Less than half of American children reach adulthood with both parents at home.1 It’s usually not moms who leave. Dads do. Approximately 80% of single-parent homes are led by mothers. 2 At this moment, 19.5 million US children live without a resident father; that equates to the entire population of New York City (including suburbs) full of fatherless kids. American fatherlessness has risen in lockstep with American contempt for masculinity. That’s not an accident. The deconstruction of masculinity has fueled the decline in fatherhood. How so?
Male Initiation Rights
Let’s begin by considering an example of a nearly universal phenomenon – male initiation rites. Land diving is a ritual performed by the men of the Pentecost Island, Vanuatu – South Pacific. The ritual begins atop a makeshift tower, some 20 to 30 meters high (66 to 98 ft.). Fixed atop the tower are two vines approximately 6 feet shorter than the tower’s height. Divers tie the two vines to their ankles and jump headlong toward the earth. The object of any good diver is to dive headfirst as close to the ground as possible without touching it. According to the Guinness Book of World Records, the g-force experienced by those at their lowest point in the dive is the greatest experienced in the non-industrialized world. Again, just to put things in perspective, that means that a good diver jumps from a seven-story building with their head pointed toward the ground. They hurtle headlong through the air past 6, 5, 4, 3, and 2 stories until nothing more than a couple of jungle vines break their fall a few feet before they break their neck. Land diving is just one example of the near-universal phenomena of “male initiation rites.” Though most rites are not as colorful as the Pentecost Islanders’, almost every culture has them.
Why Do Male Initiation Rights Matter?
Rituals like land-diving raise an obvious question: “Why?” Why would billions of adolescent boys across time and place undergo dangerous activities to show themselves “manly”? The old saying says that “boys will be boys,” but there is perhaps an overlooked desire in the male psyche equally worthy of note: “Boys want to be men.” Held within the mind’s eye of every wild-eyed young boy is an image, not of who he is, but of the man he wants to become. The trick to ensure that boys become good men is making sure they have the right picture in mind.
Famed sociologist David Gilmore argues that male initiation rites are nearly universal across time and place and that across cultures they seem to play a common role. 3 The purpose of most initiation rites was and/ is to validate and encourage a young boy’s quest for masculinity and to ensure that young boys become the right kind of men.
While some initiation rites are rather peculiar, like that of the Pacific Islanders, others serve to instill within young men a set of praiseworthy masculine qualities. For example, most initiation rites require that participants engage in some form of self-sacrifice to instill within young men the understanding that self-sacrifice is part and parcel of mature masculinity. Others, like that of the Pentecost Islanders, instill the value of risk-taking.
Of course, many initiation rites are rather absurd, but the point I want to make is this: historically speaking, almost all cultures across time and place were keenly interested in cultivating and affirming masculinity within their young men. Further, almost all cultures across time and place had traditions in place to ensure that a certain version or image of masculinity was instilled in their young men. At least historically, for most cultures, masculinity mattered.
How Masculinity Became “Bad” in Our Culture
Our culture is different. Certain influences in Western society seem bent on destroying masculinity. Consequently, our cultural picture of masculinity is blurred, and many would argue that it deserves to be blotted out altogether. For example, the dominant opinion of the contemporary American psychological establishment is that masculinity is a harmful social construct that should be destroyed. 4 In his 2021 article published in the American Psychological Association’s journal Psychology of Men and Masculinities, Brian P. Cole notes that the majority of research conducted on male psychological traits implicitly treats those traits as negative. 5 Cole notes that in the 20-year history of perhaps the most globally influential psychological journal on masculinity, only 15% of the articles published took what he classified as a positive view of masculinity and the rest treated masculine traits as negative.
Of course, negative references to masculinity are not limited to academia. In any given month, negative allusions abound in the entertainment industry,6 popular media, 7 and politics. 8 Both in academia and in society at large, masculinity often has a bad reputation.
Masculinity: Myth, Machismo, or…?
Perhaps the seminal figure in the fight to destroy masculinity is renowned psychologist Joseph Pleck and his landmark 1981 study, The Myth of Masculinity. Here, in a book that became a clarion call for men’s studies across higher education, Pleck argues that the very notion of masculinity had a suffocating effect on men. 9
As someone who grew up in the 1950s, he argued that mid-century American masculinity did much more harm than good. The post-World War II masculinity he encountered was a kind of “cookie-cutter masculinity.” It was a version of masculinity to which almost no male could aspire and thereby caused more stress than satisfaction.
We might refer to the version of masculinity as “machismo” or hyper-dominant, aggressive, chauvinistic masculinity. America was not the only place in which some such version of machismo held sway. In fact, it is quite obvious that machismo masculinity had (and has) a strong representation in cultures throughout the world.
Pleck is not alone in his opinion. Enormous portions of the contemporary academy maintain that masculinity is a toxic cultural construct. Masculinity is an invention – literally a “construction” – of the cultural imagination and it hurts people. Thus, the construction or “myth” called masculinity needs to be deconstructed and thrown out.
Masculinity is Sacred
In the face of “toxic masculinity,” people find themselves with a choice. They must either (A) choose to live according to a toxic, machismo masculinity or, (B) admit that masculinity is a myth and has no bearing on one’s life. Pick your poison: machismo or myth. These are the only options available…or so the cultural narrative would have us believe. But are these all the options? Must masculinity be either machismo or myth? Is there a third choice?
Must masculinity be either machismo or myth? Is there a third choice?
