print“‘A new study has found a ‘substantial’ drop in U.S. men’s testosterone levels since the 1980s.’ The average levels of the male hormone have been dropping by an astounding 1 percent a year. A 65-year-old in 1987 would have had testosterone levels 15 percent higher than those of a 65-year-old in 2002. Aging, slouched, pony-tailed hippies, everywhere apparent, look more flaccid, because they are more flaccid…
Is it at all possible that the feminization of society over the past 20 to 30 years is changing males, body and mind? Could the subliminal stress involved in sublimating one’s essential nature be producing less manly men?
The hypothalamic-pituitary-adrenal axis is a delicate homeostatic feedback system, intricately involved in regulating hormones and stress. Has it become the axis of evil in the war on men?
Just asking…”
The excerpt is from my new WorldNetDaily column, “Manly No More.”
After reading the column in WND, I googled “rocket fuel from saltpeter and sugar”. Playing with this stuff could be the cure for the low testosterone levels!
[LOL: that’s a typical manly reaction–go looking for explosions.]
A one percent drop in testosterone levels since the 1980s seems about right to me.
And you are right, Ilana, to look towards are government schooling monopolies for part of the explanation.
Here is another angle on the monopolies’ contribution to the feminization of boys: As late as the 1930s, there were 120,000 school districts (with one fourth the population today). Today there are a little over 14,000 districts. This means MUCH larger schools and major aggressive sports dominated by a few elite athletes with the great majority of boys left out. They are figuratively and sometimes literally “on the bench.”
A football player myself in high school in the 60s and, for a while, in college I vividly recall big games and big plays . . . especially highly competitive one-on-one situations. There is no question this “combat” has an impact on later aggressiveness and confidence. (I still see many ex-teammates from high school and college days; they are not like the those described in your column.)
Because our big consolidated high schools — often built in some remote cornfield — are now so big a much smaller percentage of kids have such experiences in high school; and colleges have become on-the-cheap feeder systems for the pros, not for normal students.
This is just one of dozens of way our government schooling monopolies do great harm to children. They are quite capable of bringing down Western Civilization.
Will we be permitted to snivel out loud when they come to collect our guns? They won’t put us in the hospital for it, will they? I have a right to snivel out loud! And I’ll snivel out loud until I get my way! (Unless they might put us in the hospital for it.)
Hilariously brilliant essay, Ilana.
Great observation. As a REAL man myself (whatever that means), I have seen men turned into “yes darling…no darling wimps”.It seems like being “sensitive” to others is nowadays required to be accepted in this upside down culture. Furthermore, it has become a federal offense to be a man and as such, you will be subjected to “sensitive training”…”anger management” and will be vilified by society at large. Shameful
LuckilyI was raised by a mother and father, dont worry Ilana unlike that twit you saw at grocery store, there are plenty of real men left. Most of us can be seen doing most of heavy lifting in the house while our uncaring wives are out doing their nails.
Though I realize what Ilana’s talking about, I see these imitation men out acting like women, it disgusts me. I, myself consider myself to be quite overloaded with testosterone, I like guns, fighting, knives, red meat and most of the aggresive forces I have honed over the years. With these I am feared and respected; I hate NARAL, the Lifetime Channel, the Human Rights Campaign, metrosexuals, and all things Liberal. Good luck guys; be aggresive, angry males. Say it loud and proud, and make the feminists scream.
I have read that it is the plastic in baby bottles that is responsible for this decrease in masculinity. In countries where women still breastfeed, such as Mexico, men are still macho. In general, all petroleum products wreak havoc on our hormones. Please, do not let your babies put plastic teethers, toys, or bottles in their mouths.
I still think that western men are the greatest thing since sliced bread, so no complaints here!
[Soft plastic, when heated, oozes xenoestrogens. That’s true. Does it impact masculinity? I don’t know. Baby bottles are made from inert plastic-or so i think, but, again, I’m not sure]
One of the things I love about my wife is that she uses phrases like, “He’s a man!” as a compliment and confides that she can’t stand a neighborhoods kids’ (currently being raised by a single mom) whiney cries of “Mommy!”
