Notes on being a man
This is quite a lot to unpack. In case you have a hard time reading it, here's what it says:
"Norah Vincent, the author of Self Made Man, has died by assisted suicide. Norah was a radical feminist who believed men lived on easy mode, and tried to prove it by disguising herself as a man for two years. Instead, what she found out is men actually have it harder, and wrote a
book about her experience, In fact the experience was so bad she had to stop at 18 months because she was starting to hate women, due to how bad all of them treated her when they believed she was a man, and was left with psychological scars that accompanied her all of her life." (The link is actually here.)
I don't doubt she was treated poorly as a man. I have no doubt how she was treated contributed to her decision to end her life at 53. But, that's not why she ended her life. Read about her life and you'll see she wasn't happy no matter what and that she tried to live other's lives because she didn't like her own.
Do some women treat men poorly? Yes. Personally, I think men treat each other worse than women treat us. This is something men know. We take the brunt of everything. Women often don't realize this. Women are treated differently. This isn't a boohoo, poor-me post. (I feel quite blessed.) If you read up on some of what she said, her conclusion about how difficult it is to be a man, for instance, she's right. We're doing it wrong. Another thing she said is we need to fix men because men are in charge. If men are in charge and we fix men, things will naturally go better for everyone. I agree with both sentiments.
How are men doing it wrong? I recently ended a blog which basically allowed me to vent. It was where I explored emotions too big for me to deal with. It was a crutch. I wasn't given the tools to deal with those kinds of emotions. Big emotions. I talked about my divorce and my abusive childhood, how much I loved a certain woman, disappointments, and various struggles and failures. It's the kind of stuff men don't talk about. We can't. We need to fix that. No, I don't normally feel big emotions, and 99.9% of the time I am even keel and unflustered. But, when I am having a moment, I need someone to talk to. My final conclusion was, since no one was provided for me to talk to that way, God was my rock. He was my refuge. Men are supposed to be everyone's rock, but we need a Rock too. Now I take everything to God. Since I live alone or with my son half the time and since I tend to be a loner, I am excluded from intimate conversations. Not that men like to talk about things like that with one another. We don't. We are actually programmed to NOT DO THAT AT ANY COST. We can go to a pastor or counselor, but that's about it. Most likely, we won't do that.
The next point is we need to fix men, which is what I've been saying most of my life. Fix men and the rest will fall in line. We don't value men in our culture. If you see a pastor with a heart for men, most likely God called him because that's where the focus should be. (If you see a pastor who says he's called to minister to the ladies, run.) The church I started attending actually has quite a few men in attendance, which makes me happy to see. (And a seemingly disproportionate number of EVs in the parking lot, but what do I know?) By the way, women are not called to preach. That's unbiblical and it puts her in a position she isn't built to accommodate. Men are built to take the spiritual pressure of being a pastor. She will either get torn up in that position or will begin to act like a man, which isn't right either. Neither of those outcomes are fair to her. Have a man preach or let the church die if there is no man. Also, being a man is not about how big or tall he is, how deep his voice is, his job, his testosterone level, sex drive, number of conquests, level of success, how much admiration he gets, the money he makes, etc. Being a man is about doing the right thing before God, regardless of the cost. Then you say a woman can be a man if that's my definition. No, but she can be a real woman if she does that. God makes us men or women (and no, there are no other genders) and the more we go to Him, the more we fill those roles properly. A man should follow God and express his manhood in a godly way, and this frees up the women in his life to blossom in their womanhood in a godly way.
And that's my rant for the day, apparently. I get only one. You'll have to come back tomorrow for another rant. Or a meme. You never know.
Thank you for reading. And God bless.
Comments
Post a Comment