One of the strangest things that has happened in my lifetime is the emergence of the man as a pathetic figure, or a figure of fun. For the last fifteen years or so, you could see it in every walk of life—nowhere more so than in advertising.
There are two things you can always predict with 100 percent certainty if a family, any family, is featured in an advertisement. The first is that the family will be biracial. The second is that the man (especially if he is white) will be portrayed as an incompetent or a loser. If the problem is wrestling with the remote control, the children and wife will patiently have to show poor old dad how to work the darn thing. It is a small but significant example of a wider trend, because this is a time in which male role models have been stripped away from the culture.
We may have the culture of the "strong woman," which I referred to in my Mother’s Day column. But "strong man" is a phrase now used to denote fear and even loathing.
College dropout rates and levels of suicide among young men are just some of the many data points that underscore how males in Western society have become demoralized. "Macho" traits such as strength and competitiveness are now categorized as "toxic masculinity" rather than accepted as a natural part of humanity that have helped to build our successful economy and society.
Can some men be toxic? Yes. Obviously.
Can some women? Yes. Obviously.
So, why does the culture obsess over the ways in which men can be toxic and effectively ignore tarring all women with the equivalent brush?
The answer, I feel, is an apparent attempt to demoralize men. Just last month, officials in the Australian state of Victoria announced the creation of a new position in the government: secretary for Men’s Behavior Change.
"This is the first position of its kind in Australia and will focus largely on the influence the internet and social media have on boys’ and men’s attitudes towards women and building respectful relationships," the newly appointed secretary, Tim Richardson, a Labor Party member of parliament, tweeted.
If you think that "secretary for Men’s Behavior Change" has a strangely Orwellian ring to it, then you would be right: this is social engineering. This is the government deciding how the governed are to comport themselves. It is meant to change people, subtly and powerfully and permanently.
But again, note that nobody is suggesting the appointment of a "secretary for Women’s Behavior Change." Because, again, women are not seen as "the problem." Today, men are the problem, the bully, the butt of the joke.
Only an exceptionally brave woman could wade into this sea of male-bashing and help us rethink such institutionalized misandry. Enter: Camille Paglia, the iconoclastic literature scholar and culture critic who teaches at University of the Arts in Philadelphia and, in 2013, took part in a Munk Debate, in Toronto.
In addition to being an admirer of Paglia’s thinking and writing, I have always been a fan of her verbal skills. She is not the most soothing orator to listen to. Her style often sounds like someone machine-gunning a tin roof. But the sheer dexterity, speed, commitment, and energy of her delivery are something to behold.