I hope so. Because without a positive image of masculinity, men seem to crumble in all areas of life – including fatherhood. Alongside the deconstruction of sexual difference, the last four decades have brought a crisis of men as evidenced by many sociological metrics including the wide acceptance of divorce and cohabitation, 10 soaring rates of single motherhood, 11 and increased male incarceration. 12 All of these statistics have risen alongside a parallel plummet in male religious participation. 13 And there is perhaps no more profound evidence for the crisis than the downward spiral of American fatherhood. In 1960, approximately 9% of American children grew up without a resident father; that number has now risen to 25%. 14 The jury is in. The deconstruction of masculinity has not helped men; it has hurt them. 15
A Crisis of Masculinity Has Produced a Crisis in Fatherhood
Any good anthropologist will tell you that fatherhood is far more susceptible to cultural influence than motherhood. 16 By nature, mothers are more tied to their children than fathers. Thus, culturally speaking, the mother-child bond needs less cultural reinforcement than the father-child bond. When cultures support the father-child bond through a picture of masculinity that cherishes fatherhood, fathers thrive! Unfortunately, our culture has painted masculinity as a myth and, thereby, left men without any such reinforcement. Without a model to guide them, young boys become confused men. And confused men usually do not become fathers, at least not good fathers. By destroying masculinity, our culture has destroyed a boy’s map to fatherhood. No masculinity, no fatherhood. And, just to state the obvious, this is a painfully bad thing. As illustrated by groups like the National Fatherhood Initiative (www.fatherhood.org), the presence of an involved father positively correlates with a child’s success in almost all relevant sociological metrics including educational success, psychological stability, and future job performance. Conversely, the absence of an involved father does the opposite – correlating with things like poverty, infant mortality, and prison. To deconstruct masculinity is to deconstruct fatherhood, and to deconstruct fatherhood is to hurt children.
Again, the deconstruction of masculinity has not helped men; it has hurt them. When churches, universities, and other higher places of culture do not provide boys with a positive image of masculinity, boys likely look elsewhere to find some image to guide their masculine development. Where do they find it? The usual candidates include pop culture, professional sports, or the streets. In this way, the deconstruction of masculinity has unwittingly left young boys with nothing but a toxic image after which they might aspire.
Unfortunately, if a young boy has a toxic image of masculinity in his mind’s eye, he will almost certainly seek to manifest that image as an adult. After all, most young boys would rather be a toxic man than no man at all. Thus, the deconstruction of masculinity consistently backfires. It produces the very thing which it seeks to destroy – toxic men. Toxic masculinity is a self-fulfilling prophecy.
4 Ways to Paint a Picture of Masculinity
So where do we go from here? If there is a way forward for masculinity, it is neither machismo nor myth. Rather, the way forward is a deeper appreciation for what one might refer to as authentic masculinity. That is a picture that contemplates the actual God-given talents of men and considers how those talents might be harnessed in the kingdom of God.
I do not think masculinity will ever be figured out with mathematical precision. Sexual difference is more a beauty to be contemplated than a riddle to be solved. Nevertheless, the journey toward the authentic masculinity did not begin yesterday, and the road already traveled has left us pointers for the journey yet to come. Here are a few of these pointers for painting a picture of masculinity for yourself, your friends, and your son.
- Avoid cookie-cutter masculinity. (This first pointer is more a warning than a positive recommendation). Whatever our picture of the masculine genius may include, that picture cannot be so restrictive as to exclude diverse kinds of men. That is, we cannot adopt cookie-cutter masculinity. A holy man might be an NFL quarterback as much as he may be an artist, an intellectual, or a businessman. Our understanding of masculinity must be flexible enough to allow for expression in a wide variety of contexts. Thus, I encourage all men to ask themselves a question. What kinds of men do you lift up in conversation around your friends and around your kids? Do you speak about manly journalists or only manly linebackers? If it is the latter, you might consider making a change.
- Be a student of true masculinity. As Christians who believe in sexual difference as a divine creation, our picture of masculinity should be rooted in sound science, not culturally influenced folk theories. Counterfeit versions of Christianity are prone to lean on folk theories over real ones. It was these theories that partially produced Pleck’s machismo male. Whether it be evolutionary biology, developmental psychology, or some other field, we need to come to a deeper understanding of what constitutes our anthropological male raw material. Once we understand that material, we will be in a better position to guide the formation of virtuous men. Books like Louann Brizindine’s The Male Brain, as well as the aforementioned work of Leonard Sax, might be helpful here. Be a student of true, data-based masculinity, not a cult-follower of folk theory. What do you think are the actual differences between men and women? What does it look like for a woman to thrive in her femininity? A man in his masculinity?
- Look to the saints! Tradition abounds with a wide array of masculine men – poets, mystics, kings, politicians, preachers, martyrs, and businessmen – all of whom constitute concrete examples of authentic masculinity. Consider for a moment just how different Joan of Arc manifested her femininity in comparison to Thérèse of Lisieux. The same might be said of the masculinity of people like Isaac Jogues, Benedict of Nursia, Thomas Aquinas, Francis of Assisi, and others. What does masculinity look like for the saints? If we find an answer to that question, we will be well on our way to a deeper appreciation of authentic Everyone needs a hero. Every boy needs a masculine hero. If you have a son, pause for a moment and ask yourself whether he has a hero amongst the saints?
- Don’t do it alone! Throughout the centuries, the best of men come in groups. This applies not only for living masculinity in your own life, but also for bestowing masculinity on the next generation of men. Do you have a group of men to run alongside you?
John Bishop
Dr. John Bishop serves as Founder and Executive Director at FORGE. He spends his time building the organization, writing curriculum, and drinking Gin and Tonics. Prior to FORGE, John spent 9 years leading various initiatives at FOCUS, the Fellowship of Catholic University Students. John lives in Des Moines, Iowa with his wife, Katelyn, and their three children.