Professor Jennifer Graves in a lecture at the Royal College of Surgeons in Ireland revealed that men are on the road to extinction. Men, not women. Apparently the Y chromosome is dying. Three hundred million years ago the Y chromosome had about 14,000 genes on it, contends Professor Graves, though how she gained this knowledge I do not know. It now has only 45 genes left. At this rate the Y chromosome will run out of genes in about 5 million years. Men may vanish well before that.
Though Professor Grave’s theory is considered dubious, a wider consensus exists on the shrinking dominance of men in American society. Numerous articles have been written, almost invariably by women, about how men’s dominant role in society is on the wane. Equality for women is beginning to appear to be a very achievable goal, indeed “equality” might be proving to be an understatement. Male dominance in the upper echelons of management and politics is being viewed as a discriminatory vestige of a day whose sunset is upon us. Women are beating men at almost every other level of career development, from college graduation to employment opportunity. As traditionally male dominated vocations increasingly vanish, career paths seemingly more suited to female strengths are on the rise, and while women have historically been open to venturing into male dominated professions, men seem more reluctant or unable to reciprocate in this role reversal. Like the Y chromosome by which they are defined, men are being destined for the trash heap of obsolescence in a post-male world.
In the seventies, biologist Ronald Ericson developed a technique to isolate male sperm from female. He leased the method to clinics nation wide and marketed it in his preferred cowboy attire with accompanying male bravado. This was of course a feminist’s nightmare, and the warning sirens were sounded as to the doom of the female gender if couples were permitted to choose the sex of their child. Interestingly, the opposite has occurred. When Ericson tabulated the numbers in the nineties, despite the method being more dependable for choosing males than females, couple’s requests for females topped males at clinics sometimes as high as two to one. Since then a newer method has been developed and the girl baby requests for that method run about 75%; the decision when it comes to gender selection is also overwhelmingly coming from the female of the species.
Historically, mankind has often demonstrated a preference for boy babies, sometimes with hideous results for the unwanted girl babies. That can no longer be said to be the case in our country. Sociologists theorize that parents are seeing the writing on the wall in today’s society, that they recognize that women face a brighter future than men going forward, and so why wouldn’t they choose female? I think this possibly attributes a little too much sophistication and foresight to the thinking process of most young parents. As one college student at a predominantly female college put it, “Men are the new ball and chain”. She reflects what is a common, and to a large degree accurate, view of today’s man, a burden for a woman to bear if she enjoys male company. For many years the image of men portrayed in the media has been one of buffoonery, and frankly insulting. The problem is that men have begun to believe their own press, and if the portrayal was inaccurate at one time, life has begun to imitate “art”; men are becoming the inferior gender they have been portrayed as. Couples are less likely to want a baby of a gender considered inferior.
What was once presented in the media as comedic jabs at men designed to appeal to the egos of women at man’s expense, has in today’s world transformed into a depiction of emasculated men no longer funny, just an expression of a gender become little more than a clumsy pet. Consider the home security commercial where a young couple is shown in bed when they hear a noise downstairs. No, the man does not go down to investigate. He basically hides under the covers until the security company sends the police; his timid expression is priceless. The message is clear; you don’t need a brave man or to be a brave man, you need a security system. This is perfectly understandable in a commercial intended to sell security systems, but the replacement of the traditional roles of men with government programs and societal alternatives have fostered a generation of men who view themselves as useless. Few government programs have been initiated to provide services to men that were traditionally performed by women, and so the crisis is somewhat one-sided. The natural fulfillment that men derived in their roles of provider, protector, chivalry, honor, discipline, and leadership were sometimes bound in the past to the injustices and perversions of inequality, manipulation, domination and abuse. In our quest to eliminate the inequity, though, we have thrown the baby out with the bath water, the boy baby, and a truly good man is increasingly hard to find. Today’s man’s masculinity is perceived as no longer needed, and so instead of productively using it to contribute to a stable family or society as a whole, full grown men vent their masculinity increasingly in inconsequential activity like sports and gaming, and often enough in antisocial behavior proving they are men by acting like animals.
