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Men Are Defecting From the Ranks in the War Against Masculinity – And Society Is Paying the Price
Men Are Defecting From the Ranks in the War Against Masculinity
Rising male unemployment, loneliness, pornography use and fatherlessness are compounding one another, raising serious questions about men’s wellbeing, family stability and the future of Western society.
Today’s culture is faced with rising statistics of men without work, facing childless, lonely lives, drug problems and skyrocketing levels of depression. On the other hand, women – especially younger women – are statistically “firing” in the workplace. However, they are having fewer children, having less to do with men, and are breeding a culture of “women’s empowerment” to the detriment of the family.
Why is it that males are going missing from the workplace? Why do statistics indicate that in some careers in Australia – such as within the public service – some states are seeing women dominate by 73 per cent?
Decline of the Male
Many are beginning to observe some of the factors leading to the “decline of the male” and their mental health, and one of these factors is pornography. The Institute for Family Studies released a report in March this year called “America’s Demoralised Men: Worthy Aspirations, Trying Circumstances” that found that 42 per cent of young men who participated in the study watch pornography daily. The majority of men in society have a porn addiction of some kind.
This is a harrowing fact when one considers the dangers of pornography and its detrimental effect on the mind.
An earlier paper that explores the damaging ramifications of porn in acute and shocking detail is “Pornography as a Public Health Issue: Promoting Violence and Exploitation of Children, Youth, and Adults”. This paper, published in Dignity: The Journal of Analysis of Exploitation and Violence, was written by Dr Elisabeth Taylor pre-pandemic, although the statistics surrounding porn use have only worsened since the lockdown era.
Dr Taylor writes:
“Adolescents who consume pornography are more likely to demonstrate social maladjustment, violence at school, clinical symptoms of depression, theft, truancy, manipulation of others, arson, to force sexual intercourse and be convicted of criminal sexual behaviour.
For boys with ‘predisposing risk levels’ towards aggressive sexual behaviour, frequent exposure to pornography was found to exacerbate this predisposition, making them four times as likely to exhibit sexual aggression compared with those only infrequently exposed.”
The easy access to this harmful material is likely exacerbating and compounding depression among males.
Depressed individuals then find it harder to build stable partnerships with the opposite sex. They may also find it more challenging to obtain and retain work or complete certificates and study.
This is causing many males to withdraw from relationships that may otherwise be beneficial for them. Men without work, with porn addictions and in challenging relationships, go some way to explain the rapidly declining birthrates across the West; Australia’s birthrate is now well below replacement level.
Finances are also a big factor in male depression rates; job insecurity is one of the leading issues of poor mental health in the West. And men are dropping like flies out of the workplace – a phenomenon explicated by Nicholas Eberstadt in his book, Men Without Work. Many of the issues men are facing, when not dealt with, feed into each other, compound others, and lead into a vicious, seemingly inescapable spiral downwards.
Men are statistically more prone to diagnoses of illnesses such as ADHD and autism, which also impact their ability to function properly in society and “keep up” with its ever-increasing and impossible demands. ADHD may diagnostically be on the rise since it is unnatural to expect males to behave in ways that females may naturally find more comfortable, particularly in the classroom environment.
Modern diets, exposure to unnatural substances, and poor parenting methods may be contributing to increased ADHD diagnoses. Males tend to have more energy and higher testosterone levels than females, plus their brains are wired differently, so to expect them to behave like the opposite sex in school and in the workforce is unrealistic.
With women beginning to climb career ladders and form educational frameworks, it comes as no surprise that males are finding it increasingly more challenging to abide by gyno-centric frameworks.
When put off by a system full of problems in education or in careers, men become prone to idleness. There is a general trend showing young men in particular being drawn to online communities or developing addictions to gaming or other unhealthy online habits, including gambling, which can cause further relational problems and compound depression.
When men rely thus heavily on technology instead of getting their connection from real people in the real world, the result is failed socialisation. However, women are on hand to take up the work when men drop out. This is one of the reasons we are seeing a surge of women in the workplace, especially in the tertiary education sector, which often leads to higher-paying careers.
There are, however, other reasons why women are entering the workplace these days, and this is because of the cost-of-living crisis – more women are forced into taking paying jobs to keep the family afloat. And yet successive governments have turned a blind eye to the fact that a great majority of women would prefer to stay at home and care for the kids, when it could help them by allowing a fairer tax regime.
