Are American Boys Broken?

It’s always nice to see history repeating itself. You might not recall, but the year 1212 has gone down in history for what was called the Children’s Crusade. It was a real crusade, launched by European children, to win back the Holy Land from Muslim invaders. It didn’t work. None of the crusaders ever reached the Holy Land, but it counts as the first children’s movement.

Now, we are seeing our own version of the Children’s Crusade. High school students are mobilizing to fight for more gun control laws. Since no one seems to be willing to enforce those that we have, surely more gun control laws will not stop gun violence. When it doesn't another children's crusade will tell us that we need more gun control laws. It takes a high school level mind to believe that it’s easier to control 300 million guns than it is to control a couple of dozen schizophrenics and psychopaths.

We can argue about whether it is better to get our marching orders from high school students or from stand-up comics who aren’t funny. But, since government, federal, state and local failed to enforce the laws and regulations that are already on the books, you might think that these children would crusade against incompetent government or even against leniency about involuntary commitment. 

But no, they have been swept up in the anti-Trump mania and are allowing themselves to be used as a cudgel against the president. Were any children out marching when lunatics, maniacs and terrorists shot up schools and nightclubs and council meetings during the Clinton and Obama administrations? You do not even need to think to answer that question.

In the meantime, USA Today asks another salient question: are American boys broken? Since all of the mass shootings share one characteristic—they were all perpetrated by males—it makes some sense to ask whether there is something wrong with boys.

The thought comes to us from a comedian:

… comedian Michael Ian Black started a thread on Twitter that sparked a vitriolic debate about the role of gender in gun violence. It began with the tweet, "Deeper even than the gun problem is this: boys are broken." 

Black's tweet has been liked nearly 65,000 times. In an interview with NPR on Sunday, he elaborated.

"I think it means that there is something going on with American men that is giving them the permission and space to commit violence," he said. "And one of the main things we focus on correctly is guns and mental health, but I think deeper than that is a problem, a crisis in masculinity."

Naturally, USA Today, being politically correct in the woke sense, folds the issue into a debate about toxic masculinity. This suggests that boys need to get in touch with their feminine side, to enhance their capacity for empathy and to be kinder and gentler.

And yet, if we know one thing, it’s this. If leftists believe that feminism is the solution, the truth is that feminism is the problem. If you ask who broke boys or why boys are broken, you might turn to Christina Hoff Sommers’ book The War Against Boys. 

Thanks the feminist schoolteachers, in particular, boys have been beaten down at school. And of course, the lean in movement tells girls to adopt a macho posture that threatens boys. Even Sheryl Sandberg knows that leaning in provokes pushback. But, be assured, if a girl provokes a boy, a teenager with nascent moral faculties, you might not just receive pushback You might be hit back.

Does the culture have other ways to beat down boys and men? It denounces them as toxic, it declares their willingness to protect women from harm a sign of oppression. Oh, and by demonizing their wish to own guns… ultimately to restrict their access to guns. For my part I have nothing against sensible restrictions on gun ownership. Of course, we already have sensible restrictions on gun ownership. And if Nikolas Cruz was able to buy a gun because mental health professionals, state social service agents and the local sheriff’s office had not tagged him as a danger… well then, perhaps we ought to be more agitated about incompetent government.

In truth, guns are a guy thing. Surely, many women own guns, but the symbolism of guns is distinctly manly. And if feminists continue to disrespect all outward signs of manliness, if they try to beat boys into becoming girls, then boys will only be able to express their masculinity in more toxic ways.

I recall an experience that Doris Lessing had in Great Britain many years ago. She was visiting a class of 9 and 10 year olds and observed how the female teachers were treating the boys in the room. Lessing is more of a feminist than most of the junior league feminists who rant away in the media, so her observations take on a special poignancy. Count her among the few progressives who have enough integrity to see things as they are.

These remarks date from 2001. We read them in the Guardian:

Young boys were being weighed down with guilt about the crimes of their sex, she told the Edinburgh book festival, while energy which could be used to get proper child care was being dissipated in the pointless humiliation of men.

"I find myself increasingly shocked at the unthinking and automatic rubbishing of men which is now so part of our culture that it is hardly even noticed," the 81-year-old Persian-born writer said yesterday.

"Great things have been achieved through feminism. We now have pretty much equality at least on the pay and opportunities front, though almost nothing has been done on child care, the real liberation.

"We have many wonderful, clever, powerful women everywhere, but what is happening to men? Why did this have to be at the cost of men?

"I was in a class of nine- and 10-year-olds, girls and boys, and this young woman was telling these kids that the reason for wars was the innately violent nature of men.

You could see the little girls, fat with complacency and conceit while the little boys sat there crumpled, apologising for their existence, thinking this was going to be the pattern of their lives."

Lessing said the teacher tried to "catch my eye, thinking I would approve of this rubbish".

She added: "This kind of thing is happening in schools all over the place and no one says a thing.

"It has become a kind of religion that you can't criticise because then you become a traitor to the great cause, which I am not.

"It is time we began to ask who are these women who continually rubbish men. The most stupid, ill-educated and nasty woman can rubbish the nicest, kindest and most intelligent man and no one protests. 

 "Men seem to be so cowed that they can't fight back, and it is time they did."

You remember the old saying: Be careful what you wish for…. Feminist icon Doris Lessing was ringing the tocsin of alarm nearly two decades ago. Unfortunately, it fell on deaf ears.