I think there's a difference in kind between masculine and feminine virtues even when we might call them by the same name. It is good for men and women to be courageous, and it is good for both men and women to be beautiful. Feminine courage is not the same as masculine courage, just as feminine beauty is not the same as masculine beauty, even though there are similarities.
You present an intriguing contradiction, which suggests that it points to some core truth we've lost in our modern, feminist culture.
On the one hand, after my wife went through natural childbirth nine times, I have no doubt women are capable of considerable courage, maybe even types of courage that would be difficult for men.
On the other, when I came to the part where David French wrote, "Can we sidestep the elite debate over masculinity by approaching the crisis with men via an appeal to universal values rather than to the distinctively male experience?" I felt something akin to a gut punch. YET AGAIN someone is trying to deny men any space of their own, to shirk away from the notion that men are special, that we have something essential that no one else (i.e. no woman) can offer?
This sentiment, that men aren't really needed, is at the heart of at least radical feminist ideology, and every male above the age of twelve or so has felt that slap in the face, again and again. I suppose there are many flavors of courage, but there may well be some unique to men.
In particular, there is the courage to call out grave deception where one sees it. I'm struggling to even come up with the proper words to describe this particularly male role, it's so removed from our modern thinking. I think this sort of courage is one reason, for example, why men are called to be the rulers over a church.
Today, we are surrounded by many such grave deceptions: abortion, transgenderism, the myth of overpopulation, as well as that old favorite, the love of money. Sometimes women may be deceived, but in their heart of hearts, men know better.
I've been thinking about Aaron's X post he referenced, about the challenge typical complementarians have with articulating something beyond wife and mother for women.
First, I think there's a degree to which "wife and mother" are emphasized not (just) for reasons of principle, but (also) for reasons that are essentially reactionary. I mean that in a mostly good way - there is so much need for pushback on the culture - including the church's de facto culture - in terms of anti-feminism, that the "wife and mother" aspect is both true AND a type of short-hand for "healthily subversive".
That said, to Aaron's point, while "wife and mother" isn't false, it's also not fully formed. I don't have the answer here, but I suspect it lies somewhere with an overdue modern re-imagining of the idea of "home" and "household". "Homemaker" is an even more reactionary term, but starts to get at another thoroughly biblical aspect of womanhood that has been neglected in the course of feminist cultural egalitarianism. It also ties into the fact (problem?) that the household is no longer a unit of production in the economy, in most cases. Just as children are no longer contributors to a true "home economy", so it is with the household overall, and that therefore eliminates a lot of the job description seen in the "Proverbs 31" description of a noble, celebrated, worldly-wise woman. The neo-trad / homesteading movement sees that, but prescribes a solution that is unrealistic and unattractive for many women (and men).
Along the lines of the androgenization of courage, I've noticed that we're experiencing what you might call "courage inflation". There are some very loose ways of using the word "courage" now, and they seem to be female-coded.
When I think of courage, my central example is -- probably not atypically for a man -- a last stand against dreadful odds. Horatius at the Bridge. Thermopylae.
I didn't have a ready example in mind of the "new courage", so I did a quick search. The best one I found is that Coach (the purse/fashion company) has a spring campaign entitled "Find Your Courage". Upon further inspection, the courage in question is apparently "the courage to be real," which seems different enough from the courage to "come back with your shield, or on it" that I don't believe the same word should be attached to them both.
Here's some visuals for the Coach campaign, for reference:
"Universal virtues" are a way of running away from the hard work that Aristotle sets out in his Ethics. You're right about courage, Aaron, but Aristotle takes it even further. He would say that it is potentially a vice for a woman to charge a large man with a knife, as well as for a teenager, a physically weak man, an elderly man, or a man who is not mentally prepared to do whatever violence is necessary to neutralize the knife-wielder. The Golden Mean is a favorite catch-phrase by the well-fed Right, but few seldom stop and think about what is means: that there is an individual virtue for each and every individual person and situation. It is exactly the differences - male or female, age, height, personality, social status, and so forth which are the *most important* factors in determining what is virtuous. If we refuse to say what is appropriate to a man or woman, to a child, a teen, an adult, a senior, to a rich man or a poor man, to a natural leader, to a father, to a neighbor, to a friend, to a countryman, to a fellow Christian, then French's words are ultimately meaningless. He sounds good prattling on about virtue, but his virtues are entirely hollow, devoid of any real content.
