1 00:00:01,940 --> 00:00:03,620 Rape, murder, war. 2 00:00:03,620 --> 00:00:05,840 They all have one thing in common. 3 00:00:05,840 --> 00:00:06,920 Men. 4 00:00:06,920 --> 00:00:13,240 Aggression, violence, ambition unchecked by conscience -- all the stuff of “toxic masculinity,” 5 00:00:13,240 --> 00:00:14,380 right? 6 00:00:14,380 --> 00:00:18,200 And, the solution is obvious: make men less toxic. 7 00:00:18,200 --> 00:00:19,900 Make men less masculine. 8 00:00:19,900 --> 00:00:22,120 Make men more like women. 9 00:00:22,120 --> 00:00:27,900 But I’m here to tell you that this way of thinking is not only wrong, it’s dangerous. 10 00:00:27,900 --> 00:00:32,540 Here’s why: When you try to make men more like women, you don’t get less “toxic 11 00:00:32,540 --> 00:00:35,120 masculinity,” you get more. 12 00:00:35,120 --> 00:00:36,100 Why? 13 00:00:36,100 --> 00:00:41,100 Because bad men don’t become good when they stop being men; they become good when they 14 00:00:41,100 --> 00:00:42,920 stop being bad. 15 00:00:42,920 --> 00:00:47,740 Aggression, violence, and unbridled ambition can’t be eliminated from the male psyche, 16 00:00:47,740 --> 00:00:49,760 they can only be harnessed. 17 00:00:49,760 --> 00:00:54,580 And when they are harnessed, they are tools for good, not for harm. 18 00:00:54,580 --> 00:00:58,979 The same masculine traits that bring destruction also defeat tyranny. 19 00:00:58,980 --> 00:01:02,300 The traits that foster greed also build economies. 20 00:01:02,300 --> 00:01:08,020 The traits that drive men to take foolish risks also drive men to take heroic risks. 21 00:01:08,020 --> 00:01:14,400 The answer to toxic masculinity isn’t less masculinity; it’s better masculinity. 22 00:01:14,400 --> 00:01:16,580 And we know what that looks like. 23 00:01:16,580 --> 00:01:20,380 It’s a young man opening the door for a girl on their first date. 24 00:01:20,380 --> 00:01:23,800 It’s a father working long hours to provide for his family. 25 00:01:23,800 --> 00:01:27,500 It’s a soldier risking his life to defend his country. 26 00:01:27,500 --> 00:01:32,480 The growing problem in today’s society isn’t that men are too masculine, it’s that they’re 27 00:01:32,480 --> 00:01:34,480 not masculine enough. 28 00:01:34,480 --> 00:01:40,040 When men embrace their masculinity in a way that is healthy and productive, they are leaders, 29 00:01:40,040 --> 00:01:41,860 warriors and heroes. 30 00:01:41,860 --> 00:01:47,120 When they deny their masculinity, they run away from responsibilities, leaving destruction 31 00:01:47,130 --> 00:01:49,300 and despair in their wake. 32 00:01:49,300 --> 00:01:51,520 The consequences can be seen everywhere: 33 00:01:51,520 --> 00:01:54,520 One in four fathers now lives apart from his children. 34 00:01:54,520 --> 00:01:58,620 And children who grow up without a dad are generally more depressed than their peers 35 00:01:58,630 --> 00:02:00,400 who have a mother and a father. 36 00:02:00,400 --> 00:02:04,780 They are at far greater risk for incarceration, teen pregnancy and poverty. 37 00:02:04,780 --> 00:02:08,900 Seventy-one percent of high school dropouts are fatherless. 38 00:02:08,900 --> 00:02:13,740 “Of all the rocks upon which we build our lives ... family is the most important. 39 00:02:13,740 --> 00:02:19,580 And we are called to recognize and honor how critical every father is to that foundation.” 40 00:02:19,580 --> 00:02:23,420 That was said by then Senator Barack Obama in 2008. 