Is Your Son Glad to Be a Boy?

If you study how the media portray men, you’ll quickly see that positive male role models are almost non-existent.

Instead, says Dr. James Dobson, the media show an anti-masculine bias:

1. “[D]isrespect for men pervades the entertainment industry, including many television commercials. [One] formula involves a beautiful woman (or a bevy of them) who is intelligent, sexy, admirable, and self-assured. She encounters a slob of a man, usually in a bar, who is braggadocio, ignorant, balding, and overweight. The stupid guy, as I will call him, quickly disgraces himself on screen, at which point the woman sneers or walks away.” Furthermore, “the polarity of the stupid guy ads is never reversed.”

2. In Hollywood, traditional masculine roles “gave way in the seventies and eighties to the man-hating diatribes in Thelma and Louise and Nine to Five” and “to aggressive and masculine women such as those depicted in Charlie’s Angels or the latest remake of Joan of Arc.… Maleness in such movies is almost always depicted in subservient and weak roles.”

3. “Television sitcoms also blast away at traditional masculinity, much like a wrecking ball crashing into a building. After enough direct hits, the structure begins to crumble. There is not a single example, as I write, of a healthy family depicted on network programming that includes a masculine guy who loves his kids and is respected by his wife. None!”

4. “We also see examples of the ‘men are fools’ idea expressed in contemporary greeting cards. Although it is politically incorrect to ridicule women, homosexuals, or minorities, white male bashing — at least the heterosexual variety — is fair game. Visit a Hallmark store or other retail outlet sometime and you’ll notice it has become a very lucrative business. Women purchase these humiliating cards by the millions. It is interesting, however, that cards intended for sale to men do not carry the same tone. Their messages are typically gentle and loving toward wives or sweethearts. The difference … is striking.”

5. Other examples of man-bashing in our culture include:

• the textbooks for university women’s study programs
• “the feminization of the workplace” (Dr. Tim Irwin, business consultant)
• the anti-masculine agenda in public schools
• the prevalence of sexual harassment charges for innocent remarks
• the movement to removal urinals and force men to sit down while urinating
• the attacks by homosexual activists against the Boy Scouts of America
• the gender bias of the Take Our Daughters to Work Day initiative

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On This Topic

• Introduction • How the Mass Media Portray Men • Countering the Mass Media’s Portrayal of Men • Is Your Child’s School Demeaning Boys in Favor of Girls? • Countering Your School’s Favoritism of Girls • How Radical Feminism Harms Boys • Countering Radical Feminism’s Agenda