Of course, she’s not American…
“How can a man who is so tough be so gentle?” she marveled.
“If I weren’t tough, I wouldn’t be alive. If I couldn’t be gentle, I wouldn’t deserve to be alive.”
– Raymond Chandler, The Long Goodbye
Oops, ‘scuse me. I think that quote is actually from Playback.
http://rantsand.blogspot.com/
Motto for the day: Girly-Men start fights. Real Men finish them.
On that note, I think it’s time to crash some weights and terrorize the floor staff at the Yuppified YMCA I lift at by pointedly and cheerfully not dismembering anyone. [I heard that some gyms have outlawed grunting when pushing weights.]
Ciao!
Even as far back as the ’70s, I heard that smoking pot caused breast enlargement in some men, and there were other items I seem to remember linking pot smoking to the hormones in males. It is no secret that many males have smoked a ton of the stuff since then. Perhaps only those who were fortunate enough not to inhale have remained manly enough to retain the ability to leave stained blue dresses while in their fifties!
It takes work to turn young boys into effective men and young girls into effective women. The easy way out is to androgynize everyone.
An effective analogy I heard once is that a butterknife hurts nobody. on the other hand, an extremely sharp blade can be used as a murder weapon or as a surgical tool but if it wasn’t sharp it would be essentially useless.
The vital difference is how it is used. We need to recognize a person’s strengths and mitigate against their weaknesses, investing our effort to bring out the best that person can be (not what mold we think they should fit in).
On gyms and grunting yes there is a gym here in DC that discourages that and wouldn’t you know it the gym is next to the Green Lantern gay bar.
As for the girlie men at whole foods – I have read that eating soy products can increase estrogen levels in men.
So testosterone encourages muscle growth but is there a loop condition in that a sedate life-style that does not try to stimulate muscle growth will, in fact, suggest to the male system that it needs less testosterone?
I also have to note that for every fem, soft, American male I meet, there is a corresponding American female ball-busting bitch. My X wife was one.
My friends and I have noted that our EU and Australian girlfriends seem to be a bit more old-fashion and easy to get along with (less demanding).
My current girlfriend is feminine, old-fashioned, yet strong of personality (not ball busting…)
I am proud of the fact that my chest size is larger than my waist and I did make model rockets that exploded as a kid but I did it with Dad’s black powder from his replica rifle.
Your “manly no more” article does very little to dispel already rampant stereotypes.
If anything, it encourages them.
How unfortunate.
Using the information I could discover in the library about Roman civilization, I created a Yahoo group which an ancient Roman MAN might create if he got in a time machine and came to our time. It’s called “realrome”.
[that’s a virtual, manly pursuit.]
Dear Mrs. Mercer:
You are correct that there seems to be an abundance of girly-men out there. But don’t fret! There are many men out there who still know how to shoot a gun, fix the car, ignore the pile of dishes, and leave the toilet seat up. My wife says I’m silly for not using more lotion on my hands, or getting manicures. HA! That’ll be the day. I like to buy her flowers, help around the house, and be considerate, but my heroes are more like John Wayne, or John Galt.
My favorite television commercials of late are the beer commercials where the can of beer falls onto the “girly man”. You know the ones?
My wife asked me yesterday if I wanted to go to Williamsburg with her and her friend next weekend. Knowing that would mean outlet malls, I replied, “To the outlet capital of Virginia? No.”
I’ll be at home with my teenage boys watching Gladiator, etc. [Lucky boys to have a good dad.]
Cheers.
Jim A.
You’re a treasure, Ilana. And a dying breed. You may want to consider donating a few eggs to a fertility clinic since the rest of us in dire need for genuinely feminine women who appreciate genuinely masculine men may need them someday for cloning.
toda raba Ilana. I always thought that for some reason that there was some sort of movement to feminize men, but when I would mention it to people, they would look at me as if I were from another planet. It appears that I was right as Ilana’s Nov 3, 006 column on WND.com and the study that shows testosterone level are declining in men.
My wife has also noticed this about the American culture. (She was born and reared in South America where machismo is still celebrated.) She, like me, laughs when men are afraid of the “trans fatty acids” in food.
