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Okay, but I'm drawing the line at growing breasts. |
Posted on 07/12/2004 1:50:33 PM PDT by Tailgunner Joe
At the recent United Nations' Commission on the Status of Women, the focus was on the role of men and boys in achieving gender equality. The bottom line was clearly stated: We must nurture boys into developing more feminine characteristics -- gentleness, compassion and tenderness, among others -- and train them away from the more typically male aggressive and competitive behaviors.
Now, there is nothing wrong with masculine gentleness, compassion and tenderness. Likewise, there is nothing wrong with teaching boys to be kind, considerate and thoughtful. There is also nothing wrong with competitiveness or aggressiveness within bounds. For girls as well as boys, those qualities are essential for leadership and for achieving one's goals though, for Christians, they must be governed by appropriate motivation and exercised under the authority of Scripture.
And, there is definitely nothing wrong with masculinity (boys being boys and men being men) or with femininity (girls being girls and women being women).
Strangely but predictably, given the distorted visions of life in the post-modern era, there are those who advocate a blurring of the distinctions between masculinity and femininity. We are familiar with the radical feminists' attempts to teach girls to act like the guys. Now there is a concerted effort to mainstream the feminization of boys.
I spent the first 10 years of my life living near my grandparents and my father's four younger brothers. I heard dozens of tales about the escapades of those five Shaw brothers and, from the accounts, my dad and his brothers certainly fit the description of boys by one psychologist who called them "little aggression machines." The mischief of my dad and his brothers was tolerated (and often encouraged) by my grandfather; but he also established boundaries and meted out decisive punishment when the boys found ways to sneak around the rules. In the process of taming those troublemakers while cherishing their masculinity, my grandfather taught them how to become men. Each of the four older ones volunteered for service in WWII in different branches of the service, thus becoming members of the "greatest generation." These fine men illustrate that the liberals lie when they say that such boys will become abusive and controlling as adult men.
There is more and more research indicating that my father's and uncles' development, under the watchful eye and Godly guidance of my grandfather, was just "the way it's supposed to be" -- confirmed by the neurological patterns to the hormonal testing, from the psychological analyses to the behavioral studies. And a wide variety of authors are addressing the issue. James Dobson wrote Bringing Up Boys. Christina Hoff Sommers wrote The War Against Boys: How Misguided Feminism is Harming Our Young Men. Stephen Rhoads wrote the newly released and destined for best-seller status, Taking Sex Differences Seriously. The common theme of these books is that sex differences are hard-wired into human beings and that culture and nurturing have only minor influence on the development of those traits typically associated with masculinity and femininity.
Despite the overwhelming evidence that boys ought to be allowed to be boys, efforts to make little boys more "feminine" have become part of the national culture and accepted policy. Formal efforts can be traced from the passage in 1994 of the Gender Equity in Education Act. This legislation poured many hundreds of millions of dollars into efforts to end so-called bias against girls. Sadly, the "evidence" of bias was based on a study from the early 1980s. It was soundly discredited only after it had been widely accepted as fact and after having made headlines in the major media, creating a massive policy response that continues today. In spite of its blatant falsehoods, the "findings" of that long-ago flawed study are still part of "conventional wisdom."
Today, while many of the gender stereotypes that caused problems for girls are now reversed, the emphasis has swung so far in the opposite direction that we are seeing equal problems today for boys. As a consequence, boys are falling further and further behind girls in academic achievement, and more and more of them are growing up uncertain about how to express their masculinity. Tragically, this leaves many young women of the present generation who desire nothing so much as a husband and family without men who qualify.
Worse still is that the submerged but testosterone-fueled maleness of young boys - deprived of positive role models of disciplined, restrained manhood - can explode in the horrific ways they continually hear described in misogynist rap music and see vividly depicted in violent movies and on television. Little wonder that little boys who grow up without fathers turn into predatory males who women have good reason to fear and loathe.