The problem of asking what a "universal value" is, is that it falls back on a liberal motif that there are self-evident truths of reason that reveal virtue.
I think the author of this book does well to articulate how what it desires to instill into men (or women) is based not on abstract, self-evident truths, but they are formed by a believing community.
The problem with French's approach (and the manosphere) is that it treats the man as an individual who needs to seek certain virtues that will cause him to flourish. Every person, in a modern liberal sense, is intended to seek certain ideals so they can be the best version of themselves. It's very individualistic, even if (supposedly) the benefit will be to the social unit.
When you attack the problem of the individual within a community, however, you still focus on what is good for the individual but it is the family, the Church, the locality, etc. that places constraints on the individual. To properly form a man, not merely as a selfish person concerned ultimately with how I will embody universal values I consider self-evident, the man must be able to see his end not only for himself but what he is intended for. This cannot be answered abstractly, but according to how a community and its belief system encourages fathers, sons, elders, etc. to embody values that are both revealed and are discerned by generations.
I appreciate the articles you write that criticize that Pastors tend to crap on men for what they’re failing to do. The problem is not only that these Pastors are criticizing selfish behavior, but they have no vision for how the boy becomes a man not for himself but within a family, within a Church. This is not merely taught but “caught” by a believing community living out values that men can inhabit – not abstract, self-evident values but actual values being lived out.
I think there's a difference in kind between masculine and feminine virtues even when we might call them by the same name. It is good for men and women to be courageous, and it is good for both men and women to be beautiful. Feminine courage is not the same as masculine courage, just as feminine beauty is not the same as masculine beauty, even though there are similarities.
I disagree tat there are not traits that most would consider "female." Some that spring to mind: grace/elegance, beauty, empathy /caring.
You present an intriguing contradiction, which suggests that it points to some core truth we've lost in our modern, feminist culture.
On the one hand, after my wife went through natural childbirth nine times, I have no doubt women are capable of considerable courage, maybe even types of courage that would be difficult for men.
On the other, when I came to the part where David French wrote, "Can we sidestep the elite debate over masculinity by approaching the crisis with men via an appeal to universal values rather than to the distinctively male experience?" I felt something akin to a gut punch. YET AGAIN someone is trying to deny men any space of their own, to shirk away from the notion that men are special, that we have something essential that no one else (i.e. no woman) can offer?
This sentiment, that men aren't really needed, is at the heart of at least radical feminist ideology, and every male above the age of twelve or so has felt that slap in the face, again and again. I suppose there are many flavors of courage, but there may well be some unique to men.
In particular, there is the courage to call out grave deception where one sees it. I'm struggling to even come up with the proper words to describe this particularly male role, it's so removed from our modern thinking. I think this sort of courage is one reason, for example, why men are called to be the rulers over a church.
Today, we are surrounded by many such grave deceptions: abortion, transgenderism, the myth of overpopulation, as well as that old favorite, the love of money. Sometimes women may be deceived, but in their heart of hearts, men know better.
I've been thinking about Aaron's X post he referenced, about the challenge typical complementarians have with articulating something beyond wife and mother for women.
First, I think there's a degree to which "wife and mother" are emphasized not (just) for reasons of principle, but (also) for reasons that are essentially reactionary. I mean that in a mostly good way - there is so much need for pushback on the culture - including the church's de facto culture - in terms of anti-feminism, that the "wife and mother" aspect is both true AND a type of short-hand for "healthily subversive".
