Hello all. I'd like to start this week's post with a quick apology for the two weeks of silence. Hey, what can I say? Even the loudest among us all must occasionally take a little time for the holidays and to mourn the occasional birthday. I'll make sure that any future silences are accounted for well in advance, and thank you for the emails wondering where my next post was or when to expect it to show up.
Jeez, you'd almost think I had a fan or two. Considering I still find it almost unfathomable that anyone finds my little musings here worth reading anyway, I definitely take it as a compliment.
So without further ado...
I'd like to ask a question to mainstream American if you don't mind. Exactly when did it become a social crime to either be or behave as an alpha male? I didn't see the memo, no one let me know, hell for that matter I didn't even have a chance to shoot the carrier pigeon as it went overhead. All I know is that one day I woke up, scratched, took a few minutes to get myself together, then opened the door into a world where being the dude in charge of his personal situation was suddenly a bad thing.
What happened? Seriously!
For the purposes of this little discussion I do need to clarify one or two things. The alpha male I'm talking about here a lot of things but he is neither a bully or an abusive person. This guy is not the one who wedgied you until your legs were numb in middle school, nor is he your mom's ex-boyfriend from when you were fifteen who used to hit her when he drank too much. Those assclowns have hopefully been allowed to either see the error of their ways or been whistled out of the gene pool by now so they don't merit discussion. What I'm talking about is the old school man who could take care of things. The guy who felt obligated to take care of his family. The man who could fix things around the house. The dude other dudes looked up to. The man who stood up when things went south and handled business. The quiet badass. The stoic. The real man. See Humphry Bogart / John Wayne / Harrison Ford / etcetera for reference material.
Seriously dude, where did you get off to lately and why oh why oh why did you suddenly get such a bad rap? Why do our children all suddenly need participation trophies to protect their self esteem? Why is it such a horrible travesty for a child to protect themselves when physically assaulted by another child? Why is it so suddenly taboo to stand up for something other than the constant and consistent pussification of our culture? And for sweet baby Jesus doing eighty on a freeway's holy sake why is it suddenly so bad for a man to have an opinion and heaven forbid be willing to defend it in, gasp, public?
Well, as you might have guessed, I just happen to have a theory or two on what may have happened.
I think it all started when men as a group decided to get in touch with their emotions. You all remember the whole mid-nineties drum circles induced searches for inner growth. Then came manscaping followed by the horror that was metrosexuality. Sometime after that, okay in fairness I think it came around during that same period, men seemed to lose their drive. I don't know exactly where it happened or when but somewhere around the time Gen-X started to pop out children our social values tended to the man being the guy in the house holding down the couch in front of the Playstation instead of the person leading the charge.
BEFORE I rouse any feminist ire out there, please be assured that understand that the roles of men and women in our society have changed in the last few decades and that women are now taking more of an equal place as the breadwinners in the home due to the economy and three thousand other factors. I mean nothing to detract from that in any way. But I will take a moment to mention that even the most hardcore girl power endorser has to take pause when Women's Health magazine runs a five page article on the decline of the alpha male in our society, particularly when they note that while the change has a few benefits it's a negative in the overall.
Face it guys, we let this happen to ourselves. We lost our place as leader of the pack, figuratively and maybe literally. Do I endorse chauvenism? Not hardly. I'm not saying take it all over boys, but I am saying it just might be time to step up and actually participate enough to have an opinion in what happens in your home.
Oh yeah, and while you're at it, man up just a bit. Learn to fix the car, change that diaper, whatever works in your house and needs your attention. Hell, it's cold outside now. Grow a beard for good measure. Get your chubby butt to the gym and do something about the love handles. Chase your wife around the house like you did when you first started dating her. Play with your kids. Talk to your parents. Be a good friend. Listen when others speak.
You know, do the stuff all those men you looked up to when you were a kid did. Whether you realize it or not, someone's looking up to you right now...
No comments:
Post a Comment