Wanted: Real Men

There is no question that the last few generations have done much to tear down conventional concepts of masculinity and femininity. The drive for equality, for a blurring of distinctions between men and women, has been fierce, and largely successful.

An August 10 (2003) Baltimore Sun article detailed the transformation of the typical television male from the authoritative, hard-working father figure of 50 years ago. "Now prime-time males face an especially acute identity crisis: In comedies and sitcoms, dramas and reality shows, they’re seeking counseling, getting in touch with their feelings, popping Prozac and hot-waxing their backs."

This "more traditional" man is hardly a model of masculinity: He is the subject of scorn by a bossy wife, and his most outstanding features are his boyish bad judgment and weak character. He is only "more traditional" because he has increasingly been the standard portrayal of men since Dagwood stumbled into the comics page in 1930.
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In Defense of Women - H. L. Mencken

"Nothing could be plainer than the effect that the increasing economic security of women is having upon their whole havit of life ... The diminishing marriage rate and the even more rapidly diminishing birth rate show which way the wind is blowing . . . large numbers of them [women] now approach the business [of marriage] with far greater fastidiousness than their grandmothers."

Mencken also predicts loosened sexual mores: "With the decay of the ancient concept of women as property there must come inevitability a reconsideration of the whole sex question."

And of course all these things have come to pass, both in America and in Europe: well-employed women marry later or not at all and get divorced more quickly, and low-income women have virtually abandoned marriage altogether.