The argument can be made that most of society’s ills are the result of men failing to be good or even present fathers. Yet more often than not, we hear about how “toxic” masculinity can be. Sure, there are bad expressions of machismo, but millions of boys are being raised by women to be less than the men they need to be.

Political analyst Douglas Murray writes:

Anyone who has passed through an education in the past decade will have encountered the term “toxic masculinity.” It is one of the many charming phrases that our age has come up with to pathologize ordinary people. Brewing for some decades, the concept of “toxic masculinity” was brought into the mainstream in the last ten years by fourth-wave feminists intent on portraying half of our species as “problematic,” to use another of the delightful watchwords of our era.

The simple assertion of the “toxic masculinity” crowd is that specifically male behaviors are a problem. The most extreme aspects of male misbehavior are portrayed as though they are routine. So young feminists insist that we live in a “rape culture,” in which men are alleged to be allowed to rape with impunity. Likewise, male-on-female domestic violence is portrayed as a kind of pandemic. And the answer to all these things is essentially to feminize men — to tell specifically young heterosexual men that they must curb their masculinity and subdue many of their most natural instincts. In every direction their path is cut off. For instance, men who come to the rescue of women are dismissed as “white knighting,” as though even the wish to help a woman is proof of “toxic masculinity.”

Of course, the concept itself is toxic — quite as much so as if our age decided to talk about women in a similar way.

It goes without saying that there isn’t much attention given to toxic femininity. Well, outside the Johnny Depp vs. Amber Heard fiasco. On the contrary, all the attention — and scorn — is heaped upon men.

Yet there must be consequences to interventions this ham-fisted. It is one thing to try to fine-tune our species; quite another to attempt to do so while wearing mittens. And that is what concepts such as toxic masculinity are. They are blundering, blunt, inept efforts at rewiring — efforts that must have consequences.

Murray points to some anecdotes where a man behaving poorly or even criminally could have been thwarted by a man acting with proper masculinity. Rather than help a woman on a New York subway, for example, “One man filmed it on his cell phone.” The school massacre in Texas is another. “There were plenty of ‘good guys’ with guns,” laments Murray. “Nineteen of them, in fact. One for each slain child. For the best part of an hour and a half these policemen sat around in a corridor waiting for backup while the bad guy had the scene to himself.” He concludes:

Does this prove that masculinity is dead? Not in itself, no. But it should remind us that society needs men to behave in certain ways at certain times. In warfare masculinity is a very good thing, as it is for the police, firemen and many others. It would have been good to see some masculinity on that New York subway. It would have been good to have seen some male heroism in Texas. But there must be consequences to telling men that their instincts are wrong, that their behavior is wrong, and that all their intentions are tainted by dint of their chromosomes.

Read the whole thing here.