Stop Letting the Feminists Write“How to be a Real Man” Books.
Job 38:1-3
Then the Lord answered Job out of the whirlwind, and said:
“Who is this who darkens counsel
By words without knowledge?Now prepare yourself like a man;
I will question you, and you shall answer Me.
There is a lucrative industry of books purporting to teach young men “how to be a real man.” This is, of course, a conservative response to decades of feminist corruption, an attempt to counteract the moral and cultural collapse that has left so many young men adrift. It also fills the need left empty by absentee fathers and grandfathers. Young men must be taught how to do things and led by example—by mature men of skill and faith.
And yet, my perusal of these books suggests that they largely miss the mark. They fail in three key ways: They allow feminists to choose the battlefield by reducing the question to “gender.” They repeat feminist caricatures of masculinity and then try to defend those. They fail to identify and cultivate what actually distinguishes a man as a man as the basis for human dignity.
This is true whether the book comes from a self-styled conservative like Jordan Peterson or a well-meaning Christian pastor. The common theme is that a man should be able to work with his hands, provide for his family, and protect those he loves. None of these things are wrong. In fact, they are good and necessary. But they are also insufficient. If we are not careful, this kind of manhood—one centered on mere competence and provision—becomes a rehashed version of the very thing that feminists rebelled against in the first place.
After all, mid-century men also worked with their hands, built homes, provided for their families, and fought wars. But those things alone did not prevent the feminist revolt. The problem wasn’t that men failed to lift heavy objects or master the art of grilling a steak—it was that they lost sight of the one thing that truly distinguishes a man from an animal.
The Feminist Revolt as a Judgment
Feminism, for all its destructiveness, is a reaction to something real: the meaninglessness of a life reduced to fideism, skill, and toil without purpose. A life of fideism—that is, one that touts hard work and virtue while failing to provide a compelling reason for why these things matter—is an empty life. Animals can be skillful. Working with one’s hands is not essentially human. Even tradition, when passed down mechanically, can become a hollow ritual rather than a source of wisdom.
Feminism, at its core, issued a challenge: Prove it. Prove that this life of labor and virtue has meaning. Prove that it is worth embracing. Because, to many women, it looked miserable. And when the response was merely “It just is,” or worse, “Because the Bible says so, therefore just do it,” this was not only a fallacious answer but also a dehumanizing one.
Following up by saying, “If you don’t do this, things will get even worse,” and then pointing to collapse and saying, “See, I told you,” doesn’t prove anything. If it had no meaning, then it is worth letting it collapse. The collapse itself proves nothing. Women, as half of mankind, share the need for meaning, purpose, and a life that makes sense.
The feminist challenge persists because the failure to provide a compelling, uniquely human answer persists. R.C. Sproul once illustrated this problem in an exchange with an elementary school principal. The principal proudly explained that students were learning many skills. Sproul asked, “What is the purpose of learning these skills?” The principal responded, “To prepare them for higher-level skills.” Sproul pressed further: “And what is the purpose of learning those skills?” “To get a job,” the principal answered. And what is the purpose of getting a job? The empty answers continued, and the principal never got it.
At no point was there an answer beyond that because that’s what we do for the next step. The same question that Sproul asked of education, feminism has asked of traditional gender roles. Why? Why should a man work hard, protect, and provide? Why should a woman embrace motherhood, nurture, and assist? If the only answer is “because tradition” or “because the Bible says so,” it is no wonder that many rejected it. The problem wasn’t necessarily that men were failing at provision or protection; it was that they had lost the ability to articulate why those things matter in the first place in order to provide meaning to their families.
The True Distinction: Understanding
What distinguishes a man and gives him human dignity is his ability to understand. You will notice that I am using “man” in the universal sense–the universal man of Adam. This is what separated Adam from the animals. The animals, however skillful, cannot know their Creator. Adam, however, was given dominion—not simply in the sense of physical rule over creation but in the capacity to understand creation and what it reveals about its Creator.
Adam’s role cannot be reduced to physical rule but was primarily to understand and find the meaning in creation. He was to instruct his wife in the truth of God’s command. But when Eve repeated the prohibition about the tree of knowledge, she added something that was not part of the original command—and in doing so, got it wrong. Was this because Adam failed to teach her properly? The first responsibility of being a man, in the true and full sense, is to understand the basics of reality and to communicate that understanding so that his family and society find meaning in life.