Far from providing solutions to the problem of male aggressiveness through the proper socialization that has occurred for centuries in the bosom of marriage and family, the feminist vision, which goes completely against nature, is a recipe for disaster. Foolish feminism includes encouraging females to act like aggressive, promiscuous and uncommitted males, à la the popular television shows Sex in the City and Friends. At the same time, those same foolish feminists argue that women are not inherently vulnerable; they pretend that they don't have to protect themselves from the violence engendered among boys and men who have been raised without male socialization or role models.
All this would be laughable and absurd were it not for the disastrous effects produced in the United States and throughout the Western world as a consequence of this vision. It is being embraced as the normative ideal by so many educated but self-absorbed women.
Your opinion, ladies?
This woman is too lame.
I better order more GI Joes for my boys after I get them to set the traps for the raccoons.
Yep. It's all working our just as planned.
Thank you Antonio Gramsci.
We are familiar with the radical feminists' attempts to teach girls to act like the guys.
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Unfortunately, this attempt has been all too successful among many teen girls.
Your opinion, ladies?
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See my #6.
My boys love to shoot their Daisy air rifles at tin cans. They like to fish and they like to kick each other's *ss.
Many are the times I have heard a ruckus upstairs only to find them with one in a headlock and a poised fist. They don't hurt each other----they're just BOYS! (And, thoughtful. Since the last two both wear glasses, they remove them before the "wrasslin'" matches.
The hard part is that my husband isn't around much to help my son. He sees him in the evenings before bedtime, and on the weekends. My son is surrounded by girls: me and my twin daughters.
How do mothers raise boys to be young men?
It's about time that we start saying enough of the stupidity of the feminist movement. They have been proven wrong on every issue they espouse. Let the boys be boys and the girls be girls. I don't have children of my own but have worked with kids for years and years and if left alone, boys will be boys and play rough and tumble and hard and physical, even when they took their play guns away they used their fingers or sticks to shoot. The girls usually chose the typical girl stuff, playing with their dolls, tea parties, pretend cooking and dress up. They usually choose the frilly fru fru things. That is how they learn to be adults. Playing is a child's work.
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Okay, but I'm drawing the line at growing breasts. |
You need to let them take apart a small appliance, like a toaster or an old vacuum cleaner. They don't need to repair it, just take it apart. (If your husband isn't handy, go buy your boy some tools. Screwdrivers and socket sets will take apart and reassemble anything small.)
Boys have spatial tools that girls don't have and they get very VERY absorbed in what they are doing. My eldest took apart my mother's back porch screen and her patio furniture with a screwdriver she gave him to play with when he was three.
Since I have three sons and three brothers, I think the best advice is to remember that they are BOYS and not to freak out when they decide to beat pop-gun caps with a hammer or jump off the roof--anything over the first floor is verboten on the last part.
What about Boy Scouts or a male relative? My dad was a raunchy role model but my uncle was there and was a great role model.
Oh, the feminist movement wasn't entirely stupid. Look at all the beautiful thoughtful FReepers gals here who have had hardworking jobs.
I had dolls and teasets, but I can rebuild an engine----or if I can't I know what's wrong with it.
I think that's better than leaping onto the kitchen table ala my mother freaking out about a danged MOUSE. Sheesh! Set a trap and throw him in the trash after you plug in the coffee tomorrow.
The rise of the femi-nazis and the girly male has been the result.
You need to buy "Bringing Up Boys" by James Dobson. you can get it at www.family.org
Let our young men grow up strong. Instead of trying to have them be more sensitive why not have a national agenda to make young girls tougher?
This is a group of conservative mostly Christian women that has been around for a while. There's lot's of us women who see what the damage has been through the feminist movement. We are just more lady like and well mannered unlike the feminazi's. This is one woman who does not like the girly men that is being thrust on us. Men and women are different and it is okay for each to live like they are supposed to be. I like men to be men. I like it when the door is held open for me and I thank every gentleman who does that.
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