On October 31, Senator Josh Hawley spoke at the National Conservatism Conference, which met in Orlando, Fla. His keynote address was titled “The Future of the American Man.” In that talk, he criticized the Left’s attacks on masculinity. But what does it mean to be masculine—or feminine? More importantly, what does it mean to be human?
Sen. Hawley is Not Joshing
Even though I am a Missourian, as you know or could easily guess, I am
not a fan of Missouri’s junior Senator, Josh Hawley. My most widely read blog
article of 2021 is “Hawley with Blood on His Hands,” posted on January 8. And his
political statements/actions since then have been consistently bad.
It is sometimes hard to distinguish what politicians really think or
believe from what they say to attract voters. Because of his possible candidacy
for POTUS in 2024, or later, Sen. Hawley—as well as Sens. Cruz of Texas and
Cotton of Arkansas—may say things to gain the attention of Trumpists.
Sen. Hawley seems not to be joshing, though, when he criticizes the
Left for abetting the loss of masculinity among USAmerican males. Listen to his
26-minute speech (here)
or read it (here)
and see what you think.
In that speech, Hawley disingenuously declares, “The
Left want to define traditional masculinity as toxic. They want to define the
traditional masculine virtues—things like courage, and independence, and
assertiveness—as a danger to society.”
Prof. Du Mez is Not Joshing
An opposite viewpoint is presented by Kristin Kobes
Du Mez, a professor of history at Calvin University and the author of the bestselling
book, Jesus and John Wayne: How White Evangelicals Corrupted a Faith and
Fractured a Nation (2021).
Prof. Du Mez is not joshing when she declares
early in her book that conservative evangelical Christians have often “replaced
the Jesus of the Gospels with a vengeful warrior Christ.”
Accordingly, “evangelical support for Trump
was no aberration, nor was it merely a pragmatic choice. It was, rather, the
culmination of evangelicals’ embrace of militant masculinity, an ideology that
enshrines patriarchal authority and condones the callous display of power, at
home and abroad.”
Although she doesn’t use the words “toxic
masculinity,” a widely-used term since early in 2019, Du Mez’s book speaks to
the same perceived problem.
A 1/22/19 NYTimes article “What is
Toxic Masculinity?” explains: “Toxic masculinity is what can come of
teaching boys that they can’t express emotion openly; that they have to be ‘tough
all the time’; that anything other than that makes them ‘feminine’ or weak.
(No, it doesn’t mean that all men are inherently toxic.)”
In her writing about militant masculinity, though,
Du Mez embraces most of the same ideas. And she is not joshing in her rejection
of that as a Christian ideal—or in her rejection of what she sees in White conservative
evangelicalism’s emphasis on “submissive femininity.”
I am Not Joshing
Rather than emphasizing masculinity or femininity, I strongly believe
in placing stress upon humanity—and I am defining humanity in a slightly
different way than usual.
If masculinity/femininity is as Dictionary.com
says, “the quality or condition of being masculine/feminine” then perhaps it is
not a stretch to say that humanity is primarily the quality or condition of
being human.
Being human is more important than men being
masculine or women being feminine.
Being human is more important than being male
or female (or “x,” which is now a passport option for gender).
Being human is more important than being White
or BIPOC.
Being human is more important than being
straight or LGBTQ.
According to Genesis 1:27, “God created
humanity in God’s own image” (CEB). In spite of gender differences, or any
other differences, all people are primarily, and most importantly, human
beings, equally created in the image of God.
This doesn’t mean differences should be
denied, but those differences should be kept secondary. Regardless of their differences,
all human beings are created as persons of equal worth.
So, yes, I am not joshing when I agree that
toxic or militant masculinity is bad for everyone—as are toxic politicians such
as Sen. Hawley.