This is why, when God challenges Job to “be a man,” He does not tell him to build something, fight something, or protect something. He tells him to answer. “Gird up your loins like a man; I will question you, and you shall make it known to me” (Job 38:3). This is a uniquely human ability—to respond, to give an account, to recognize what is eternal and what is not. And God’s questioning of Job begins here: Who is eternal? Who has existed from the beginning? Job should have known and been able to demonstrate that only God is eternal, that everything else is created by God to reveal his glory.
From there, God presses Job further—does he understand the creation? Has he comprehended the order of the world? In the end, Job repents, confessing that although he had heard of God, he had not truly seen Him as he should have. His failure was not one of insufficient toil, strength, or provision—it was a failure to know God as he ought. That means he had also failed to teach this to his wife and children.
Not one of today’s books on masculinity begins here. Nor do many men, when responding to feminism, begin at this point. And yet, if there is any true answer to the feminist challenge—if there is any real restoration of masculinity—it must start with the knowledge of God.
I am not suggesting that if a feminist were given a sound argument about the purpose of life in knowing God, she would immediately convert. But it would be enough to silence her objections. God permitted feminism as a challenge that has exposed the failures of men to seek and know him for their meaning.
The only real answer to the crisis of masculinity is not in recovering some vague ideal of “manhood” focusing on the will and strength but emptied of cognitive meaning. It must be in recovering the knowledge of our Creator. That is our chief end. And it is about time for men to be real men by demonstrating it. Men must do this for their own meaning and to be able to teach their families thus protecting them from the unbelief of the world.
Image Credit: Unsplash
Anderson forgets something here. He forgets that Feminism is a response to oppression and the lack of equality. He also forgets that today’s context is different from yesteryear’s context. The difference between the two context is economical as well as personal. Financially, many families need both parents to be employed. In addition, there is really no problem women having the security of having a job or job skills for when a husband is incapacitated by illness or dies early. And then there are those women who choose to be single.
Now Anderson can quote the Scriptures all he wants, but he is neglecting is that Feminism is a response to societal problems, not Church life problems. Does Anderson want the government to force what he sees as biblically defined roles on all families in society?
Today’s context demands that men and women have a growing number of roles that are shared. Paul wrote what he did during a different context. Would he have written something different today? The is not identical but not entirely either. The key theme of a man’s role in the Christian family is that the man is the head. There are many ways to implement that headship, not just one.
Thank you. The basic argument of the original post is that women are all idiots, which I think is the actual position of ‘American Reformer.’
I became a feminist because i refuse to pretend to be a weak, stupid, coward. The traditional role for women limits us to being weak, stupid, and cowardly. Any demonstration of competence or intelligence is unfeminine.
Your response genuinely surprised me. I actually think my article will get criticized by some types of conservative men for being too kind to feminism. In my article I argued the women are intellectual and need meaning not just material provision-that’s the opposite of being an idiot. I also said that feminism is a response to failed answers, meaning women who joined feminism were using their minds to critique belief systems. What did you read there that made you think otherwise?
All of what you say is consistent with my article. It doesn’t demonstrate that I forgot something. What I do is reject the attempt by some conservatives (and you in this comment) to reduce feminism to primarily a social or economic issue. It is that. But it is deeper. It goes all the way down to the meaning of life itself. If men are the head as you say then they should be able to demonstrate with a sound argument why the Biblical Worldview, beginning with God, is true. As you say, this can take different forms in our day but the essence of God’s statement to Job is the same for all of us: be a man and give an answer, do you know God?
Owen,
First, thank you for your response. Though I sharply disagree with you here, I very much appreciate the time and caring you demonstrated in responding.
You forgot to mention the different contexts and saying feminism is a response to failed answers is not the same as saying feminism is a response to original problems. And rather than listing some of the specific problems, your acknowledgment of feminism is a glossing over those problems. Why did you write that with feminism there came a moral collapse? Does that mean that morals that allowed men to suppress the equality and equal standing of women in society were higher than with the effects of Feminism’s alternative answers? And with those answers, did Feminism get anything right for women in society? But again and more importantly, morals that allowed men to so suppress women were not already collapsed so that what happens with Feminism is simply a horizontal move in morals rather than a vertical one?
