Welmer

Although the idea that American men are in a state of decline, if not outright crisis, has been gaining some traction amongst moderate observers, nobody has yet proposed any serious measures to remedy the situation. Measures for dealing with American men remain punitive, ranging from affirmative action all the way to proposals to castrate convicted rapists (even as more and more men are being found, through DNA testing, to have been wrongly convicted of rape). The increasing failure of American boys to keep up with women in higher education is even hailed as a triumph in some quarters. Even as educators and the public begin to scratch their heads over the haplessness of boys and men in today’s society, civic leaders continue to ignore the irrefutable reality of the massive legal and social obstacles placed in front of boys and men.

When starting with the lowest rung of society – the homeless – it is quite clear that the most destitute Americans are overwhelmingly male. This is nothing new; Orwell noted the preponderance of men at the very lowest level of society in the early 1930s in “Down and Out in Paris and London.” Next one finds people at the marginal fringes, not quite homeless but close to it. There, men and women are more equally represented in numbers, but women have exclusive access to many vital social services, while men share with women those they can access. It is, in all likelihood, the extra social services for women that keep them from making up a more representative proportion of the homeless. Once one gets to the working and middle classes, social welfare becomes less important, yet a new factor – the law – begins to take on more significance. Finally, at the top of society, one finds men achieving equality, and arguably some advantages over women in the same class.

That the men who make the important decisions about policy and law, mainly those in the upper class, live in a benignly patriarchal world has profound implications for the overwhelming majority of men who do not. One’s loyalties usually lie with those to whom one owes a debt of gratitude, regardless of one’s origins. Mighty rulers and generals of the past had great affection for the men directly under them who were crucial to their success. In return, men practically worshipped victorious leaders who brought them wealth and glory. It was this mutual gratitude that created a social contract that guaranteed mutual support. This, however, only really works in societies that are rising in power, and does not apply when they are stagnant or in decline. When the prize to be won is shrinking rather than growing, it behooves men of power to take steps to restrict other men’s access to the goods. Those without power have no choice but to band together and demand a greater share, and gaining access to wealth and power becomes a punitive rather than cooperative endeavor.

America has not been ascendant for quite some time, and it has for the past decade or so been in relative decline. Thus men, the primary actors in the game of power, look for excuses to hobble their competition. Men at the top, therefore, shielded by their access to resources, systematically strip potential competitors of the means to make a go of it in life. We find powerful politicians and wealthy contributors gutting the civil rights of men through legislation such as affirmative action and the Violence Against Women Act. When problems are exposed amongst young males, the solution is incarceration, which is practiced to a greater degree in America than any other nation on earth. It is clear from social policies adopted over the past several decades that solutions to male problems have been almost uniformly punitive rather than rehabilitative.

Despite the outcry from a number of men about the injustice of punitive measures, such as imprisonment over back child support, to which they have been subjected, few, if any, are offering alternatives. Outrage is an acceptable reaction to injustice, and it is important that unfairly punitive laws are challenged, but men should pay attention to the successes of the women’s movement and recognize that there also exist prizes to be won. For example, men should demand professional training and job placement services following a devastating divorce so that they can better support their children. Men’s shelters and housing should be provided for men made homeless by one-sided divorce settlements that remove them from their homes — if only so they can parent their children effectively. If boys are disproportionately failing in school, programs dedicated to raising boys’ self-esteem and taking their unique characteristics into account should be implemented when schooling them.

Ultimately, rehabilitating American men will take a positive effort on the part of men rather than a simple reaction to injustice. Men’s activism must be dedicated not only to removing constraints to equal participation in society, but to actively cooperating in their social promotion from disposable slave to indispensible component of society. Men must insist that their happiness, welfare and civil rights are no less important than others’. Importantly, men must work on the premise that none of this will be given freely, and, as always, will have to pried from the hands of those holding the reins of policy.

So let’s face it guys: it’s up to us to get up on our feet, stand together, and take justice back through our own effort. Our rehabilitation is in our own hands; it can’t be any other way.