Within the Feminist Gaze
The prolific podcaster Scott Galloway has written Notes on Being a Man, part-memoir and part-distillation of advice on being a man dedicated to his young sons. Notes joins a long list of “how to be a man” books, designed to pass on wisdom about manhood for an age unwilling to notice the poor condition of men and how our feminist constitution distorts relations.
Galloway seems sincerely concerned about the plight of men and boys. When leftists seek to build their own bro whisperer like Joe Rogan, Galloway may be the man they have in mind. Notes presents Galloway’s Roganian nature. Both are successful, jacked men with huge followings and banger careers.
The test for Galloway and other left-of-center writers in this space is how well they treat manliness in light of the Woman Question. As Rousseau divines, “[T]he two sexes have so strong and so natural a relation to one another that the morals of one always determine those of the other.” The priorities, behaviors, and actions of women have changed markedly since the 1960s—and men must understand and adjust to this reality. Or not.
Galloway does not ignore women. Galloway’s vision of manliness operates within the feminist gaze. The new woman whom Galloway celebrates and accepts needs a new kind of man. Men are to be allies, celebrating female independence. Men must learn to be empathetic without blaming or even noticing the advantages women have under our current civil rights regime. The current gender divide in politics should, he seems to think, be solved by men becoming liberals. Galloway likes male spaces—but he likes even more the regime that prohibits our ability to have them.
A canary in the coal mine for sex and gender issues is Jacob Savage’s recent article, “The Lost Generation,” cataloguing the outright discrimination against white men since the mid-2010s in creative class jobs like journalism, Hollywood, and academia. Savage’s claims have circulated around websites and blogs concerned with the state of men. Galloway has not, to my knowledge, commented on Savage’s article, which undermines his schtick of exempting feminism from any responsibility for the downward condition of men and boys. It is easier for Galloway to cuss, bluster, lift weights, and preach the virtues of kindness and empathy than to reconcile our feminist constitution with the renewal of traditional manliness. He mostly whistles past the fundamental problem.
Galloway offers much excellent advice on health, friendship, work, love, manners, and fatherhood, some of which is refracted through our reigning civil rights ideologies. As a result, his advice often rings kind of true.
Let me try to complete and modify his advice on the most controversial issues without writing a memoir myself. I am just a simple man without a podcast or Galloway’s fortune. I am five years Galloway’s junior, with four adult offspring 30 and under; all but one are married—and he’s 17. My one and only wife and I have seven grandchildren (so far!). So please take my amendments for what they are worth. I might know something about how to raise a successful family.
Vision of Manliness
Galloway adopts the 3P (Protect, Provide, and Procreate) vision of manliness. Young men should be raised to Protect their families and their communities, to Provide for their families, and to Procreate. All good. I would add a fourth P, Pillars. Men should aspire to be Pillars in their community, aspiring to family life and to public life beyond it.
Post-feminist Ps register differently from Ps in the old world. Galloway’s formulation—that men should aim to be providers and protectors—earns ire from feminists. He suggests that men open doors for the ladies and pay for dates, even if such traditional behavior is considered “sexist.” He also says it is no big deal if women out-earn men. Men should “provide surplus value, to offer more than [they’re] given without keeping score.” Men should be gentlemen as of old, regardless of whether the lady is a lady as of old, it seems.
Galloway refuses to articulate any standards that men committed to the Ps could use to navigate our feminist world. What should men do if their dates, girlfriends, or wives keep score? What should a man’s standards be in a world that, or with a woman who, stigmatizes the three Ps? Should men aspire to provide and protect for feminists who reject the Ps of manliness? Should men procreate with them?
Applying the Ps intelligently today starts by identifying worthy women to marry. Generally, a woman should marry a man who aspires to be a husband and a father. A man should marry a woman who prioritizes being a wife and a mother. Our feminist constitution, however, prevents men from emphasizing the importance of being a wife and a mother when they are selecting mates.
Because Galloway celebrates female independence, he does not offer much advice on how men can encourage women they are interested in to prioritize wifeliness and motherhood. Feminism is a default position for a majority of young women today. Still, women reared in our atmosphere are neither lost causes nor final products. A man’s strength of purpose and a supportive community can challenge their assumptions, offer an alternative model, and be confident in defending it. And he should be ready to walk away if changes are not forthcoming.
