The Manifesto; Why I Write Books on Masculinity

People think I wrote ideal man reviving masculinity because I'm angry. Because I resent women. I'm confused by that because I want to go backwards and I don't. That's just lazy thinking. That's the easy way out. I wrote the books because I've watched something disintegrate in real time. And most people are afraid to say it out loud, but I will. The modern family is weakening. Boys are struggling. Men are drifting. And women are exhausted. And we keep pretending this is progress. Let's start with feminism. Hit it head on. The first wave of feminism was about legal equality, property rights, voting rights. It's access to the same legal protections as men. The second wave of feminism argued for workplace access in equal opportunity. And most people agree with those things. I think you'd be crazy not to. Equal protection under the law. Equal opportunity fair treatment. That's not controversial. That's American. But here's where the shift happened. After a long the way and if you do a studying, it's right around 1990. Feminism stopped arguing for equality of opportunity and began arguing for equality of outcome. Sameness of role and sameness of temperament. But that's not equality. That's the erasure of differences. Men and women are equal in dignity, of course. But they are not equal in design. Biology matters, temperament patterns matter, and risk tolerance differs. Interests cluster differently across populations, of course. And across cultures, even the most gender egalitarian societies like Sweden, men and women still gravitate or different fields and different roles. Yet modern ideology insists that any imbalance must be proof of oppression rather than just personal preference. That belief produces endless grievance. If men dominate in engineering, well that's oppression. If women dominate in education, well there's silence. If men are overrepresented in very dangerous jobs, well that's invisible. But if women are underrepresented in Fortune 500 CEO positions, well that must be systemic and justice. Nothing about any of that is equality. It's selective accounting. Over the past few decades the ideology has moved from advocating rights to controlling institutions, universities, teacher education programs, corporate HR departments, media narratives, Hollywood, other entertainment, publishing. The cultural messaging is consistent. Masculinity is suspect. Competitiveness is toxic. Hierarchy is oppressive, strength must apologize and ambition must be softened. Now boys absorb this before they can even understand it or articulate it. They're told that their instincts are dangerous. Rough play becomes aggression. My energy becomes a disorder. Risk taking becomes problem behavior. And then we medicate them. We discipline them. We pathologize them instead of guiding them. Now massive percentage of boys are being raised in fatherless households. Somewhere around 40% in the US. And this is not an attack on single mothers. It's just a statement of fact it's an observation. It is a statistic. It's not my opinion. But fathers can never be seen as optional. The father models restraint of strength, channeling of aggression, calm under pressure, boundaries, risk, calibration. These are all the habits I describe in my second book, reviving masculinity, the one that's so reviled and so hated that people want to burn it. A boy learns how to become a man largely by watching a man. And when that model is missing, well then culture becomes the substitute father. And culture right now is very confused about masculinity. What boys find on the TV, the computer or their phones as an America that has become a fertile ground for overtly anti-male sentiment. Schools that are staffed largely not by men often reward compliance over courage. Yet over assertiveness, safe, over daring, agreeability, over competition. Now a boy who does not naturally conform to that environment begins to believe something is wrong with him. So he disengages or he rebels or retreats into the digital world. And then society asks why are men falling behind? One of the clear signals of failure in our current educational environment is that gender disparity in academic achievement. By nearly every metric, metric from school readiness to high school GPA, boys fall behind girls at every stage of K-12. Boys are more likely to be in the bottom academic percentages and girls are more likely to be in the top. And they're less prepared to start school boys are academically. Boys are underrepresented among role models or teachers or coaches in schools. But now we're at about 23 percent nationally. That means boys have far fewer male role models in the classroom when male leadership and structure have often been beneficial to their learning style. These gaps aren't small. They're measurable and persistent and they solidify into broader life outcomes. Let's look into college. The gender disparities from K-12 continue into higher education. And only earn a little over a third of college degrees in the US. Let me say that one more time. Men only earn about a third of the college degrees in the US. And you tell me there's nothing wrong with academics for men in the United States. This is not just a snapshot. It's a multi-decade reversal of a historical norm that went on long before. In which men once were the majority of college degrees. The education system itself often operates in ways that reward areas where traditional schooling tends to align better with common female learning profiles than male ones. Research highlights that the methods and expectations of modern schooling can inadvertently disadvantage boys contributing to higher discipline rates and disengagement. Now this is no shocker to anyone. Boys are disciplined and suspended at much higher rates than girls. These trail girls in reading and often like by about one grade level by eighth grade and it gets