Nov 22, 2021 4 min read

I have a question for my male readers: How’s your masculinity? I ask because Republican U.S. Sen. Josh Hawley of Missouri thinks that masculinity – and not just his, but yours, mine and that of every man jack of us in America – is under attack. By “the Left,” he says.

“The deconstruction of America begins with and depends on the deconstruction of American men,” Hawley said in his Nov. 1 keynote speech at the National Conservatism Conference. “The Left want to define traditional masculinity as toxic. They want to define the traditional masculine virtues – things like courage, and independence, and assertiveness – as a danger to society.”

If this is so, I haven’t noticed. Maybe that’s because I checked my masculinity at the door about 60 years ago.

I was raised by a father who was the epitome of masculinity, if you very loosely apply the standard definition of the term. He was a disciplinarian, the man who applied corporal punishment for my every offense, real or imagined. The man who, when I had trouble with multiplication tables and began to cry, smacked me on the back of my head, called me a sissy and said, “We’ll put pink ribbons in your hair!” He attempted to instill his version of masculinity in his three sons. In my case, he failed miserably.

• I care not a whit about being “masculine,” so I let people like Sen. Hawley to tell me what I should do. Then I do the direct opposite. By doing this, I have compiled my own set of bullet points for the qualities I most value in a man: HonestyIntegrityFairnessCalmnessReliabilityEmpathyFairnessToleranceCommon SenseHumor.

Come to think of it, the list works pretty well for women, too.

As is characteristic of many of the current crop of Republican officeholders, Sen. Hawley blames “the Left” for waging a decades-long campaign to undermine American masculinity. And this, he has decided, is the cause of everything that is wrong with America. Except for high gasoline prices; those are Joe Biden’s fault. Liberals, Hawley says, are trying to make masculinity “toxic.” Conveniently, someone has defined “toxic masculinity” for us. Its traits include, but are not limited to: using or threatening violence; acting aggressively; treating sex as a competition and feeling entitled to have it; exerting control over women and “weaker” men or members of marginalized groups, which can include senior citizens, people of color or those with cognitive disabilities. If this is masculinity, then it certainly deserves to called toxic.

Sen. Hawley and his ilk apparently want to see a resurgence of Clint Eastwood-style tough men who swagger through life, beating, shooting or clubbing opponents into submission with their fists, guns or an empty bottle Jack Daniel’s bottle. This attitude may explain the rise to prominence of Republican U.S. Rep. Paul Gosar, who last week was censured by his colleagues (but only two of his fellow Republicans voted to do so) and stripped of committee assignments after posting an anime video in which he kills fellow legislator (and Democrat) Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez with a sword. Or perhaps Rep. Hawley wants to see more men like himself: a manly man who pumped his fist in support of insurrectionists about to storm the U.S. Capitol on Jan. 6, then 10 months later delivered a keynote speech about the dangers of “the Left.”

“We (conservative men) represent the future of this country,” Hawley said in his speech. “We’re not going to back down to the woke mob. We’re not going to back down to the cancel culture. We’re not going to be told what we can say or do.”

No, Sen. Hawley, you’re just going to tell everyone else what they can say and do.

Leave me out, man. I’m not woke. Because I never went to sleep.