There is so much more in Feminism to oppose within the Church than outside of it in society. That should be our first point unless one believes in Christian Nationalism. With the latter, we start moving toward a Handmaiden’s Tale scenario for women in society.
I invite you to read what Martin Luther King Jr. wrote about Marxism and Capitalism in his book Stride Toward Freedom and elsewhere. King certainly condemns much in Marxism, but he also acknowledges not only what Capitalism got wrong but what Marxism got right. According to King, Marxism had more than just failed answers, it had enough in it to move King to say that we should have a hybrid approach that employed what was the best in Marxism with what was the best in Capitalism. Is that the approach you took toward Feminism?
If you have the time and desire, I look forward to reading your response to this comment.
One more point, IMO, men are more adrift now than before because of the ever deepening consumer mindset that comes with our consumer society. That ever deepening mindset says that one’s significance depends more on what one consumers than on what one contributes.
This piece is actually an excellent exploration of one of the key social structural problems in our society:
the decline of men –
and of course, women, because as the creation narrative clarifies there is no ‘man’ without ‘woman’ and as thousands of years of God’s covenantal relationship with God’s chosen people shows woman are AS essential as men) woman with man –
acting with high intellectual and moral integrity in light of the everlasting command of the Creator of the Universe to STOP IDOL WORSHIP.
Here the piece gets to that point – but FAILS by falling into it OWN IDOLATRY:
” Adam’s role cannot be reduced to physical rule but was primarily to understand and find the meaning in creation. He was to instruct his wife in the truth of God’s command. But when Eve repeated the prohibition about the tree of knowledge, she added something that was not part of the original command—and in doing so, got it wrong. Was this because Adam failed to teach her properly? The first responsibility of being a man, in the true and full sense, is to understand the basics of reality and to communicate that understanding so that his family and society find meaning in life. ”
Society is failing in so many ways because men have failed. BUT NOT BECAUSE OF WOMEN or ‘feminism’ or transgender persons … but because of their ENDLESS IDOLATRIES. Calvin spoke about the endless idolatries of men.
Today men are failing by falling into endless IDOLATROUS addictions of pornography: the algorithms of pornography have infiltrated and infected so many men’s minds … including I’m sure many men who compose pieces at American Reformer … that they can’t TRULY BE TRUSTED. Have all the men who write for, and manage, and publish American Reformer made a pledge not to view ANY PORNOGRAPHY, ever?! AND also pledge to confess PERSONALLY to a pastor anytime they fail in their pledge? The algorithms of pornography frame FAR TOO MUCH of the discourse among Dominionist Christians!
Men are failing by falling into endless IDOLATROUS addictions to power and control: the algorithms of power and control are everyone PROFITING MEN! ALL those violent online games. ALL those abusive conversations in the ‘manosphere’. ALL that praise – or stupid excuses for sex abusers and other power and control advocates – habituating the rapist and sexual abuser Tate Brothers, minimizing Trump’s sexual abuse as a ‘boy will be boys’ prank, and gay men’s endless idolizing bodies without any mention of moral virtues – oh, and BTW straight dudes, your current body fascinations are very very VERY ‘gay’, suffused with an effeminate submission to big muscle and big d-k. Don’t deny it … as you surely will … but … the more denial proves the point more.
Men are failing by falling into endless IDOLATRIES of politics. Need we list the ridiculous and or vile men who run for office and often get elected! out of power and control lust, out of money lust, out of pride/vanity, etc – WOW! SO MANY OF THEM! – and not our of Godly servanthood, Godly stewardship, Godly humility.
So here we should find agreement with the writer and speak the truth:
Trump is a vainglorious selfseeker pretending to love America; his is a superlative reality show actor and acting is mostly lying.
Vance is a power and control freak only interested in getting more of both.
Sycophants of them both are cowards.
The Billionaire Buddies – Musk, Bezos, et al – are Anti-Christ idolators and blasphemers building their ‘Babel ‘ towers.
etc.
ANY writers at American Reformer who praise such men are OBVIOUSLY IDOLATORS themselves They are bent, crooked and queered by IDOLATRIES.
God will soon be doing something about that. The God’s people – those truly living in that Covenant – will shout for joy at God’s appearing!