Pew Research succinctly states that American society sums up the genders as, “Strong men; caring women.”  

Here is a composite of research studies that address not just perceptions, but psychological profiling of thousands of Americans in statistically valid samples and what those subjects say are masculine and feminine traits:

• Traits traditionally viewed as masculine include courage, independence, leadership, and assertiveness.
• Traits traditionally cited as feminine include gracefulness, gentleness, empathy, humility, and sensitivity.

Let that settle in. You can see how our national persona, as in what it means to be an American, has morphed from the character profile of strong men to the hypersensitivity of caring women, coinciding with the escalated role of women in American society supported by the polite, cooperative submission of former male dominance.

An argument can be made in a foreign country with a different founding and ideology (say, China) to aspire to a goal of tranquil banality for all, gender-neutral, a pacified people all dressed in beige resignedly relying on its authoritarian government to come up with the grand plan for their mutual and identical outcomes for the remainder of their quiet, unimportant lives. Are they internally desperate? Who knows, maybe not. Maybe they like it that way, or at least, they know not to question it.

They are not American. They have submitted.

Such is Marxism. Their utopia includes no stress of striving, no meritocratic competition for position: just come to accept quite a bit less spiritually, emotionally, intellectually and cool the pursuit of success or improvement. Rest obediently in the knowledge you are not leaving anyone behind through your lazy sacrifice. That is your new duty: not independence, free will, love of country, or other beliefs. In the new America, they call this diversity, equity, and inclusion.

The goal of identity politics is the endeavor by the “disenfranchised” to strip individuality and self-reliance from the American psyche as selfish traits and to instead embrace the idea of belonging to a supposedly oppressed group, even a majority group like females.

American men have accepted their diminished role without a fight, indeed with complicity if not outright enthusiasm. The initiatives, cooperation, support, and votes of male citizens were necessary for every civil rights and equality cause.  From the 800,000 deaths inflicted on American men to end slavery during the Civil War; to voting for Women’s Suffrage and the Civil Rights Act; and all the laws that later supported that including Affirmative Action; desegregation and forced busing to enforce desegregation all were sponsored by and carried through by male citizens.

Men did not resist; they proposed these causes through law and government enforcement. These male protagonists, supporters and victors were and are not in fact racist or misogynistic, as we are told to believe: they were those who gave their lives and proposed all these legislative acts and passed them into law to further the ideal of equality of all men and women, with honor.

The English-American Founders and the subsequent generations of European descent male American citizens forged the country. They invented and created the machines of industry and commerce and means of production to foster the world’s greatest economy under that constitutional republic that provides for unprecedented liberty. That document and our adherence to it is core to what grew to be in the minds of many, the greatest country ever formed. This demographic dies far disproportionately in wars and are the most devoted to sustaining a free America. They are the backbone, nervous system, and heart of America, but exist with all the other parts of what forms a strong nation.

Saddening is the media portrayal and even the professed beliefs of President Biden, that male nationalists are sinister purveyors of systemic problems in America, as the President said about them at Howard in May 2023, “The most dangerous terrorist threat to the Homeland.”  More unintentional irony: those wanting to preserve the country as free are the greatest threat to the country.

Now those male European descendants commit 70% of all suicides while being 31% of the population as supposedly the entrenched, privileged patriarchy that should be further diminished. Where did they go wrong? Did they let the country down? What more should they be doing? They seem not to be holding any others back but have little left to give. But the nation desperately needs them to not give up on America, despite the disparagement.

It seems quite the paradox that as the media tells it, the founding principles leading to the greatest nation are themselves, the very perceived problems with the greatest nation.

We are witnessing a new rise of authoritarianism in opposition to freedom. Men do not want to be ruled. Look at the national submission to COVID mandates: this was a pure feminine reaction favoring security. We are on the brink of total submission to authority. “Please, keep me safe! That’s all I ask!” We the People, men pointedly, meekly allowed ourselves to submit to loss of freedom imposed by a vastly overreaching government. We consented to be so governed.

The despair of men who have lost their role and identity as independent and strong seems to be cheered on in the guilt-ridden media who see masculinity as a sickness. Their concern is that men are not adapting as anticipated…some are resisting.

Next, we focus on a great distinction between genders: the noble concept of honor is archetypically male. This is a core spiritual aspect of masculinity, not a disgrace as seemingly the scientific press would have honor reduced to “aggressive behavior.”

Honor is a voluntary constraint on behavior that is in the unspoken creed of being a decent man, which will involve sacrifice to achieve something close to virtue. When you have honor, decisions are not as complicated because all the wrong actions are removed, even if it takes a moment to remember; you have honor. You are honor bound and glad for its grounding, even though it is binding.

Honor can be lost, even through a decision not to act when honor dictated action. It is the most serious offense to have dishonored oneself, where a man’s sense of worth falls into doubt. For honorable men, external justice for actions is accepted but secondary to one’s own self-disgrace.

Honor is an instrumental part of an understood creed for American men. It is fast disappearing under steady attack in the feminine United States of 2024, where honor is considered archaic and limiting and again, too masculine. Go along, embrace weakness (sexy!) and compliance: it is easier.

Honor can disappear from a society, as a religion can, when the believers die off. When we look for strong men to defend American values, it matters not to their peers of honorable men that they lose favor with those who do not hold honor in high regard.

No male demographic wants to be cast as victims or without honor, but the nonsense thrown about to diminish most groups is meant to keep them down, as is the welfare state that discards them.

Despite continuous efforts to divide us, all men who share American values will join with a return to masculinity and honor in America, and indeed, studies show virtually all women want strong men, not mousy supplicants. It is a minority Left position that views masculinity as something to be extinguished.

Think back to 1776: where would we be in 2024 without that incredible generation of brave, masculine, honorable men that forged our nation, breaking from a world of monarchies and government rule?  Look where it took us. Now it is in our hands to preserve America despite the ever-intrusive grasp of government tentacles.

Do not take another step back, honorable men of America. We need a resurgence of original American values where government does not rule, it serves, and it is going to take masculine virtues to make that happen by making a firm stand and a return to what we remember with pride was America just three years ago: liberty, individualism, independence, limited government and honor.

Image: Manfred Werner