Father's Day thoughts on the nature of masculinity

So now we've gone the step beyond campus indoctrination programs in "toxic masculinity" and are seeing the emergence of an academic field called "masculinities." Plural. You see, there is not only a gender continuum along which masculinity and femininity are mere points, there are now gradations of at least one of what used to be recognized as the two and only two sexes and the natures of each.

Stony Brook University in Long Island, New York, will soon become the first college in the nation to offer a master’s degree in the emerging field of “Masculinities.”

The Master’s Program in Masculinities will be a 30-credit online program offered through the school’s Center for the Study of Men and Masculinities, which aims to “disseminate research that redefines gender relations to foster greater social justice.”

The center counts feminist icons such as Gloria Steinem, Eve Ensler, and Jane Fonda among its Board of Directors, and it is led by Michael Kimmel, a feminist academic who most recently wrote a book on “angry white men” suffering from “aggrieved entitlement.”

Speaking to PJ Media, Kimmel said Thursday that the degree will likely launch September of 2019, pending state approval. The proposal for the degree is “now working its way up the SUNY ladder to Albany having passed all Stony Brook screens,” Kimmel explained.

It's going to be based to a significant degree on "intersectionality," so that presumably there will be a look at how masculinity plays out differently within different races and ethnicities and socioeconomic strata.

With a broad of directors including the figures enumerated above, we can safely say from the get-go that this new master's degree will not be free from agenda.

It's probably also safe to assume that longtime City College of New York sociology department head Steven Goldberg's 1973 classic The Inevitability of Patriarchy isn't going to be among the assigned readings. We probably won't find his follow-up Fads and Fallacies in the Social Sciences either.

Goldberg's works are the wonkiest of deep dives, but mere casual observation offers a convincing confirmation of his basic point. There is no society anywhere that has ever been organized in any other fashion. The rest of the animal kingdom provides further proof of an overwhelmingly demonstrable pattern. Males compete for an alpha position within herds and the reward for their effort is first dibs in mating.

Let's look at religion from a historical standpoint. The founders of the world's durable systems of formalized spiritual questing have, to a person, been men. The ones among them that take the approach of viewing God as a sovereign being characterize God as male.

I went straight to the religion example, bypassing other realms of human endeavor I could have mentioned - political and military leaders, scientists and discoverers, writers, musicians, philosophers - for a reason.

There is only one religion that explains the fact that the ideal that man-woman relations is designed to emulate is to be found on the divine level. In the others, there is no reference point beyond the human race itself. In Christianity, however, the relationship between husband and wife is to be modeled on that between the Lord and His church. We are His bride.

To be sure, Christianity does draw upon the basic principles given to us by ancient Judaism. When Jesus says in Matthew 19 that in a marriage, the two become one, he is echoing what God decreed in Genesis 2.

And consider what Jesus has to say about his relationship with His Father. He is in complete obedience to him. Now, there is nothing impulsive about His Father. Jesus need not be skittish about suddenly getting some command that runs counter to the pattern of what he has heard from him. He can have complete and utter confidence that anything his Father tells him to do or say is going to be consistent with what He knows about him.

Plus, the Father has given Him a pretty generous inheritance. He co-owns everything His Father has.

Jesus includes this point in the prodigal-son parable as well. When the older son waxes resentful at the fatted-calf party being thrown for the younger son, the dad reassures him that "all that is mine is yours."

Now, it's at this point that a couple of questions arise that feminists may be the first to raise, but that could be raised by any number of people inquiring into this whole matter. One is, given that every and all human beings are fallible, and that that means that human husbands and fathers are going to fall short of the ideal, sometimes in tyrannical and even brutal ways, where is a woman to be assured of safety when she pairs up and assumes the roles of wife and mother? The other, more basic question is, where is her voice in all of this? Doesn't this deny her even the most basic type of agency as an autonomous person?

To the first we can say that this is yet another reason for tireless evangelism. The more people who know about, are convinced of, and seeking to emulate the perfect example of the husband and father roles, the more safe and fair it is for the world's women.

As to the second question, recall that Jesus said a man and woman become one. They engage the world as a single unit. They are of one accord - ideally concerning everything.

And consider that, just as Jesus could be confident that His Father was not going to go off and change the nature of his mission impulsively, a wife in a Godly marriage can be sure that her husband is not asking for her alignment with him so he can blow the family savings on an extravagant speedboat, or so that he can become a negligent workaholic, absent from the home, in pursuit of a powerful position in the world. A good husband and father crafts a mission for his family based on prayerfully discerning what God sees as that family's calling.

Yes, the world is full of examples that provide a field day for what-about-ists. Again, what that points up is the urgency of the situation. We need more and more families emulating the divine design.

Look at the humbleness with which Jesus regards His Father. An earthy father is to have an equally humble heart. That attitude will infuse his dealings with his wife and children. He knows that, given his fallen nature, and that of the others in the family, part of demonstrating grace is to bring humor, quiet forbearance, wisdom and affection to his roles. Ultimately, he is their servant, since it is not his own wants that drive the family dynamic, but what God intends. He's merely there to facilitate, in the unique ways that husbands and fathers are designed to do.

The project of a happy family does not get off the ground without lots of love, and the best way to find out more about how to be a practitioner of love is to look to the only example we have that never fails us.

Will the Stony Brook master's program get into this? Don't bet on it.