O P I N I O N

NOT THAT PROFOUND

By Nathan Graziano

I recently turned 50 years old, but I can still vividly recall being a young man in my late-teens and early 20s and the confusion that accompanied that period of my life as I tried to make sense of the adult world and its vicissitudes, while simultaneously trying to navigate my future.

For the young male, there have always been multiple warring factions within him, raging hormones battle with the dictates to be kind and respectful; a certainty in his own omniscience faces off with his ignorance; his dreams try to thrive while reality smacks him in the face.

A volcanic swell of emotions rumbles inside him, meanwhile he is also told that real men shouldn’t show those emotions, which would make him vulnerable. Without a healthy way to vent, these emotions have a way of manifesting into anger.

There is nothing particularly new or unique about the archetype of the angry young man. In fact, Billy Joel wrote a song about it.

But there is something unique and deeply unsettling about the anger that the young men of Gen. Z seem to be harnessing. It is an anger that stems from the fact that young men are falling behind women in school and the workforce and losing the power that their male privilege once afforded them.

Young men are not only angry these days, but they’re lonely and frustrated, and since weakness is still not permissable, some young men are turning to the manosphere, a toxic online community that promotes misogyny, anti-gay and trans movements and Men’s Rights Activism.

In the manosphere, young men are fed heaping plates of misinformation, and pseudo-science about genetics and the male’s biological dominance.

In the manosphere, young men are told that women are naturally manipulative, and the men are taught tactics to become adept “pick-up artists.” They learn terminology, such as the involuntary celibate (Incels) and the red pill (a reference to the movie “The Matrix”), and they learn the differences between alpha and beta males¹.

I recently wrote about the Netflix series “Adolescence” that has brought a lot of attention to this malignant online community that is seemingly thriving. So is it any surprise that males ages 18-29 voted 56% to 42% in favor of a president who was recorded on a hot mic saying that he likes to “grab [women] by the p- —y,” a man who was also found liable of sexual abuse in a court of law?

Make no mistake, most of these young men who voted for Trump couldn’t care less about his politics, and other than the sons of extremely wealthy families, few of them will benefit from Trump’s policies.

But as long as Donald Trump is in power, these young men can cling to the hope that all of these pesky, mouthy females will be put back in their rightful place where they’ll shut up and have babies—as Vice President Vance has suggested is their role in the world—and then the female’s only imperative will be servicing the man.

Then, finally, the male—and only the straight male—will return to their role of total power and dominance.

Like I said, I can understand the young man’s anger, although the anger certainly fades for most men as we age. And I can understand the frustration, as well as the bravado that masks a male’s fear. But as a father, a husband, a teacher and a man—albeit definitely a beta male—the normalization of bigotry and misogyny confounds and concerns me.

One can only pray that someday these young men will become old men who will have learned that true strength includes empathy and compassion. As the Piano Man sang, sometimes “just surviving is a noble fight.”

1. Alpha males are strong, confident and assertive, while beta males are your typical wimpy “nice guys,” according to these gross stereotypes.  ↩︎