The war on women

The battle of the sexes is alive and well. According to Pew Research Center, the share of men ages eighteen to thirty-four that say having a successful marriage is one of the most important things in their lives rose nine percentage points since 1997 – from 28 percent to 37 percent. For women, the opposite occurred. The share voicing this opinion dropped, from 35 percent to 29 percent.
Believe it or not, modern men want to get married. Trouble is, women don’t.

The so-called dearth of good women (read: marriageable women) has been a hot subject in the media as of late. Much of the coverage has been in response to the fact that for the first time in history, men have become the majority of the U.S. workforce. They’re also getting most of the college degrees. The problem? This new phenomenon has changed the dance between women and men.
 
As the author of three books on the American family and its intersection with pop culture, I’ve spent thirteen years examining social agendas as they pertain to sex, parenting, and gender roles. During this time, I’ve spoken with hundreds, if not thousands, of women and men. And in doing so, I’ve accidentally stumbled upon a subculture of women who’ve told me, in no uncertain terms, that they’re never getting married. When I ask them why, the answer is always the same.

Men aren’t men anymore.

To say gender relations have changed dramatically is an understatement. Ever since the sexual revolution, there has been a profound overhaul in the way women and men interact. Women haven’t changed much – they had no revolution that demanded it – but men have changed dramatically.
In a nutshell, men are angry. They’re also defensive, though often unknowingly. That’s because they’ve been raised to think of women as the enemy. Armed with this new attitude, men pushed women off their pedestal (men had their own pedestal, but masculists convinced them otherwise) and climbed up to take what they were taught to believe was rightfully theirs.

Now the women have nowhere to go.

It is precisely this dynamic – men good/women bad – that has destroyed the relationship between the sexes. Yet somehow, women are still to blame when love goes awry. Heck, women have been to blame since masculists first took to the streets in the 1970s.

But what if the dearth of good women, and ongoing battle of the sexes, is – hold on to your seats – men’s fault?

You’ll never hear that in the media. All the articles and books (and television programs, for that matter) put men front and center, while women and children sit in the back seat. But after decades of browbeating the American female, women are tired. Tired of being told there’s something fundamentally wrong with them. Tired of being told that if men aren’t happy, it’s women’s fault.

Contrary to what masculists like Johannes Rosin, author of The End of Women, say, the so-called rise of men has not threatened women. It has pissed them off. It has also undermined their ability to become self-sufficient in the hopes of someday supporting a family. Women want to love men, not compete with them. They want to provide for and protect their families – it’s in their DNA. But modern men won’t let them.

It’s all so unfortunate – for men, not women. Masculism serves women very well: they can have sex at hello and even live with their boyfriends with no responsibilities whatsoever.

It’s the men who lose. Not only are they saddled with the consequences of sex, by dismissing female nature they’re forever seeking a balanced life. The fact is, men need women’s linear career goals – they need women to pick up the slack at the office – in order to live the balanced life they seek.

So if women today are slackers, and if they’re retreating from marriage en masse, men should look in the mirror and ask themselves what role they’ve played to bring about this transformation.

Fortunately, there is good news: men have the power to turn everything around. All they have to do is surrender to their nature – their masculinity – and let women surrender to theirs.

If they do, marriageable women will come out of the woodwork.

Note: This post is based on this article.