AAAAAAHHHHHHHHHH!!!!!
I mean, that’s supposed to be my response, right? As a man, I should feel emasculated and afraid. William J. Bennett (henceforth referred to as Statty McStaterson, Secretary of Ms. Education, Old Man Blowhard, or Riverboat Bill) has come to a realization, folks: women are moving up in the world, and that is pant-crappingly terrifying. Reading this article has led me to take a few moments to express my frustrations. Not with the “fact” that men suck, or the “fact” that women are taking over the world, but with the FACT that this article is paradoxically genius (in its ability to pander to both genders) and moronic (in its irresponsible use of percentages, conjecture, blanket statements, and obvious [if not actually relevant] catering proclamations) at the same time. Let us get started.
Statty McStaterson brings the percentage heat after his initial scare tactic/progressively bold statement. He quotes a scientific study says that men have seen a steady decline in their portion of all the college degrees earned since 1970 (of course, with no specification of which gender is getting which degrees), and he then goes on to write one of the most Scanners-head-exploding inducing paragraphs I’ve ever read.
“In 1950, [this is me, Lowell, reminding you of the ridiculous economy boom after WWII] 5% of men at the prime working age were unemployed. As of last year, [sorry, me again, reminding you that we’re rolling around in a pretty nasty recession these days] 20% were not working, the highest ever recorded.”
Then comes the next sentence, a truly amazing feat: “Men still maintain a majority of the highest paid and most powerful occupations, [wait, did he just admit that all his previous statements were misleading?] but women are catching them and will soon be passing them if this trend continues. [no worries, he got right back to scaring/emboldening us with his creative ‘will soon be…if’ statement]”
Ok, let me take a step back. Deep breath… there. Better. My obvious problem with Statty is that, while I don’t necessarily think his numbers are fake, they sure as heck soundlookfeel fake. But I’ll chalk that up to the misleading nature in which he uses them versus the “research” itself. I think I can sit back and take Mr. Staterson’s number game with a grain of salt. Oh look, there ahead of us, he’s got an answer for the skeptical Lowell’s of the world!
“If you don’t believe the numbers, just ask young women about men today.”
Ha. Really? I’ve honestly written the following paragraph five different ways, and I can’t do my annoyance justice. So, I’ll just be childish and come up with a Top Five List of people who may have a lot of experience with a subject, but probably shouldn’t be used as a source:
5. Henry VIII as a source on marriage
4. Facebook as a source on self-improvement
3. Lowell Slagle as a source on student loans
2. Women as a source on men
1. Men as a source on women
“You will find them talking about prolonged adolescence and men who refuse to grow up.”
…Crap. Ok, so that may be true in MY case but Statty has still completed his transformation from McStaterson to the Secretary of Ms. Education. This article has officially entered the “stupid boys, always picking their nose, butt, or scabs” zone. I know this zone, because I’ve driven all my girlfriends there and left them stranded. Yet, the Secretary is about to boy bash, and I’m feeling the need to bash back.
“Man’s response has been pathetic. Today, 18-to- 34-year-old men spend more time playing video games a day than 12-to- 17-year-old boys.”
First off, let me just say that I wouldn’t call myself a gamer, but I love video games. Guitar Hero, Madden, Hitman, Halo, Fable, etc. I’m down with the genre. But I can’t hold a candle to the amount of gaming that the kids in my ministry do. This very morning I was schooled on the newest BETA (I don’t know what that means) of the newest Modern Warfare game with the newest knife kills by a table full of High School freshmen and sophomores. They scoffed at my ignorance. Literally making the noise *scoff. So, at surface level my initial response to that “stat” (Statty is still rearing his ugly mug) is “I don’t,” but then I’m forced to go beneath the surface of that asinine statement.
Not only do i have the sneaking suspicion that he’s using collective hours versus individual seeing as his sample groups are ridiculously lopsided (five year span compared to a 16 year span), but if the Secretary knew anything about being a guy under the age of 68 he would know that the target consumers of video games are in the 18-25 year old demographic. I imagine (see? Making up statistics is fun!) that the Amount of Gaming During a Man’s Lifespan would be a rather lopsided bell curve:
That beginning low point represents the time before boys realize their thumbs are opposable, and that spike followed by a dip is the average age that us silly boys get out of college and enter the workforce. Speaking of workforce…
“While women are graduating college and finding good jobs, too many men are not going to work, not getting married and not raising families. [That kind of sounds like comparing the women leaving college to most guys still in college] Women are beginning to take the place of men in many ways. [What is he implying?] This has led some to ask: do we even need men? [He’s right. There are huge amounts of people who hate existing]”
I get it. Women are very driven. The glass ceiling is slowly turning into a glass wall. “We can do it!” is turning into “Look what we’re doing!” I’m still left wondering how the Secretary of Ms. Education is promoting female success and fear of female success at the same stinking time. Here comes Old Man Blowhard to explain.
This fine piece of writing takes a very abrupt and uncomfortable turn at this point. Reading this article provoked many moments of audibly growling at the passive aggression in Old Man Blowhard’s shots at both genders, and rolling of the eyeballs at his misleading information, but there was only one point when physical violence crossed my mind:
“The machismo of the street gang calls out with a swagger.”
What. The fart. Does that mean?
“We need to respond to this culture that sends confusing signals to young men, a culture that is agnostic about what it wants men to be, with a clear and achievable notion of manhood.”
Ohhhhhhhhh. I understand! FINALLY! This is about boys falling into the trap of false manhood. Never in the history of me hating what someone is writing have I jumped onto their bandwagon after having spent a lot of energy trying to PIT maneuver that same wagon off the side of a cliff. Although his point is out of left field, and I still don’t think women gaining success and recognition is a negative to be rectified, AND I don’t think that this is the only cause of the world’s problems… I agree… kind of. Every age of the male gender gets (what I think is) a very clear message of what makes a man:
Being the most athletic, having the most sex, and making the most money.
That’s no reason to discount Old Man Blowhard’s point though. Right? He’s calling us to action. He’s tired of these ambiguous views of what makes up a man. Old Man Blowhard is atop a horse in a green field with blue face paint, and he’s going to pick a fight!
“…industriousness, marriage and religion are a very important basis for male empowerment and achievement. We may need to say to a number of our twenty-something men, “Get off the video games five hours a day, get yourself together, get a challenging job and get married.” It’s time for men to man up.”
Are you joking me? The ambiguity, falsity, and hoity-toityness of that closing paragraph make want to find this man’s computer, rabbit punch it into oblivion, then point my index finger in this man’s face while giving him a Jesse Slagle stink eye. After a call for men to throw off the shackles of agnostic expectations and secular frameworks, he turns right around and closes his article with a conclusion that would make a freshman English 1101 student cringe.
I still don’t know in what way Riverboat Bill is trying to enlighten us with this CNN article. Most people will think, “Yeah, guys need to get their act together.” Others might worry aloud, “Women are getting a little to big for their britches.” To BOTH of those people, I have this to say:
Please don’t be swayed by William J. Bennett. A man who spends his time finding out where to place the blame (righteously or not) simply gives more work to those like Joe Ehrmann who are coming up with real solutions. Boys and men alike DO need to get better, but not at the expense of videogames. That is the equivalent of improving womankind by eliminating trashy magazines. We’d all be wasting our time scooping water out of our flooded basement rather than fixing the leak.
I know there’s a “man crisis” and I hate that I add to it more often than not, but what I hate even more is that someone can write an opinion piece like “Why men are in trouble” and put it on a major website. Mr Bennett’s piece belongs in the trash along with his tactics. My stuff could use the company.