IMHO: In a society that seldom confines it’s solutions to the actual transgressions, maleness itself has become sullied by the actions and attitudes of a far more limited population who have shared that gender. Like blaming all gun owners for the murder of children, all white people for racism, or all Republicans for the comments of Todd Akin; society stands to lose if it can’t make a distinction based on the content of character rather than stereotypes. As much as Woman, Man is a remarkable creation of God, and can hardly be effectively replaced by government or society. Nature is an exceptional architect, and humans do themselves a disservice when they imagine their own naive designs to be superior. We regularly cut down great forests to build cheap houses. As we build, we need to pay close attention to what we destroy. Like great forests, men are more fragile than one might suppose. At every stage of life the male is more likely to perish than the female counterpart; male sperm, fetuses, children, teens, adults, and seniors. And now we are informed that the Y chromosome itself is doomed. Relax ladies, you still have another 5 million years to enjoy males. Good men may be harder to find… but who needs them?
Interesting perspective! I share your sentiment of an increasingly distorted depiction of masculinity in modern Western society but I fail to see the connection to the government. Which programs do you think threaten to replace the traditional roles of men in our society? It appears to me as if you were trying a little too hard near the end to give your otherwise great post a political twist.
@tsc444: Any of the numerous programs that facilitate women and children to live adequately without the direct assistance of a man whether one lives in the household or not would qualify as roles that at one time belonged to men. I’m not saying at all that the social safety net is destroying masculinity, and it may well be a which came first, chicken or egg, question; but as men perceive that they are not needed as providers, not generally seen as nurturing as women, not trustworthy enough to possess a firearm to defend his family, ridiculed in popular culture as lazy and stupid, it’s as though we are seeing the genes vanish from that Y chromosome one by one and man asks himself “what is my value?” In the feminist push to liberate women from oppression, there has been collateral damage to men who were not oppressors. In the government’s alliance with the feminist cause, and the desire to provide for the fatherless; though well intentioned, it has led to men no longer seeing their role as indispensable, indeed one the government could often do better, and as such… why bother? Obviously, a man means more to a family than these superficial functions; but self-esteem is a fragile structure, and pulling the rug on a couple of basic, possibly even intrinsic values can topple the whole house, and we are seeing the fruits of that even now.
Kevin, there is no alternative to government programs “that facilitate women and children to live adequately without the direct assistance of a man whether one lives in the household or not”. Single mothers and their children who do not have the privilege of having a responsible male in their lives depend on our support. We cannot simply hope for some male in the household to take on a providing role unless he is legally obligated to do so (through marriage, fatherhood etc.) The government must provide for the fatherless which is hardly an alliance with any feminist cause but simply because it must provide equally for all of its citizens based on their situation, not their gender. The social safety net provides for males and females the same. Single fathers receive the same support as single mothers. The myth of the government replacing males in our society is simply not true. I wholeheartedly agree with you when you say that the liberation of women in Western societies, albeit necessary, has resulted in collateral damage to men, but the government is not to blame for this one.
@tsc444: You will find no disagreement here as to whether society should provide for the destitute. Like medicine for the ill, there are times when cures must be administered regardless of the side effects, for the sake of the immediate and overall health of the individual. Of course, when a particularly abhorrent side effect is noted, effort is made to refine or replace the medication. Social programs are generally supported by the left on the basis that we need them, and criticized by the right on the basis that they encourage indigence and are too costly. Both are true, and if the two sides could cooperate and get past their entrenched positions perhaps solutions could be found that would at once provide an adequate safety net, and at the same time not slow the engine that provides the means by which that net is maintained. It doesn’t seem as though it should be necessary to choose between being a kind and charitable nation, or one that encourages self-reliance and rugged individualism.