I even noticed the feminization of the military when political correctness eliminate some of the cadences that we used while marching and running. [Right you are. Check this out Osama’s Snickering at Our Military]
To Ilana and the bloggers here, I am thankful that you all have noticed the
trend of what has been going on here.
Miss Mercer, your column on the deterioration of men in our society interested me very much and in a way affects me personally. I say that because I have a neutered brother-in-law that has become the lap dog of his abusive girlfriend. To say he has lost his gonads would be an understatement. He lets the woman walk all over him with nary an attempt at fixing the problem. I even went so far as to look into giving him a fake pair of testicles, you know the kind you see hanging off the trailer hitches of pick-ups driven by real men. [I’ve never seen them, but I’m learning a lot thanks to this column]
First point. Feminization has less to do with the attitude of the male species and more to do with militant “womyn” that want their men (if there are any in their lives) to act like women. The feminization of the male also has a great deal to do with the homosexual rights movement. Men are being taught today that it’s okay to want to have a committed relationship with a same sex partner. Most (there are exceptions but not many) homosexual men exhibit behaviors that make them look and act like women instead of men. How many manly homosexuals have you known?
[To be fair, there are quite a few manly gay men. Rock Hudson, anyone?]
Second point. Why is it that most liberals hate the military? Is it because they defend freedom? Is it because the military stands in the way of their liberal ideology? Is it because most military men and women vote Republican? All of these examples are true. There is one more. The military is the last bastion of the manly man. Men serving in combat do not act like women. They urinate standing up. They are experts in killing and breaking things. They drive tanks. Assault vehicles. Bombers. Fighters. Tankers. They jump out of perfectly good aircraft. They know that victory depends on them defeating the enemy, not negotiating with them. [Military men are cool; it’s the unmanly politicians who send them to unnecessary wars, who are worse that the worst feminist]
Perhaps there are environmental influences, such as plastics and the fluridation of our water, which causes hypothyroidism…contributing to obesity and lower metabolism in general.
There is also the psychological war that was declared on men in the late 60s. I grew up watching television in the 60s and 70s which was dominated by the NOW view. I, like many men and women, bought into that view. Of course, I realised much later in life that it was all a lie. We live in a culture where men are hated. Thus there are so many divorces.
Dawn:
“Stereotype” is another name for “categoric discriminant” — you know, the ones we use when we make rhetorical claims like “apples and oranges.” Oranges are… – how shall we put it… – orange-colored. That’s a stereotype – as morally reprehensible it may be to some individual oranges who fantasize of being pears, chestnuts, or platipuses.
And I believe “rampant” is a redundancy here since although a stereotype is not an epidemic, it would be a contradiction in terms if a stereotype were “niche” or “minority.” I guess you intended rampant to make us feel guilty — i.e. that it’s “morally reprehensible,” bordering on a “social” disease, to perceive… generalities?
Finally, the very recognition of a stereotype is – ceteris paribus – the proof of the existence of that stereotype.
How liberal of you to perpetuate all this illogic!
It takes a smart, down-to-earth, genuinely street-wise mind to appreciate how important (and 9 times out of 10 useful and correct) stereotypes are, while the fools keep reinventing the wheel.
Don’t sweat it, dear. C’est la vie!
I will put my money on the increased use of soy, both in standalone products and as part of processed foods.
Search this webpage for the word testosterone:
http://www.westonaprice.org/soy/dangersisoflavones.html
Wow – a whole lot of feedback on this one. Interesting article.
There’s a strong connection with being slightly stoic and thinking rationally and reasonably. A functioning guilty conscience is needed in order to process correct thinking and personal ethics, but when all thinking resides in the heart, one doesn’t think but feels instead.
There might be a link between men acting more feminized and the rise of the Welfare State.
I should also say that the reason why a lot of men are divorced probably has less to do with man hating than it has to do with men forgetting what caused women to fall in love with them in the first place.
Many men don’t know that women want a challenge, and a guy who is witty and somewhat mysterious. They dont want someone who wears his heart on his sleeve all the time, or talks about his problems. I wouldn’t want to be around a needy woman who used me as a therapist for her bad day; why wouldn’t women feel any different? They’re not that different from men.