When women are forced into full-time careers as well as being expected to do most of the child-rearing or admin at home, this can place excessive pressure on marriages. Divorce rates are skyrocketing, and men are losing custody of their children – this does nothing to rectify their mental health, or foster the mental wellbeing of the next generation.
Compounding Factors
Not only can divorce rates be explained by stressful economic situations, but they may be on the rise as men choose incompatible partnerships or choose women in a culture where standards of behaviour are dropping significantly in the relationship department, which tends to happen during economic decline, or where social standards drop as society loses touch with clear moral frameworks. Pornography also may warp people’s ability to experience successful partnerships in the real world, as it may damage a person’s view of normal, healthy and productive romantic behaviours.
When men are separated from their children after the breakdown of a marriage, children often grow up seeing much less of their father than they would have in functional households. Fatherlessness is a major factor causing youth radicalisation, and driving depression and even crime statistics in males.
Fatherlessness or a lack of decent male mentorship can mean that boys grow up with no sense of their responsibilities and the expectations society has of them. Men learn through example and experience — with a lack of strong male guidance in life, men can develop weaker characters, often adopting effeminate traits or becoming destructive males when led astray by gangs or groups of men with similar issues.
In light of the above, one of the best solutions to building the male back up in society is ensuring that they foster healthy relationships with their fathers or other decent male mentors who can prevent their falling into — or guide them out of — porn addictions and depressive tendencies, and offer them direction in skills-building, education, careers and finding purpose in their lives.
Breaking the cycle of dysfunctional situations is paramount to securing masculinity and reviving it in a society starved of genuine male leadership.
Masculine virtues such as headship, discipline, responsibility and resilience should be encouraged, as well as compatible, stable and healthy relationships.
A society that neglects its males is destined for rapid destruction and childlessness; so, until this war against men comes to an end, there will be no room for genuine growth.
It would be unwise not to prioritise an issue of this nature, since Australia is facing an existential population crisis. If functional relationships and families are not cultivated, economies cannot thrive, and countries collapse. A nation cannot rely on migration to keep its economy functioning.
If the West wants to thrive again, it is therefore of extreme importance that men — particularly young men — be guided out of detrimental behaviours and encouraged to cultivate better habits and lifestyles. This is a task for the entire culture.
Republished with thanks to News Weekly. Image courtesy of Adobe.
ODM Daily Commentary
Let’s be honest: men are in crisis. They are dropping out of the workforce, retreating into pornography, and losing connection with their families. And the culture has been waging war on masculinity for decades. The result is a generation of men who are lonely, depressed, and directionless.
The article from News Weekly lays out the problem with devastating clarity. 42 per cent of young men watch pornography daily. The majority of men have a porn addiction of some kind. Men are statistically more prone to ADHD and autism diagnoses. They are dropping out of the workplace in record numbers. And they are losing custody of their children after divorce.
The consequences are catastrophic. Declining birth rates. Fatherlessness. Youth radicalisation. Crime. Depression. A vicious spiral that compounds with each generation.
The article argues that the education system is gyno-centric. Males are expected to behave like females. Their higher energy levels and testosterone are treated as problems to be medicated. Their brains are wired differently, but the system does not accommodate that. So they disengage. They drop out. They retreat into gaming, gambling, and online communities.
Meanwhile, women are climbing the career ladder. But they are also bearing the burden of the cost-of-living crisis. Many would prefer to stay home and raise children, but the tax regime punishes single-income families. So they work full-time, do most of the childcare, and carry the emotional load. Marriages buckle under the pressure. Divorce rates skyrocket. And children grow up without fathers.
The solution is not complicated. Boys need fathers. They need male mentors. They need direction. They need to be taught responsibility, discipline, resilience, and headship. They need to be guided out of porn addiction and into healthy relationships. They need to find purpose.
The article calls for a cultural shift. Masculine virtues should be encouraged, not demonised. Men should be built up, not torn down. And the war against masculinity must end.
So here is the challenge: mentor a young man. Be a father to the fatherless. Encourage the men in your life. And refuse to accept a culture that is destroying them.
Men are defecting from the ranks. And society is collapsing as a result. It is time to fight back.
Keywords: masculinity, war on men, male unemployment, loneliness, pornography, fatherlessness, Institute for Family Studies, ADHD, autism, gyno-centric education, workplace, divorce, custody, birth rates, population crisis, male mentorship, fatherhood, discipline, responsibility, resilience, headship, News Weekly, Western society, family stability
