An article by Delano Squires of the Institute for Family Studies alerted me to a new movement. A “masculine critique” is emerging as a result of the 1960s feminist movement. “The crux of this nascent movement is that men should rethink their approach to marriage, children, and family in a society where women have more economic, political, legal, and cultural power than ever before.” As women’s roles in the home and workplace have changed, men are re-evaluating their responsibilities as husbands, fathers, and breadwinners.
The second wave feminist movement thought women would be more fulfilled by pursuing education and other interests outside the home. Betty Friedan and her allies, “claimed marriage and children kept women on the sidelines of American political, economic, and social life. For them, the benefits of the nuclear family for children were not worth its costs for women.”
Today we find more women putting off marriage and having children altogether. For women, the median age for a first marriage in 1960 was 20. But in 2020 it has risen to 28. In 1972 only 16% of women earned as much or more than their husbands. Now it stands at 45%.
Richard Reeves of the Brookings Institute is an advocate of the “masculine critique.” He believes “men should pursue fatherhood regardless of marriage… a man should focus on strengthening his relationship with his children, irrespective of his relationship with their mother.”
But as Squires points out, fathers who live apart from their children are less active than co-residential fathers. 82% of married fathers play with their children, while only 10% of fathers who live apart from their children. When there is a split between the parents, “only 16% of fathers who live apart from their children report speaking to them every day and 53% had not eaten a meal with their child within the previous four weeks.”
Rollo Tomassi offers his own version of the “masculine critique.” He sees marriage and family as a drain on a man’s body, soul, and bank account. His counsel: “Men who want to get on the fast-track to becoming a high-value man should not get married or have children. His advice to men? Get a vasectomy in your 20s, lift weights, and build wealth.” He points to the fact that women initiate 70% of divorces as a good reason to not get married.
Here is Squire’s response – “Children need healthy marriages and strong families. These institutions require love, order, discipline, selflessness, forgiveness, fidelity, patience, and understanding. The last thing they need is more narcissism and naked individualism, whether that comes from the feminist left or masculinist right… Men of past generations fought wars for the sake of civilizations. The least men can do today is fight for the future of their families.”
Since God made male and female in him image, he also gave us a blueprint for how to flourish on the earth together as male and female. We need each other.
In the creation story, it is clear that male and female together are to be fruitful. “Then God blessed them and said, ‘Be fruitful and multiply. Fill the earth and govern it. Reign over the fish in the sea, the birds in the sky, and all the animals that scurry along the ground” (Gen. 1:28 NLT). The enemy’s intention is to have men and women split from one another, living in conflict rather than in harmony.
Later in Genesis Chapter 2, we read of God placing man in the Garden of Eden “to work it and take care of it” (Gen. 2:15). But surprise! Man cannot do it alone. God created Eve as “a helper who is just right for him” (Gen. 2:18). Man and woman need each other to flourish, that is, to be civilized.
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