Though he would never say it, my guess is that Scott Galloway would never date or marry a woman who out-earns him. My guess is also that Scott Galloway wants women who look to him for the Ps, though he would never say that either.
A man should aim to Provide, Protect, Procreate, and be Pillars of a community with a worthy, grateful, respectful lady.
Marriage
Galloway elevates and denigrates marriage. “Love and relationships are the ends—everything else is just the means.” Not marriage, mind you, but rather love and relationships. Raising “kids with someone who is kind and competent and who you enjoy being with is a series of joyous moments smothered in comfort and reward.” Not married, necessarily, but togetherness.
Galloway recognizes that single men are far more into dating and marriage than single women today. Nothing is wrong with the women though, only with the men. Single women are less interested in marriage, as he writes, due to
an increase in women’s economic power, a growing mismatch between male and female educational background and economic prospects, and expectations on the part of men that their wives or partners should give up their professional ambitions in favor of family and domestic life—or do the bulk of the housework and taking care of the kids while working a full-time job while the man focuses mostly on his job [emphasis in original].
Galloway would have men reject such benighted thinking, associated, as he thinks, with “the greatest hits of nationalism and the fascism it often inspires.”
Instead, men should emphasize emotional connection, not “sex roles.” Galloway emphasizes compatibility, empathy, and good sex as the foundations for solid marriages. “A great marriage is one where you genuinely want the other person to win, where you celebrate and relive each other’s victories.” Too much porn can make it difficult to “reserve and allocate. . .your sexual energy for and toward your wife.”
Galloway refuses to define marriage in terms of husband and wife, fidelity, and endurance. It’s a relationship. His wife is a partner. And he would never, ever say he is the leader or head of his family. Sometimes when my wife does something particularly considerate (like makes a child’s favorite meal), I tell her, “You play the role of mother so well!” She knows I am making fun of sociology when I say this. She also knows that it reflects something deep and abiding in our marriage. We each know what to do as husbands and wives, within reasonable limits. Sometimes being considerate means stepping out of a normal lane (she has been known to mow the lawn, and I to make dinner). But enthusiastically getting in a lane is a key to a good marriage, as is the faithfulness of sticking with it.
Marriage requires men committed to doing husbandly and fatherly things, while women do wifely and motherly things, within limits.
Friendship
As Galloway says, “You’re the average of your five closest friends,” though many men have few close friends. A band of brothers, as Galloway experienced in a UCLA fraternity and still apparently has today, helps men to pass tests of manhood and to enforce models of excellence. Friends stand shoulder-to-shoulder with you in life’s important battles. “Your goal at any age is to surround yourself with impressive, good, nice people.” Friendships can even transcend marriage as engines for self-improvement, service, and happiness. Friends mattered immensely to me as I proceeded through life’s great trials.
Friendships have important public purposes too. Tyrants know that deep, abiding, high-minded friendships are dangerous to hostile regimes. The deepest friendships involve common ideas about virtue, the good, and the just, not merely common interests. Such second selves insist on high standards of character while always abiding by deep common commitments. They form regardless of age, from generous spirits united in deep purpose.
Friendships should be deep and dangerous, involving private standards of behavior and a shared vision of what is good, not just mutual interests.
Fatherhood
Galloway’s commitment to his sons is admirable and touching. He preaches affectionate and engaged fatherhood, including handholding. His kids like soccer, so he takes them to a game. He showers them with affection, hugs, and kisses, and “I love you’s.” They laugh. Galloway cries in front of his boys to teach them about being empathetic.
In other words, Galloway renders dads in the image of pals while ignoring the importance of a little stoicism and self-control in order to raise boys to be men. Being sparser with compliments helps draw out the man from the boy. Sensitive males reinforce the feelings and subjectivity of relationships, while being sparse and demanding in your own way prepares boys for the future. I cried during Toy Story III—and my children still mock me for it. Fathers should treat their sons as potential friends in the future—but not as friends while they are young. You are helping to shape the character and purposes of your future friends and allies—make them worthy of it while being serious about it yourself.
Engaged fathers should represent standards of value for sons.
Galloway’s book contains less good actionable advice than Jordan Peterson’s original 12 Rules for Life (2018) or Ryan Landry’s Masculinity Amidst Madness (2020). Misfiring on the Woman Question, however, is not a small problem in a book emphasizing the importance of relationships.
Image Credit: Wikimedia Commons.
