BIRD'S EYE
Men—It’s in Their Nature
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Autor: Christina Hoff Sommers
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Fuente: The American Enterprise
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This
past
spring,
my
son
spent
a
month
in
Israel
with
his
senior
class.
Only
one
activity
disappointed
him.
While
camping
in
the
Negev
Desert,
special
counselors
from
a
progressive-socialist
kibbutz
paid
a
visit
and
led
the
students
through
a
sensitivity
exercise.
The
students
were
told
to
walk
out
into
the
desert
until
they
were
completely
alone.
The
counselors
(mostly
American-born)
supplied
them
with
a
pencil,
paper,
matches,
and
a
candle
and
instructed
them
to
absorb
the
quiet
calm
of
the
desert,
to
record
their
feelings,
and
to
“find
themselves.”
The
girls
happily
complied.
Most
of
the
boys
did
not.
They
scattered
into
the
desert,
quickly
became
bored,
and
sought
out
each
other’s
company.
Then
they
threw
the
pencils
and
paper
into
a
pile,
and
used
the
candles
and
matches
to
start
a
little
bonfire.
The
boys
loved
it;
the
sensitivity
trainers
were
horrified.
They
viewed
the
boys’
behavior
as
an
expression
of
primitive
violence—a
lethal
masculinity
straight
from
The
Lord
of
the
Flies.
Later
in
the
evening,
the
students
sat
in
a
circle
while
the
girls
read
their
impassioned
reactions
to
the
“haunting
loneliness”
of
the
desert;
the
boys
could
barely
suppress
laughter—confirming
once
again
the
worst
fears
of
the
sensitivity
trainers.
Gender
equity
experts
in
America’s
schools,
universities,
government
agencies,
and
major
women’s
groups
would
share
the
distress
of
the
kibbutz
counselors,
having
spent
more
than
a
decade
trying
to
resocialize
boys
away
from
“toxic
masculinity.”
In
a
great
number
of
American
schools,
gender
reformers
have
succeeded
in
expunging
many
activities
that
young
boys
enjoy:
dodge
ball,
cops
and
robbers,
reading
or
listening
to
stories
about
battles
and
war
heroes.
A
daycare
center
in
North
Carolina
was
censured
by
the
State
Division
of
Child
Development
for
letting
boys
play
with
two-inch
green
Army
men.
The
division
director
described
the
toys
as
“potentially
dangerous
if
children
use
them
to
act
out
violent
themes.”
Activities
deemed
“safe”
by
the
gender
equity
experts
and
the
teachers
they
inspire
include
quilting,
games
without
scores,
and
stories
about
brave
girls
and
boys
who
learn
to
cry.
The
goal
is
to
resocialize
boys,
freeing
them
from
male
stereotypes,
and,
ultimately,
to
promote
genuine
equality
between
the
sexes—which
for
the
reformers
means
sameness.
But
decades
of
research
in
neuroscience,
endocrinology,
genetics,
and
developmental
psychology,
strongly
suggest
that
masculine
traits
are
hard-wired.
There
are
exceptions,
but
here
are
the
rules:Males
have
better
spatial
reasoning
skills,
females
better
verbal
skills.
Males
are
greater
risk-takers,
females
are
more
nurturing.
Boys
like
action,
competitive
rough-housing,
and
inanimate
objects,
and
they
are
the
one
group
of
Americans
who
do
not
spend
a
lot
of
time
talking
about
their
feelings.
Try
as
they
may,
parents,
teachers,
and
gender
facilitators
have
not
been
successful
in
rooting
out
male
behavior
they
regard
as
harmful.An
“equity
facilitator”
tried
to
persuade
a
group
of
nine-year-old
boys
in
a
Baltimore
public
school
to
accept
the
idea
of
playing
with
baby
dolls.
According
to
one
observer,
“Their
reaction
was
so
hostile,
the
teacher
had
trouble
keeping
order.”
And
then
there
was
Jimmy.
At
age
11,
this
San
Francisco
sixth
grader
was
made
to
contribute
a
square
to
a
class
quilt
“celebrating
women
we
admire.”
He
chose
to
honor
tennis
player
Monica
Seles
who,
in
1993,
was
stabbed
on
the
court
by
a
deranged
fan
of
Steffi
Graf.
Jimmy
handed
in
a
muslin
square
festooned
with
a
tennis
racket
and
a
bloody
dagger.
His
square
may
be
unique
in
the
history
of
quilting,
but
his
teacher
did
not
appreciate
its
originality
and
rejected
it.
American
classrooms
are
full
of
Jimmys.
Efforts
to
change
boys
like
Jimmy
or
my
son
and
his
bonfire
companions
will
be
difficult
if
not
impossible.
Nature
is
obdurate
on
some
matters.While
environment
and
socialization
do
play
a
significant
role,
scientists
are
beginning
to
pinpoint
the
precise
biological
correlates
to
many
typical
gender
differences.
A
2001
special
issue
of
Scientific
American
reviewed
the
growing
evidence
that
children’s
play
preferences
are,
in
large
part,
hormonally
determined.
Researchers
confirmed
what
parents
experience
all
the
time:
Even
with
counter-conditioning,
boys
and
girls
gravitate
toward
very
different
toys.
(See
the
article
by
Iain
Murray
on
pages
34
and
35,
which
lays
out
some
of
the
new
scientific
findings
on
sex
differences.)
The
entire
anthropological
record
offers
not
a
single
example
of
a
society
where
females
have
better
spatial
reasoning
skills
and
males
better
verbal
skills,
where
females
are
fixated
on
objects
and
men
on
feelings,
or
where
males
are
physically
docile
and
females
aggressive.