It’s a little bit of a misjudgement, in my humble opinion, to view the divorce rate as anti-male bias. I think it has to do more with most men being extremely clumsly and really quite stupid in terms of dating and marriage.
Dear Ms. Mercer,
Please, let’s not leave out what happens to men who actually have testosterone, when they appear in public, they are maligned and ridiculed at every turn and vilified if there is the slightest chance to do so. Of course when something really bad happens, guess who the whole world turns to? The real men are hidden away, they seldom go out, because they aren’t popular, and stand a chance of being hit with a hit and run lawsuit. Then, on that day of days, the real men, those who still have testosterone in their veins, they go charging up the stairs of two towers, expecting to carry themselves and another hundred pounds of equipment up eighty floors to rescue people.
Much of the loss of testosterone can be attributed to the number of real men who got buried in the two towers. Those men had double, triple, maybe even quadruple the testosterone necessary to be a man, they had enough to be heroes, and heroes are hard to find these days.
There is another drain on this as well, vast amounts of American testosterone have been spread on the killing fields of Afghanistan and Iraq, along with dozens of other places too secret to reveal. There is no shortage of American Testosterone. We still have it, we just don’t have a place in our home country where we are allowed to have it in public. Notice how all the veterans hang out together? Ever wonder why so many former military end up in bike clubs? A civil society hates testosterone, it reminds them of their need for protection and makes them feel impotent. There’s plenty of testosterone in my machine shop, practically all my customers have all that is necessary. They also know what service and honor mean.
Sincerely,
John McClain
GySgt, USMC, ret.
Vanceboro, NC
Glenn K–
I’m more or less a liberal (I could just as easily be defined as a conservative, but for the same reasons). I’m a registered Donkey. And I support a strong military. I have friends who’ve been in Iraq. My issue with the Bush administration (and most of its precedents) is simply that we’re fighting the wrong fights against the wrong people in the wrong places at the wrong time & degrading the efficiency of our armed forces in the process. We spend too much money on obsolete & ineffective weapons systems because they’re cool. Government entitlements help grease these wheels, too–remember Ike’s warning re. the coming military-industrial complex? Fancy junk. Like a Caddy Escalade.
Ilana likes short missives, so I’ll cut short. But you’re welcome to email me. I love to talk shop on military matters. I’ve been quoted in “Stars & Stripes” from a piece I did on the AC-130H. I haven’t been quoted vis-a-vis my thoughts on aerated DU contamination, but hey, you can’t win ’em all.
And I’m just a civvie who has a lot of military & ex-military buddies. actually, with one or two exceptions, I’ve seen more live fire then any of them.
I was a freelance reporter in South Florida, you see.
Glenn–
I do apologize for my ballistic tangent (heh…). Yours was not an antagonistic argument & my bombast was meant to present at least to some degree as satire. Whether it presented as such, I don’t know. But I can tell you that there are far more militant liberals of the Real Man sub-type then most people realize. Militant may not be quite the right word in some cases. In my case, well, it probably is. Grown-up liberals are every bit as disenchanted with their party as independent conservatives are with theirs and most of us support the presence of a strong, sensible, efficient US military presence. Frankly, I find that I am very much on the same wavelength as most of my active & retired military friends. Most of them would call themselves conservative. Frankly, I find that we have more commonalities then differences.
I need some raw meat…
[Yeah, keep it civil, boys. maybe, Graham, you are, dare I say it, a “classical liberal,” like me?]
I’m talking too much today…
Sgt. McClain, you speak well.
There was a Canadian media study a little ways back that determined that women were referred to as “victims” in news articles 35 times for every single time a male “victim” was mentioned. I believe there was also an accompanying study of some sort comparing the number of times men were mentioned in news articles for their roles as rescuers or protectors.
Warren Farrell, in his (sometimes wince-inducing) precise way once complained that men in the modern world were regarded as “human doings,” not as “human beings.” Speaking for myself, I chafe at my present state of forced inactivity but y’know, I always figured part of the job of being a strong, aggressive man was to watch out for folks who weren’t so strong. Carry the heavy stuff that other people can’t–that sort of thing. I like to think I’ve done my best.
