more major reason for the decline— and resulting disappearance — of men. It is this: the idea that manhood is “toxic.” Here, for example, is what the American Psychological Association called “harmful” in a 2019 report: “antifemininity, achievement, eschewal of the appearance of weakness, and adventure risk and violence.” In sum, “traditional masculinity — marked by stoicism, competitiveness, dominance and aggression — is, on the whole, harmful.” Clearly, with many partners, the APA has declared war on manhood.
Plant Your Feet, Stand Tall
In such a poisoned climate, few now dare to speak on men’s behalf. But we cannot abandon men. As I call for in my book, we must reengage men. The dire situation before us today requires us to fight for men, not against them. Men are sinners, just as women are, and as such need the atoning mercy of God. This is the greatest need of men, not anything the “manosphere” teaches (right or wrong) or Andrew Tate spouts off.
Beyond this, men need much more encouragement. They need an arm around the shoulder. Men need a call, furthermore, not to passivity and softness, but to strength. We hear such a charge in the Bible as King David gives this deathbed exhortation to his son Solomon: “Be strong, and show yourself a man” (1 Kings 2:2).
This ancient word still reverberates. It commands men: Plant your feet. Stand tall. By God’s power, mature. Attack your weaknesses. Win a woman’s heart if called to marriage. (And keep winning that woman’s heart until you leave this Earth!) Build a family filled with thriving and well-loved children. Work hard, and cultivate your vocation, whether it is your “dream job” or not. Join and serve a church. Embrace a life ordered around things bigger than you; don’t get lost in a world of misery, hopelessness, and self-focus.
Men may be disappearing and struggling today. But in such evil days, we speak a different word than anti-male voices. We say this: No man is hopeless. No man is too far gone for God to reach him, remake him, and put him to work. This isn’t an anti-woman statement though. Women and men are made to complement one another, not compete.
When men flourish, women flourish. But when men falter, women are deeply affected. This is why, in the final analysis, we should not go to war against men as those infused with “toxicity.” We should instead go to men, finding them where they are. In some cases, this will be a precipice. Many men, after all, have lost all hope, and will soon step off the ledge into the darkness, disappearing forever.
We must reach them before it is too late, and the hour is indeed late in the West.