In
the
face
of
what
we
know,
it
is
altogether
unreasonable
to
deny
the
biological
basis
for
distinctive
male
and
female
preferences
and
abilities.
Does
this
mean
biology
is
destiny?
As
anthropologist
Lionel
Tiger
(who
is
part
of
the
male
symposium
beginning
on
page
24)
says,
“biology
is
not
destiny,
but
it
is
good
statistical
probability.”
There
is
still
room
for
equity.
A
fair
and
just
society
offers
equality
of
opportunity
to
all.
But
it
cannot
promise,
and
should
not
try
to
enforce,
sameness.
The
natural
differences
between
men
and
women
suggest
there
will
never
be
mathematical
parity
in
all
fields;
far
more
men
than
women
will
choose
to
be
mechanics,
engineers,
or
soldiers.
Early
childhood
education,
family
medicine,
and
social
work
will
continue
to
be
dominated
by
women.
Boys
will
prefer
bonfires
to
diaries
and
any
teacher
who
requires
them
to
contribute
squares
to
a
quilt
should
brace
herself
for
insensitive
images
of
monsters,
dangerous
animals,
and
weaponry.
The
male
tendency
to
be
competitive,
risk-loving,
more
narrowly
focused,
and
less
concerned
with
feelings
has
consequences
in
the
real
world.
It
could
explain
why
there
are
more
males
at
the
extremes
of
success
and
failure:
more
male
CEOs,
more
males
in
maximum
security
prisons.
Of
course,
boys’
natural
masculinity
must
be
tempered.
Social
theorist
Hannah
Arendt
is
believed
to
have
said
that
every
year
civilization
is
invaded
by
millions
of
tiny
barbarians—they
are
called
children.
All
societies
confront
the
problem
of
civilizing
their
children,
particularly
the
male
ones.
History
teaches
that
masculinity
constrained
by
morality
is
powerful
and
constructive;
it
also
teaches
that
masculinity
without
ethics
is
dangerous
and
destructive.
We
have
a
set
of
proven
social
practices
for
raising
young
men.
The
traditional
approach
is
through
character
education
to
develop
a
young
man’s
sense
of
honor
and
help
him
become
a
considerate,
conscientious
human
being.
Sociologists
make
an
important
distinction
between
pathological
and
healthy
masculinity.
Boys
who
exhibit
aberrational
masculinity
define
their
manhood
through
anti-social
and
destructive
acts;
instead
of
protecting
the
vulnerable,
they
exploit
them.
Healthy
masculinity
is
the
opposite.
Males
who
possess
it—the
vast
majority
of
American
boys
and
men—strive
to
be
helpful
and
to
achieve.
They
sublimate
their
natural
aggression
into
sports,
hobbies,
and
work.
They
build
rather
than
destroy.
And
they
do
not
exploit
women
and
children,
they
protect
them.
Efforts
to
civilize
boys
with
honor
codes,
character
education,
manners,
and
rules
of
good
sportsmanship
are
necessary
and
effective,
and
fully
consistent
with
their
masculine
natures.
Efforts
to
feminize
them
with
dolls,
quilts,
non-competitive
games,
girl-centered
books,
and
feelings
exercises
will
fail;
though
they
will
succeed
in
making
millions
of
boys
quite
unhappy.
Dissident
feminist
Camille
Paglia
is
one
of
the
few
scholars
who
values
maleness:
“Masculinity
is
aggressive,
unstable,
combustible.
It
is
also
the
most
creative
cultural
force
in
history.
When
I
cross…any
of
America’s
great
bridges,
I
think—men
have
done
this.
Construction
is
a
sublime
male
poetry.”
This
sublime
poetry
has
been
unappreciated
in
American
society
for
more
than
a
quarter
of
a
century.
But
that
appears
to
be
changing.
The
awesome
display
of
masculine
courage
shown
by
the
firefighters
and
policemen
at
Ground
Zero,
the
heroic
soldiers
fighting
in
Afghanistan
and
Iraq,
the
focused
determination
and
exemplary
leadership
of
President
Bush,Vice
President
Cheney,
Defense
Secretary
Rumsfeld,
and
General
Tommy
Franks,
have
rekindled
in
Americans
an
appreciation
for
masculine
virtues.
Many
courageous
and
even
heroic
women
took
part
in
all
these
endeavors.
But
fighting
enemies
and
protecting
the
nation
are
overwhelmingly
male
projects.
The
gender
activists
who
fill
our
schools
and
government
agencies
will
continue
with
their
efforts
to
make
boys
more
docile
and
emotional.
But
fewer
and
fewer
Americans
will
support
them.
Maleness
is
back
in
fashion.
And
one
reason
is
that
Americans
are
increasingly
aware
that
traditional
male
traits
such
as
aggression,
competitiveness,
risk-taking
and
stoicism—constrained
by
virtues
of
valor,
honor
and
self-sacrifice—are
essential
to
the
well-being
and
safety
of
our
society.
Eye
BIRD’S
EYE
guest
author
Christina
Hoff
Sommers
is
a
resident
scholar
at
the
American
Enterprise
Institute
and
the
author
of
Who
Stole
Feminism?
and
The
War
Against
Boys.
Karl
Zinsmeister
will
return
in
our
next
issue.
This
issue
of
The
American
Enterprise
was
commissioned
by
Karl
Zinsmeister
and
edited
by
Karina
Rollins
and
Eli
Lehrer.
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