As our decade draws to a close, a reflection on the significant virtues throughout its duration could be used as an obituary of sorts. If it were to be written about the previous decade, it would be riddled with perseverance through strides in innovation, and the strong wills of the American people to overcome adversity brought about by foreign agents of chaos. This, however, is in stark contrast to what a modern interpretation of the piece would be, being filled with virtues that have been the most popular in this decade vox populi, such as empowerment and especially, a relatively new idea of misandry in terms of men, women and most importantly the raising of children.
Now, while many women and men alike may brand themselves as bona fide experts in the field of how to educate children to be “rightful feminists”, a strong deficit has formed. A radicalistic feminist by the name of Jessica Valenti published a piece focusing specifically on the education of ‘young boys’, in which she hypothesizes that “the persistent stereotype of 'real men' as powerful and violent [has shown us that] it’s never been clearer that American boys are in desperate need of intervention.” Her solution? Feminism. This time not only young girls, but also young men. 'Feminist ideas may help men— either by challenging assumptions that people will be […] stoic or by breaking the stigma [which surrounds] male sexual assault survivors. But [all-in-all,] boys also need the same kind of culture that we developed for girls.”
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There could be nothing that strays further from the truth. Speaking as both a primary source–a teenage boy growing up in the era of progressiveness and what many consider ‘Second-wave feminism’–and on the basis of references from my peers, there is an inherent difference between girls and boys, as well as men and women. By design, they are naturally different, and require different things from those who surround them, the cultures they are exposed to, and, of course, the educational institutions of school and even the workplace in which we spend our days soaking up information diffused by the World Wide Web. The way to strengthen boys is frankly not just to empower women, just as allowing the patriarchy to continue wasn’t the right move in terms of empowering women during First-wave feminism.
To again quote Valenti’s especially troublesome piece (which was published in the New York Times), 'Feminism has long focused on issues such as sexual assault, reproductive rights, harassment, and more. But issues don’t hurt women, men do.” However, even a quick Google search allowed for a swift refutation of the aforementioned quote. An example of this is while feminism encourages women to seek justice, especially in the workplace, it now promotes solutions that only further current patriarchal systems as opposed to fixing anything. Many of the measures that they support actually go further to (unintentionally) hurt women, such as the coercing of employers to pay women for maternity leave, which in turn leads to subtle, but still present discrimination during the recruitment process, as obviously a candidate which will cause the company to incur a higher level of sunk costs is just not an economically acceptable decision.
Another ideological flaw that has overtaken Third-wave feminism, separate from both the first and second waves (which were based on equality), is an increased focus on entitlement. There is a concerted effort to encourage workplaces to accept a 50-50 male-to-female ratio irrespective of merit (which, of course, again makes less than zero sense) and the new discourse on women's marches echoes an aurora of misandry vs. female empowerment.
So, this leaves me wondering, how could this 'third wave' in feminism, which apparently hurts women, help men. Skepticisms of our current culture, described by Valenti as failing society's young men, are only a front. Behind it, all lies an ulterior motive that is quickly gaining momentum, that which is to make men as irrelevant as they are apparently 'unwanted'. Now, I am not saying that all men are victims and that we can't occasionally be labeled as misogynistic jerks. But to say that the panacea to all is feminism when presented with situations in which strong masculinity is more apt in handling the development of culture as well as our society is erroneous at best.
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