This month again we lead with a book concerning men and how they are faring. Last month David Gibney reviewed Max Dickins’ Billy No-Mates: How I Realised Men Have a Friendship Problem which examines the growing phenomenon of male social isolation, and increasing difficulty men have in establishing and maintaining healthy relationships throughout their lives. This month David reviews the much talked about Of Boys and Men: Why the Modern Male is Struggling, Why it Matters, and What to Do About It by Richard V. Reeves. Reeves presents a fairly grim picture of how Western boys and men are doing in education, the labour force, and family. The news is not good. Boys and men are struggling and increasingly failing to succeed. This picture is in keeping with the general impression one gets that boys and men are undergoing an identity crisis in a world that at best undervalues the traditional masculine qualities and at worst considers masculinity to be the problem with the world.
It appears to me that this theme is of huge importance to men individually and to society at large, for though it is not said, families limp when Dads limp. The review shows how detrimental it is to children that the Dad be absent, and in particular when the children reach their teens. “Tots for Moms, teens for Dads” is how Reeves puts it.
And among young Western males of a more conservative bent, there does appear to be a growing longing for the recovery of masculinity lost. Unfortunately this can be expressed by merely donning the external appearances associated with masculinity rather than the substance of masculinity.
But this gives rise to the question: what is true masculinity? In recent years – presumably in response to the growth of radical feminism – the Church has addressed the “feminine genius” quite frequently; think of Pope St John Paul II in his Apostolic Letter, Mulieris Dignitatem (1988), or his Letter to Women several years later. But little has been said to date about the “masculine genius” though I can imagine that it can’t be long before this pressing matter receives more in depth attention from theologians and the Magisterium of the Church.