Helen Smith’s book, Men on Strike: Why Men Are Boycotting Marriage, Fatherhood and the American Dream-and Why it Matters attributes a declining birthrate at least in part, to a system that gives men no incentive to marry and have children and actively punishes them if they do. This almost explains why some men would be better off without women.
The main thesis of the book is that men have been discriminated against in today’s world in four principal areas to the point that they have effectively become second class citizens. These are: marriage, reproduction, education and parenthood.
A growing number of men are not interested in marriage anymore. Studies have shown that in 2007 around 40 percent of American men aged 25-29 were married compared with 80 percent in 1970. The reluctance of men to commit marriage has been attributed to the sexual revolution and the rise of cohabitation, combined with a desire on the part of some men for sex without long-term, let alone lifelong, commitment.
She argues that feminism is the crucial factor and criticizes the hypocrisy of the radical feminist slogans my body, my choice and “reproductive rights.” She demonstrates how such language is used to deny any rights at all in matters of reproduction and parenthood. She describes a number of shocking cases of deception whereby men were coerced into becoming fathers against their will and were subsequently forced to pay for child support.
With regards to education, God places the responsibility for a child’s training on the parents especially the father. But society has kicked the father out of the home and Smith attributes this to feminism which now dominates the education system which extends from elementary school to higher education.
Nearly all public schools in the West are overwhelmingly staffed by women and a significant number of men have left the teaching profession, leaving the women as the sole role models for the students. This is fine for the girls in schools, but what about the boys? The prophet Isaiah says,
For My people, children are their oppressors, and women rule over them. O My people! Those who lead you cause you to err, and destroy the way of your paths” (Isaiah 3:12).
Men have also begun to retreat from college and from fatherhood. Many American colleges have student bodies that are over 60 percent female. The universities have become an increasingly hostile environment for men with courses in Gender and Women Studies that denigrate them. Incoming male students are often required to receive briefings on sexual harassment that treat them as potential rapists. Smith writes:
Many men have just decided that they don’t belong in college and are going on strike…How will this affect their wages and lifestyles in the coming decades?
Smith also highlights how fathers are constantly undermined in the mainstream media. She refers to an Australian study which analyzed 2,000 media portrayals of men and found them for the most part depicted as villains, philanderers, aggressors and perverts etc. The researchers found that 69 percent of media commentary presented men in an unfavorable light, with only 12 percent portraying them positively and 19 per cent giving a “neutral” or “balanced” view.
Ultimately such portrayals could lead to negative social and even financial cost for society in areas such as male health, rising suicide rates and family disintegration…. With fewer workers in the coming decades, who will provide services, work the jobs and pay into the already dwindling social security system?…… Our nation will stagnate economically and culturally if we keep up this war on men.
The Welfare State Rewards Fatherless Homes
Another argument for the boycott of marriage by men, according to some sociologists is that the welfare state is making it hard for many working class men to compete with the benefits that are rewarded to single mothers. This welfare system exploits the poor by keeping them dependent on the system while stealing their intellectual and economic future. This discourages marriage and personal responsibility. Mary Eberstadt in her work How the West Really Lost God observed that:
The divorce and illegitimacy rates plaguing the West can make the Christian narrative more difficult for some to comprehend. Since the story of Christianity is of a God who can be understood and known as a loving, benevolent Father, it could come across as foreign to someone who never experienced a loving, natural father in his life. We need to remember that the fractured Western family could not exist on today’s scale without the modern welfare state. The welfare state acts as a father substitute.
According to the Daily Telegraph Chancellor George Osborne has been accused of effectively penalizing couples with children for staying together. Changes introduced in last week’s Autumn statement mean that some couples with children would be financially better off if they chose to live apart, according to the Marriage Foundation. It says that the Chancellor’s announcement fails the “family test” trumpeted by David Cameron earlier this year and increases the “penalty” for some families by £110 annually.
Another book by James Bartholomew, The Welfare State We’re In raises a number of serious questions about the extent of the problems caused by the welfare state. He notes that in the past, the state did not provide benefits to lone parents and allowed tax reliefs to married couples, but the reversal of these policies seems to have resulted in more broken homes. Bartholomew writes,
The network of family relationships had been a kind of social cement which was dissolved when extended families were separated by new council housing.
Conclusion
There is overwhelming evidence that shows that the importance of a father in a family is crucial to the health of the family structure. This is the way God designed it. Western history shows that in the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries, the family was firmly rooted in biblical principles; fathers were the primary teachers of their children. Even education was not the responsibility of the government, but primarily placed upon the fathers.
Whether the feminists believe it or not, God gave the man all instructions because He wanted him to be the head of the family and the one responsible for sustaining, providing and protecting the woman. But feminism, reproductive rights, denigrating manhood and fatherhood and the social welfare programs are not advancing fathers or any family, whether black or white; rather, they are effectively crippling and destroying the people’s capabilities to live as God intended them to live.
