Men in crisis

Lorna Phillips, Guest Columnist

The statistics paint a really bad picture. More than 70 per cent of homeless adults are male. Men die earlier than women. From around grade 10, girls begin to pull away from boys in terms of educational performance. Females are graduating from the traditional professional schools in numbers far exceeding men.

Men account for 98 per cent of persons arrested for major crimes, 45 per cent of whom are under 25. Men are the victims of crime in every category of major crime except larceny.

Men are clearly in crisis. The statistics on deadbeat dads, cheating husbands, physical and sexual abusers, and men in jail are deeply disturbing, reaffirming, as they do, our general belief that the standards of our men are in rapid decline. Christian churches exhort men to demonstrate leadership in the home and in society, while trying to finesse their way through the seemingly constant flow of falls from grace, of the very church leaders themselves.

From sportsmen and musicians to politicians and professionals, select any newspaper, on any given day, and the proof of male degradation stares back at us with depressing regularity.

NOT ALL MEN ARE DOGS

But is it really that bad? Don't we all know, personally, men who we can honestly hold to be men of honour? Men who work hard, seem honest (most of the time), care for their children and go to church (some of the time), and are faithful to their women. Ahem, maybe I should leave that one alone. The fact is, though, that all men are not dogs! All men are not uneducated, unkind, unfair, liars, cheats and losers!

So what are we talking about here? All men some of the time; or some men all of the time? Or maybe we are just looking at this all wrong. Maybe most men are mostly good really, but the lenses through which we view them need a little adjustment.

The probable truth is it's a little bit of all of the above. Somewhere between the polarities of good and bad, right thinking and wrong thinking, effort and laziness, and success and failure lie the joys and pains, attainment and longing, clarity and confusion, wonderment and depression that attend all men on their journey through life.

What has happened, however, is that while traditionally there existed formal initiations and other community-led activities that supported boys and men through the stages of maturation that attend normal development, today, there exist only remnants of those structures, practised scarcely and sporadically.

Many boys are permitted to grow into men entirely with little guidance, and ultimately become men that we learn to fear, mistrust or misunderstand. They, in turn, wonder in quiet pain whether they will ever make it to the destination that all men seek - where they can know with absolute certainty that they have attained the revered prize - of manhood. A place where a man can plant his territorial stake, and declare from the bowels of his stomach, "I am a man!" Not a mama-man, chi chi man, or cry-crybaby or whatever epithets we use to chip away at our boys' confidence in their maleness. A real man'.

Why, as a human species, we would have cuckolded ourselves into believing that men, any more than women, can mould themselves into beings of character on the pale admonitions of intermittent values and attitudes campaigns is a mystery deserving only of a highly celebratory burial. If our men are in crisis, is it any wonder? And, is it any wonder that our youth are also in crisis? Guys, we need to talk!

Many boys are permitted to grow into men entirely with little guidance, and ultimately become men that we learn to fear, mistrust or misunderstand.