One of the most pernicious and destructive cultural trends in the United States over the past 30 years or so has been the demonization of men and masculinity.

This has taken many forms. Take, for example, the medicalization of boyish behavior in schools, which resulted in widespread diagnoses of “attention deficit disorder” and “attention deficit hyperactivity disorder,” and overprescribing of drugs like Ritalin. Saner voices who insisted that boys simply needed more physical activity throughout the day and could not be expected to sit quietly for hours like girls were sidelined or ignored for years.

Less visibly destructive but just as insidious is the portrayal of fathers in entertainment media. They are rarely shown as present, loving and intelligent protectors of their wives and children, and more often as absent deadbeats, comic buffoons or abusers.

Predominantly male activities and institutions like sports and the military have been relentlessly attacked as well.

When the Duke lacrosse team was falsely accused of gang rape in 2006, members of the Duke faculty presumed they were guilty and saw the accusation as a prime opportunity to denounce “whiteness” in sports and “rape culture” on campuses. The young men were eventually exonerated and their accuser later admitted that she had lied. But the damage was done.

Interestingly, the laissez-faire attitudes about sex and sexuality that feminists and other social activists have promoted as “liberating” since the late 1960s eventually became a weapon to use against men.

The “Dear Colleague” letter issued by former President Barack Obama’s Department of Education in 2011 was purportedly crafted to crack down on sexual assault on college campuses. But compliance with the letter’s requirements effectively deprived young men accused of sexual assault of any due process, resulting in more than 500 lawsuits brought against colleges and universities, most of which those institutions either lost or settled.

A few years later, the #MeToo movement, which originated when women came forward to expose sexual harassment and assault in the entertainment industry, among others, morphed into witch hunts where accusation was tantamount to conviction in the court of public opinion. #MeToo got co-opted by complainers about “bro culture,” disgruntled ex-girlfriends or willing participants in short-term flings who sought revenge against the men with whom they’d been — however briefly — involved. (When reading some of the later #MeToo accounts, it’s astonishing how many women admitted that they weren’t forced into these encounters — and sometimes even initiated them — but then later attempted to characterize the men’s equally blase attitudes about their sexual interactions as “predatory.”)

The war on men and masculinity (as well as chromosomal biology) has reached a new low with the “trans” obsession. We’re told that girls can become boys by cutting off their breasts and taking male hormones, while young males are culturally encouraged to “transition” to female by chemically castrating themselves, and in extreme cases having vaginoplasties: the removal of their penises and testes and surgical creation of a fake “vagina” that is little more than an open wound.

America’s warped attitude about masculinity was on display frequently during the Biden administration, which featured a man exposing his fake breasts on the White House lawn, a senate staffer who photographed himself having gay sex in a congressional hearing room, a cross-dressing, “nonbinary” expert in nuclear waste disposal who was arrested after stealing women’s luggage from multiple airports, and soldiers who posted photos of themselves wearing “dog-themed bondage masks” while in uniform.

After decades of relentlessly negative messaging, “experts” now find themselves wondering why American boys (and men) are in crisis.

But Americans, it would appear, have finally had enough, and are cheering for men and their achievements without apology.

The USA men’s Olympic hockey team has captivated the nation with its gold medal victory over Canada. The endearing photo of forward Jack Hughes (who made the winning goal), wrapped in an American flag with his charming, bloody, broken-toothed grin, went viral, as have clips of the other members of the team in their first NHL games since returning to the United States, including Matt Tkachuk, Tage Thompson, Noah Hanifin and Jack Eichel.

Unsurprisingly, the Left is peeved that public sentiment has shifted back toward celebrating masculine men.

The men’s team was criticized for visiting the White House at President Donald Trump’s invitation. HuffPost writer Monica Torres assured her readers, “If waving the American flag or chanting ‘USA’ turns you off right now, you’re not alone.” Matt Lewis warned that “MAGA” was attempting to claim ownership of sports or the Olympics.

Rubbish. No one thinks the victories of these athletes and their teams “belong” to anyone but those who achieved them or made them possible. These grumblers are just annoyed that the American public aren’t willing to pick these young men apart with meaningless criticisms; we don’t hold them up as the manifestation of some vacuous leftist ideology; we’re not pissed off because their successes blow a hole in our blinkered and discredited worldview.

Instead, we’re happy for them. We recognize their hard work, their sacrifice and their success. We’re proud of them and of what they represent about our country. We don’t care about their politics.

Other stories of selfless men occasionally grab our attention. Kelton Felmlee was only 18 when he volunteered to donate the bone marrow that saved 10-year-old Laila Anderson’s life. Felmlee’s story is only known because Anderson was a huge fan of the St. Louis Blues hockey team, which sponsored the “Be The Match” drive to find a donor for her.

But most of the American men working hard and trying to live by their principles aren’t famous, and their sacrifices are known only to their families, friends and coworkers.

One often hears the popular sentiment that the world would be a better place if women ran it. (Did these people never attend middle school?) But a feminized society is unlikely to be either a peaceful or a just one. In her essay “The Great Feminization,” author Helen Andrews theorizes that what we’ve come to call “woke culture” is simply what happens when societal institutions become predominantly female. She writes, “Everything you think of as wokeness involves prioritizing the feminine over the masculine: empathy over rationality, safety over risk, cohesion over competition.”

We’re already witnessing what happens when society is weakened by a distorted definition of “compassion” — innocent people are victimized by crime, violence and fraud facilitated by leaders who can muster the gumption to censor, socially ostracize and even prosecute anyone who disagrees with them, but who lack the strength or the will to go after the perpetrators of actual crimes or serious threats to social stability.

Western society requires strong men. Either we raise — and value — strong, decent, principled men who live by and preserve Judeo-Christian cultural norms, or we will find ourselves at the mercy of strong but unprincipled men who will exploit our weaknesses to destroy our most important institutions for their own selfish gratification.

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