That said, to Aaron's point, while "wife and mother" isn't false, it's also not fully formed. I don't have the answer here, but I suspect it lies somewhere with an overdue modern re-imagining of the idea of "home" and "household". "Homemaker" is an even more reactionary term, but starts to get at another thoroughly biblical aspect of womanhood that has been neglected in the course of feminist cultural egalitarianism. It also ties into the fact (problem?) that the household is no longer a unit of production in the economy, in most cases. Just as children are no longer contributors to a true "home economy", so it is with the household overall, and that therefore eliminates a lot of the job description seen in the "Proverbs 31" description of a noble, celebrated, worldly-wise woman. The neo-trad / homesteading movement sees that, but prescribes a solution that is unrealistic and unattractive for many women (and men).
Great thoughts.
Along the lines of the androgenization of courage, I've noticed that we're experiencing what you might call "courage inflation". There are some very loose ways of using the word "courage" now, and they seem to be female-coded.
When I think of courage, my central example is -- probably not atypically for a man -- a last stand against dreadful odds. Horatius at the Bridge. Thermopylae.
I didn't have a ready example in mind of the "new courage", so I did a quick search. The best one I found is that Coach (the purse/fashion company) has a spring campaign entitled "Find Your Courage". Upon further inspection, the courage in question is apparently "the courage to be real," which seems different enough from the courage to "come back with your shield, or on it" that I don't believe the same word should be attached to them both.
Here's some visuals for the Coach campaign, for reference:
https://www.coach.com/content/courage-to-be-real
"Universal virtues" are a way of running away from the hard work that Aristotle sets out in his Ethics. You're right about courage, Aaron, but Aristotle takes it even further. He would say that it is potentially a vice for a woman to charge a large man with a knife, as well as for a teenager, a physically weak man, an elderly man, or a man who is not mentally prepared to do whatever violence is necessary to neutralize the knife-wielder. The Golden Mean is a favorite catch-phrase by the well-fed Right, but few seldom stop and think about what is means: that there is an individual virtue for each and every individual person and situation. It is exactly the differences - male or female, age, height, personality, social status, and so forth which are the *most important* factors in determining what is virtuous. If we refuse to say what is appropriate to a man or woman, to a child, a teen, an adult, a senior, to a rich man or a poor man, to a natural leader, to a father, to a neighbor, to a friend, to a countryman, to a fellow Christian, then French's words are ultimately meaningless. He sounds good prattling on about virtue, but his virtues are entirely hollow, devoid of any real content.
I think this is a really good book that addresses this issue in an oblique way:
https://www.amazon.com/Conservative-Rediscovery-Yoram-Hazony/dp/1684511097
The problem of asking what a "universal value" is, is that it falls back on a liberal motif that there are self-evident truths of reason that reveal virtue.
I think the author of this book does well to articulate how what it desires to instill into men (or women) is based not on abstract, self-evident truths, but they are formed by a believing community.
The problem with French's approach (and the manosphere) is that it treats the man as an individual who needs to seek certain virtues that will cause him to flourish. Every person, in a modern liberal sense, is intended to seek certain ideals so they can be the best version of themselves. It's very individualistic, even if (supposedly) the benefit will be to the social unit.
When you attack the problem of the individual within a community, however, you still focus on what is good for the individual but it is the family, the Church, the locality, etc. that places constraints on the individual. To properly form a man, not merely as a selfish person concerned ultimately with how I will embody universal values I consider self-evident, the man must be able to see his end not only for himself but what he is intended for. This cannot be answered abstractly, but according to how a community and its belief system encourages fathers, sons, elders, etc. to embody values that are both revealed and are discerned by generations.
I appreciate the articles you write that criticize that Pastors tend to crap on men for what they’re failing to do. The problem is not only that these Pastors are criticizing selfish behavior, but they have no vision for how the boy becomes a man not for himself but within a family, within a Church. This is not merely taught but “caught” by a believing community living out values that men can inhabit – not abstract, self-evident values but actual values being lived out.