A couple of days ago, a conservative columnist started up a series of columns about the "firearms every man had to own in order to retain his man card." Now, I strongly suspect that the said individual never bothered to think about how many men in this country do not personally own firearms, without even considering those is other countries where firearm ownership is strictly limited. Then there is the fact that, so far, his list is up to 6 and counting, which means that even more men who do own firearms do not qualify as "men" per his definition. First, I do own firearms, none of which make his list, so far, and I suspect none of them will. However, to actually have all of the weapons currently listed, you are going to have to have a pretty good 6 figure plus income. So by his definition, there are not a lot of "men" in this country. and indeed, on the planet. I also have the view that any male who feels that he needs to own a firearm to be a "man" has a serious insecurity problem.
I have also had a speaker on the church Men's Retreat define a "man" as someone who is an outdoors type, builds his own deck, shed, and house addition, and in general has much more interest in the outdoors and being physically active that using his brain indoors. That guy must have gotten more than just me ticked off, as I have heard that he made the "do not invite back" list. His comments pretty much ruled out two-thirds, at least, of his audience as being "men". Most of the men at the retreat were either retired or worked in an office.
Then there was the "jock" seminary student who told me that "real men" do not ever ask for help, and that I should stop asking for help when I was having problems getting around the campus. I have often wondered since if he has ever found himself in a situation when he needed help, but was bound by his own views not to ask for it. That comment did end the carpool with him. He really did not want to associate with someone who had to use crutches to get around. I guess that it threatened his manhood.
The morale of all of this is that there are some pretty screwy ideas about what constitutes a "Man" in todays culture, without even straying into the more far-fetched liberal views.
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What Makes a Man?
October 23rd, 2019 03:24 PM