by Ed Brodow
ClashDaily Contributor
Every other news story is about some famous man who has been exposed (no pun intended) for his predatory behavior toward women. The disease began with Roger Ailes and spread to Bill O’Reilly, Harvey Weinstein, Al Franken, Eric Bolling, Charlie Rose, Matt Lauer, etc. Now gay men—Kevin Spacey, James Levine—are acquiring the disease and getting the same treatment for their behavior toward other men. Actually, it is not a disease. It is a war. A war against men.
If you listen to Hillary Clinton and Elizabeth Warren, you could easily conclude that there is a war against women. Actually, it is the other way around. Men are under attack and they are losing the war. Branding men with undesirable character traits has turned into a popular sport. Men are attacked as competitive, aggressive, and violent, while women are given a free pass. This is pure sexism driven by a small but angry cadre of power-hungry radical feminists who have been enabled by our politically correct society. The campaign against alleged sexual predators is one manifestation of the war against men.
Whose fault is this war? To the feminists and their enablers, the fault must lie with men. Yes, men are responsible for all of society’s ills. Men are beasts and women are courageous. Men are encouraged to apologize for their “toxic masculinity.” Tucker Carlson interviewed a woman on Fox News who says that men are the greatest threat to the planet. Cathy Areu, publisher of Catalina magazine, told Carlson that, “Women are better. We are not committing the crimes. Men are not as good as women.” Areu apparently never heard of Gemma Beale, whose false rape accusations led to the two-year incarceration of an innocent man. Or singer Melanie Martinez, accused of sexual assault by a former girlfriend. The media don’t play up these stories because they don’t fit with the liberal playbook.
A headline for Glamour Magazine quotes the former first lady: “The Problem With Men, Michelle Obama Says, Is We’ve Made Them ‘Entitled’.” Entitled to do exactly what, Michelle? Evidence shows that young men are not feeling entitled. On the contrary, they are turning away from society. They are not sure who they ought to be, how they should behave, or what they should aim for. For the first time, men constitute a minority of college students. The new male paradigm, as described by Toronto psychologist Jordan Peterson, is “the castrated fat tomcat of a man resting on top of the warm TV whose moral virtue consists of his harmlessness.” Some extreme feminists have suggested that the mere possession of a penis is dangerous. A new manifestation of penis envy, perhaps?
How bad could it get? “Almost all manifestations of male sexuality are going to be brought under legal control,” warns Peterson. Support for this alarm can be found on college campuses, which, according to Forbes, have “opted to condemn manliness.” Brown University has a program called “Masculinity 101,” where male students can “unlearn” their toxic masculinity. Duke University has a similar project sponsored by—you guessed it—the Women’s Center. Oregon State University unveiled a conference where students will “engage in collective imagining to construct new futures for masculinities, unrestricted by power, prestige, and oppression.”
“A group of academics telling boys not to be men,” says Forbes in a moment of sanity, “will only make the problems associated with young men who haven’t learned to be gentlemen worse.” Jordan Peterson agrees. “What happens in universities,” Peterson says, “happens in society 5 to 10 years later and that’s exactly what’s happening right now.”
The charge of “toxic masculinity” is a way of getting even by radical feminists. We have reached a point where witch hunts are used to bring down public figures with malicious rumors of sexual misbehavior. Harvey Weinstein may be a provable boor, but in the case of Bill O’Reilly, for example, none of the allegations against him has been proven. One accuser was upset because O’Reilly referred to her as “hot chocolate.” Another accuser was angry because O’Reilly invited her to dinner but never made good on his promise. O’Reilly may be guilty of coarse manners, but that does not make him a predator. It doesn’t matter. The battle was won and he lost his job.
Laura Ingraham reported the story of a former Congressional aide who complained that when she was 22, a congressman told her she looked great, then asked her to twirl around. And that’s all. He didn’t grope her, kiss her, fondle her, try to screw her, ask her to watch him masturbate, or any of that. It is the story of an older man paying a compliment to a young girl, and nothing more. Yet the media have agreed that this constitutes sexual misconduct. And what about the woman who said Matt Lauer asked her to unbutton her blouse? She did. If he didn’t force her, why did she do it? Why did she have sex with him? Could it be that she used Lauer in order to advance her career? Heaven help anyone—Geraldo Rivera or Pamela Anderson, for example—who pushes the notion that these women need to take responsibility for their own actions.
A generation of children is being raised to believe that active masculinity is pathological. There is mass confusion about what it means to be male. The destructive ideology being disseminated by the culture encourages boys to turn away from their natural masculine inclinations. This is a disaster for all of us. “There is nothing more dangerous,” says Jordan Peterson, “than a weak man.” Some angry women would love nothing better than to prohibit men altogether. At the very least, they advocate for more women in positions of power for no reason other than their sex.
The attempted takedown of the American male is one way in which pathological ideologies from the Left are being used to destroy our culture. Peterson has his finger on the problem when he criticizes class-based accusations. “You’re not guilty as a member of a class,” he says. If one in a hundred males is a potential predator, that does not justify the war on all men.
“All men are predators” is no different than “all women are hysterical.” If we have a war, let’s go against pathological behaviors of all stripes—especially those exhibited by feminist extremists. Whether they like it or not, men are here to stay.
Ed Brodow is a political commentator, negotiation expert, and author of Tyranny of the Minority: How the Left is Destroying America.