worse as they get older. These are outcome patterns. They are not innate intelligence differences. And they reflect how institutional structures interact with gendered behavior and development. Now the effects of academic disengagement then ripple into the labor market. Men's labor force participation has declined relative to women's over the last decades, especially among those with degrees. While higher education generally increases employment prospects, even many young men without a college degree now struggle to find a stable full-time job at rates that used to be very typical. And across the Western world, even outside of the US, data increasingly shows boys and young men are missing out. International reports note that in many countries including Western societies, boys are more likely than girls to repeat grades and be disengaged from school. When you connect these trends with my earlier points about weakening family structures, fatherless households, and male role modeling, and cultural narratives that deemphasize traditional masculine strengths, you see a very, very obvious pattern. Boys are less likely to succeed in an environment where male learning styles and developmental differences are not valued. Men's shaped by progressive institutional norms, reward behaviors that are more common among girls. Men then enter adulthood with lower educational attainment, less workforce stability, and more disengagement. This isn't just a collection of statistics. It's a social trend with real human consequences and not just for the boys. Let's talk about divorce. Only 70% of divorces in the US file by women and the percentage is over 90% among college educated couples. Again, this is not about blame. It's an observation. It's a statistic. It's about reality. If women initiate the majority of divorces, then something in our cultural narrative about commitment, expectations, and satisfaction, it's worth examining at least. Modern messaging tells women. You must be self-actualized at all times. Your fulfillment is paramount. If you feel unfulfilled, you deserve reinvention, and you owe no one, your endurance. But marriage requires endurance. Family requires endurance. Children requires stability far more than they require parental self-actualization. When commitment becomes conditional on perpetual emotional satisfaction, families are going to fracture. When families fracture, it's the children who suffers. And statistically, mostly the boys. Now no civilization survives long-term when fatherlessness becomes normal. This is measurable in academia, obviously, major media outlets, entertainment, and large corporate governance. We talked about that. That dominance shapes the narrative. And the narrative increasingly suggests this. Mental masculinity is primitive. Traditional family structure is outdated. Male leadership is suspect. And patriarchy is the root of all suffering. So young men are left with two options. Apologize for being male or just disengage entirely. Some shrink, some check out, some become angry. But none of those outcomes are healthy. And I don't know a single woman who wants a boy like that in their lives, especially when he becomes a man. Now, what really is masculinity? This is where I am an expert. Masculinity is not abuse. It is not domination. It's not recklessness. Properly ordered masculinity is voluntary responsibility. Physical and moral courage. Protection of the vulnerable. Provisioning. Strength of power. Leadership through service. Everything I teach about in these books. Asculinity builds infrastructure. It builds families. It builds entire civilizations. And it protects femininity. It does not suppress it. Femininity at its blast is never weak. It is depth. It is nurturing. It is relational intelligence. It is emotional richness. Beauty in both form and spirit. When masculine strength creates safety, feminine beauty flourishes. When feminine warmth inspires devotion, masculine strength sharpens. That's harmony. And it can't be done if boys are left behind and men are left to rot. Now why did I write these books? Why would I put myself in front of the firing squad, which has happened to me over and over again? Well because boys need to hear that their strength is not shameful. And men need to hear that leadership is not tyranny. Because fathers need to understand that they are irreplaceable. Because women deserve strong stable men. Not confused, resentful boys. And because pretending that feminism has remained merely about equality is intellectually dishonest and academically ignorant. The movement evolved, it shifted from equality under the law to ideological restructuring of gender roles. It moved from fairness to sameness, from rights to reengineering, from opportunity to narrative dominance. And now we see the results. Failing marriage rates, declining birth rates, rising male disengagement, widespread female dissatisfaction, and cultural hostility between the sexes. That's not a flourishing society. Now, like I said at the beginning, I don't want to move backwards. I've never talked about that before. I want to move to balance. Honor women. Honor men. Reinforce families. Encourage fathers. Teach boys discipline, not shame. Each girl's discernment, not rivalry. Not telling the sexes they are competitors and that they don't need each other. They do. They are partners. Now if that message retains institutions, good. If it means critics are uncomfortable, well maybe you should be and you should examine why you are. I don't write books to be liked. I don't push this message because I need people to love me. I wrote because civilization itself is downstream of family and family is downstream of men and women understanding who they are. We don't need hostility between the sexes. We need strength and beauty working together again. That's why I wrote the books. That's why I wrote my podcast and that's why I will continue.