But this sort of approach to life means you get banged up & bleed more often. The body wears down faster.
It’d be nice, wouldn’t it, if men had better access to the maintenance (medical care) we need to keep on doing what it is we’re built to do [but not this kind] ? And it’d be nice if we weren’t always asked to spill our blood & deplete our health in the wrong wars & wrong jobs because these are often the only option many of us (educated or otherwise) have open to us.
It’s not that we’re all that keen on becoming half-men or dismissing our natural inclination to protect the tribe. Part of the job description. It’s just that we’d like to have a little life in-between wars & the maintenance that we require as the species equivalent of the rugged-terrain, big-wheeled carryall, to keep adding to our miles when things break down. It’s the being discarded that gets to me.
Perhaps Glorida Steinem is in league with Lee Iacocca. Rugged men have been slated for replacement vis-a-vis planned obsolesence.
So it seems.
[Related: “The Weaker Sex” By Marianne J. Legato, New York Times]
The decrease of testosterone in men is a function of 3 factors:
1. Ease of life in America(and the West). The transformation of America from an agrarian to an urban/suburban society with the concommitant reduction in physical labor coupled with a less uncertain life; i.e. no famines, no death from simple infections, clean water, etc., has reduced the utility of and occurence of “hard people”.
2. The feminization of our society. Boys are no longer raised primarily by their fathers, as they once were. Instead of a boy learning from a man what it means to BE a man, they learn from women–mothers, daycare workers, teachers.
3. Risk averse society. We are raising children to be almost entirely risk averse. Healthy risk taking is an integral part of a robust, well-lived life(see “Risk Averse and Proud of It” at http://www.laconicblog.blogspot.com).
The net result is a society of women and pseudo-men.
The study was conducted on 1,500 males in the Greater Boston area. Imagine if they had done the study in San Francisco!
Ms. Mercer, Yes you are right! I have observed the same thing and the consequences for society will be devastating. When I grew up, men were risk takers, courageous, protective of women and his children, respectful of women, expected to support their families without government help, competitive at games and sports, and men paid for dates. The pill did not exist, men had to win a woman’s hand.
I have seen an increase of wimps which is an acronym (Weak Individual Managing Problems). I believe that
men still exist and are found in the military. Reasons have to do with the rise of the feminist movement, push for political correctness, downgrading of macho features on TV, and the focus on feelings instead of academics in public school.
sidney krimsky
Well and darn well said Mercer. I wish you could have known my Dad. When I was a boy I often resented being raised by a First Sargent but have been grateful many times since.
*cringe*
When a liberal asks about ‘greater access to medical care’ I think that he basically means state funded medical care (cutting through the discriptive talk). This is unacceptable.
Mrs.Mercer:
Great piece in WND today! You hit it out of the ballpark on this one.
Unlike alot of confused metro “men” out there, I make no bones about me being a man! Can you ponder the thought of a man being a man in today’s ever so P.C. ever-suing society? I do not care what people think. I have been called from Knuckle dragger to a right wing Christian, to you name it. I get a kick out of all the handbag holding, mall- going, sensitive men, watching them buy all the hair gel products. For the record, I HATE MALLS!, I shop at a Wal-Mart and love Tractor Supply and dam proud of it!
Something to ponder: I live 30 miles from Ground Zero, and I will never forget that day as long as I live. Do you think metrosexual cops and fireman ran into the towers to save people? The true answer: real men and woman ran in to save people regardless of what they look like or sound like, They never got the P.C. flyer I guess, they acted on what their heart told them what HAD to be done, and not what some cheap common sense or a limp liberal would say or do.
One last thing: I own a business and when I go to a house to check things out, I almost always get in some way or another , I wish my husband / boyfriend was like you.
Keep up the great work!
Danny
Use it or lose it. Modern American society discourages real risk taking and encourages conformity. If something isn’t used it eventually withers.
A neutered male is controlable. In the end, it’s all about control.
Check out http://www.mkp.org
THis is an international men’s organization that combats the feminization of men while still encouraging the nurturing nature of men and our respect for women. It provides a SAFE place for men to be men without being bashed, and brings us into our power again as generative kingly men