41 00:02:23,420 --> 00:02:27,340 If “we are honest with ourselves,” he went on “we’ll admit that ... too many 42 00:02:27,350 --> 00:02:31,510 fathers are... missing from too many lives and too many homes.” 43 00:02:31,510 --> 00:02:36,220 As much as we try to deny the need for real, masculine strength in society, 44 00:02:36,220 --> 00:02:38,960 there’s no denying its necessity. 45 00:02:38,960 --> 00:02:44,620 Healthy families and strong communities depend on the leadership and bravery of good men. 46 00:02:44,620 --> 00:02:50,200 Yet, the current trend is to feminize young men in the hopes of achieving some utopian 47 00:02:50,200 --> 00:02:52,440 notion of equality and peace. 48 00:02:52,440 --> 00:02:54,960 And it starts at the earliest ages. 49 00:02:54,960 --> 00:02:58,920 In the school classroom boys are invariably “the problem.” 50 00:02:58,920 --> 00:03:03,420 On the playground aggressive games like dodgeball have long been banished. 51 00:03:03,420 --> 00:03:07,420 We tell young men that their intrinsic desire to compete is wrong. 52 00:03:07,420 --> 00:03:09,000 Everybody gets a trophy. 53 00:03:09,000 --> 00:03:10,660 Don’t run up the score. 54 00:03:10,660 --> 00:03:15,860 This anti-male tilt continues on through higher education and into the workplace. 55 00:03:15,860 --> 00:03:21,400 It has created millions of tentative men, unhappy women, and confused boys and girls. 56 00:03:21,400 --> 00:03:26,220 Here’s a secret that everyone woman knows: women want real men: 57 00:03:26,220 --> 00:03:29,400 men they can count on and, yes, look up to. 58 00:03:29,400 --> 00:03:32,320 No amount of feminist theory will change that. 59 00:03:32,320 --> 00:03:38,260 I don’t know any woman, at any age, who is attracted to a passive man who looks to 60 00:03:38,260 --> 00:03:41,540 her to be his provider, protector and leader. 61 00:03:41,540 --> 00:03:45,380 Every woman I know wants a strong, responsible man. 62 00:03:45,380 --> 00:03:51,570 That’s not a consequence of a social construct or cultural pressure—it’s innate. 63 00:03:51,570 --> 00:03:56,770 The devaluation of masculinity won’t end well because feminine, passive men don’t 64 00:03:56,770 --> 00:03:57,960 stop evil. 65 00:03:57,960 --> 00:04:01,380 Passive men don’t defend, protect or provide. 66 00:04:01,380 --> 00:04:03,400 Passive men don’t lead. 67 00:04:03,400 --> 00:04:09,060 Passive men don’t do the things we have always needed men to do for society to thrive. 68 00:04:09,060 --> 00:04:13,880 In his book The Abolition of Man, English social philosopher C.S. Lewis writes about 69 00:04:13,890 --> 00:04:15,160 this problem. 70 00:04:15,160 --> 00:04:18,720 He describes the tension “between cerebral man and visceral man.” 71 00:04:18,720 --> 00:04:24,500 “By his intellect,” Lewis explains, man “is mere spirit and by his appetite mere animal.” 72 00:04:24,500 --> 00:04:26,080 We need both. 73 00:04:26,080 --> 00:04:30,260 Take away one, and you’re left with a man who’s either weak or wicked. 74 00:04:30,260 --> 00:04:36,220 And in a world of wickedness, weak men are nothing more than enablers of wicked men. 75 00:04:36,220 --> 00:04:38,620 Rape, murder, war. 76 00:04:38,620 --> 00:04:43,820 They all have two things in common: Bad men who do the raping, murdering, and warring; 77 00:04:43,820 --> 00:04:46,060 and weak men who won’t stop them. 78 00:04:46,060 --> 00:04:48,100 We need good men who will. 79 00:04:48,100 --> 00:04:50,480 It’s not masculinity that’s toxic. 80 00:04:50,480 --> 00:04:52,060 It’s the lack of it. 81 00:04:52,060 --> 00:04:54,800 I’m Allie Stuckey for Prager University.