By TIM PATTEN
Mascupathy, by Charlie Donaldson and Randy Flood
Women’s health needs have taken the spotlight over the last 30 years. That has left critical male issues unfunded and ignored, even though there seems to be more than enough resources to go around.
Worse still, this lopsidedly far-reaching favoritism has helped to amplify and spread anti-male vitriol. According to the feminists who promote such propaganda, men are beating and killing women – left, right and center.
But even if there was truth to these assertions, they would seem to be part of a broader problem, which includes domestic violence against women, suicide and male substance abuse, which could be better dealt with if the behavioral health industries financial and delivery model was completely reengineered.
Quite simply, instead of waiting for males to become victims or victimizers, wouldn’t it be better to support them early on, even if it involved just one hour of life coaching a week, as they journey through growing up, relationships and careers?
Fortunately, there is some forward-thinking going on, including by those behind the Michigan’s Men’s Resource Center, who have made efforts to resolve this issue.
In that respect, we should congratulate this organization and its founders, Charlie Donaldson and Randy Flood, men’s issues therapists and the authors of Mascupathy, for taking the initiative.
They have pioneered a mental health center aimed at reducing suicide and addiction and providing anger management support for men in trouble.
Unfortunately, the same cannot be said for their book. As in so many other cases, the perspectives in Mascupathy have been distorted by feminism’s narrow lens, which maintains that boys are being socialized into unemotional and aggressive beasts who are responsible for violence against women.
In setting out their thesis, they rely on tired stereotypes about young males being tough and unwilling to cry, and disregard biology and empirical evidence that suggests otherwise.
In essence, gender scholars and feminists are science deniers. Despite their apparent empathy for the masculine cause, they don’t seem to recognize the fact that young male brain patterns and emotions are different than those of their female counterparts.
Just because many girls, unlike boys, cry at the drop of a hat, that doesn’t mean males are missing something inside. Boys react to life’s events differently than girls, and comparing the two is a cancerous fool’s errand.
Who is really to blame?
Throughout the book, Donaldson and Flood endlessly and delicately apologize for pointing out the “Mascupathy illness,” a so-called defect derived from harmful socialization of boys.
They also reiterate ad nauseum the narrative that men are unemotional, self-destructive, aggressive and violent.
Like most feminists, they never stop to consider the irony that since our personalities evolve in the first six years of life, it means that women – mothers – are the ones creating society’s future abusers, rapists and killers.
Moreover, those who perpetuate half-truths and lies about males seem to believe they played no part in making things the way they supposedly are.
Feminists never utter words that might educate, enlighten and empower men, but prefer to stick with denigrating mantras like “rape culture,” “patriarchy,” “lad culture,” “toxic masculinity,” “manspreading,” and “male privilege,” which only serve to crush and dehumanize men.
It’s hard to believe that a professional would even attempt to view someone’s health issues through such a narrow-minded lens.
Rather than challenging the ignorance and biases behind such characterizations, which are often derived from shoddy essays about the dark side of so-called gendered violence, they simply accept that intimidation, abuse, assault, rape and murder are what men do.
Worse still, many approved textbooks “confirm” its pervasiveness, treating it as fact. Gender and Communications maintains, for example, that up to 70% of women have suffered from “systematic gender violence.”
Hard data tells a different story, however. According to a study highlighted in The Advocate, 35.4% of women living in same-sex relationships experienced intimate-partner physical violence in their lifetimes, nearly double the 20.4% rate for those involved in heterosexual relationships.
In addition, a Harvard study found that women were the perpetrators in 70% of relationships where there was one-sided domestic violence. Finally, research detailed in the Journal of Public Health revealed that almost 24% of relationships experienced some violence; in nearly half (49.7%), intimate-partner violence was reciprocal.
A distorted worldview
Tragically, those who claim to be looking out for females’ best interests ignore the fact that the level of violence in lesbian relationships would seem to make this social ill a top priority.
They also give short shrift to the impact of socioeconomic factors and a long history of reciprocal violence among men. The feminist lens has purposely confused the world about masculinity, leading many to distrust the male heart and masculine intentions.
It’s is no wonder so many boys and men need some form of therapy to recover.
If we are to guide males along a better path, as so many feminists and other anti-male advocates seem to want, then we must introduce a new behavioral health model into our schools and elsewhere.
Psychologists, therapists, and society at large must reject old school gender politics and join the modern world; they need to view life through a holistic and a human worldview rather than one that is built on self-serving feminist fantasies.
One way we can do this, of course, is with a better system than we have now. At the very least, males, young and old, should receive mandatory coaching from well-trained professionals that addresses personal projects, business successes and transitions, and relationships.
While the support should be customized to age and individual circumstances, it would likely be focused on examining what is going on now, identifying obstacles and challenges, and choosing a course of action that can lead the individuals in question to where they want to go.
This mean’s fine-tuning male nature and making quality choices through life-coaching while in school and at work.
It isn’t just the direct recipients of such assistance who stand to gain. Society as a whole would also benefit. In helping males to make the right life choices, such a process would likely also bolster the relationship between the sexes.
While assertions that “men are beating and killing women” are patently ridiculous, that doesn’t necessarily mean it isn’t happening at all. Under the circumstances, anything that minimizes the prospect that such tragedies will occur in future is another good reason to support a more enlightened approach to addressing important health care needs.
Conclusion
For all its shortcomings, Mascupathy does give us a useful takeaway. The authors are proponents of male-on-male group and individual therapy, a model somewhat akin to that of Alcoholics Anonymous and other self-help organizations.
This approach to men’s behavioral health maintenance, which can be implemented at little or no cost, can go some way toward helping boys to experience healthy growth and understand their life purpose.
While not a panacea, it can be an important stopgap measure enabling men to get the therapeutic assistance they need to keep moving humanity forward.
Regardless, the book is more an empty letdown than a source of understanding. Any reader familiar with the feminist theory of toxic masculinity won’t need to waste time with it because they will have heard it all before.
Quite simply, the authors have nothing new to say. It’s well known that many male needs have not been unaddressed. But rather than trying to frame it as a socialization issue, it’s time to develop a behavioral health financial and delivery system that can actually create a better society for all.
About the Author
Tim Patten has published books and articles that celebrate masculinity. His popular and handy investment guide, MGTOW, Building Wealth and Power, helps others in the modern’s men’s liberation movement. His eleven short stories of men in relationship crisis counseling, Why I Cheat has sold thousands.
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