The Real Man is disappearing because they don’t have an adequate pattern for manhood which isn’t considered discrimination. Aside from that, all the other factors I mentioned are completely valid: men get married later because they’re screwing around, not because they don’t need babies. Men are leaving more illegitimate children behind. Men are also more likely to be ostracized by their teachers in our leftist school system, which seeks to soften the effects of manhood through an overtly feminine approach to education, as well as socially-sanctioned over-medication of boyish traits. If you look at the men on television, they increasing resemble homosexuals in their behavior (watch Friends, if you have to), are less likely to take serious stands, and even less likely to have control of their libido.

This isn’t how men acted 60 years ago, and furthermore, the ideals I expressed regarding manhood are considered discriminatory in the public school system. Manhood has absolutely changed.

Now, on to your rebuttals!

1) Not a political solution. Done individually!

2) As I explained earlier, combating current standards of manhood is only possible if we break from a post-modern, atheistic worldview. As soon as men are given a purpose beyond biology, we can raise the standards. Before then, we’ll be stuck with this stumper of a question: “why should men behave a certain way, instead of the way they feel?”

3) The apostle Paul clearly defined proper behavior and expectations for both men and women, while commanding us to love both within those definitions. If men and women are to be treated the same, then we need to have unisex bathrooms, co-ed dorms, and put women on the front lines.

Furthermore, never once in the Bible are we ever commanded to respect a person’s sin and demand that others pay sinners equally. I put my foot down here because that’s where Christ wants me to. It’s one thing to forgive a person when they wrong you, it’s another to protect that sin (warning: do not bring up Jesus saving the adultress. It’s not found in many of the most ancient Bible copies, and shouldn’t be used since we don’t know if it actually happened).

4) This one’s a good one, buddy! There are certain instances–like marriage–in which a society positively benefits from public ritual. In marriage, the newlyweds have a set of rights and demands publicly placed upon them, so as to legally, socially, and psychologically solidify the new life. As we move away from protecting the rights and demands of marriage, the problems become clear: people who have sex out of wedlock and live with their partner before wedlock are over 30% more likely to divorce.

With manhood, the situation would be the same: men must have certain privileges and responsibilities given to them when they achieve manhood, but few in America know what the responsibilities are, or when they get them. When we as a group get together and publicly initiate our young men into manhood, telling them what we expect and what they’re allowed to do, there will be far less confusion about how a man should behave.

See?

This seems to ignore the societal factors of the feminist movement. In the feminist movement, women are encouraged to empower themselves. They are encouraged to do the normal societal responsibilities of men, but better. Because all this article does is compare the status of men compared to women before the feminist movement and after the feminist movement, and say, “Hey! Men have fewer college degrees compared to women now!” it doesn’t convince me that men themselves are dwindling.

The last point, about men not marrying until later in life seems like it’s an effect of the increasing industrialization of America. Now, there are fewer family farms than there used to be. Because of this, there is less pressure to marry and have tons of babies to help take care of the family farm. In short, as I read the first link, the idea, “correlation does not equal causation” was screaming at me.

About your solutions:

First solution: I think introducing people to Christianity is great! However, this does not seem like it is or should be part of a political agenda. If the government decided that Hindu was a great religion for people and people would do better if they knew about Hinduism, I don’t think a lot of people around here would like that much. If the government started teaching about religion in schools or elsewhere, it would be like the government adopting a state religion, which violates the second amendment.

Second solution: I searched through your post to find what you mean by the “purpose of manhood”. I couldn’t find out why teaching a religious doctrine in public schools as an alternative to a scientific theory would restore the purpose of manhood.

Third solution: If what you mean by “gender neutrality” is treading homosexuals and heterosexuals as the same, then I can sympathize with you. If what you mean by “gender neutrality” is not treating men and women equally, I ardently disagree. However, I believe there should be some anti-discriminatory measures against homosexuals, such as equal pay for equal work, and making sure that if they put in an equal amount of work in society, they get an equal amount back out. This, however, is much more a moral argument, and what people feel morally all right with, instead of a political argument, however. I’m afraid that if I belabor this point too much, it will turn into two people screaming, “nah ah” and “yah ha!” at each other because the two people disagree on the moral premise.

Fourth solution: I looked in your article for why we must have ritualistic ways of inducting young men into society. I can’t refute this argument, because I know not why it is to be a good solution.