There’s been much discussion in the parenting world regarding how to handle raising boys. Paranoid feminists essentially believe they must emasculate their boys, forcing them to remain in a toddler state of continuous wonder and love lest they dare to do so much as form a fist, let alone the dreaded finger gun. Masculinity advocates long ago titled this strange rage the “war on boys.” Now, self-titled “healer and spiritual thought-leader” Raven Anne Quigley has determined that the war on boys is actually a series of “microaggressions perpetrated against boys” on a daily basis by various cultural figureheads including their own parents.
Quigley asserts that all boys are told as preschoolers to “man up” and not cry before being thrown into inherently violent sports programs against their will. All families, even the non-abusive ones, inherently teach boys the values of “violence, aggression and hyper-sexuality (violence toward women)” through the simple act of teaching them to defend themselves. Quigley explains, “A family only needs to be afraid that the boy will get beaten up himself, to harshly and powerfully school him on how to ‘be a man.’”
All of these assertions are not based in fact, but rather a series of hypothetical scenarios best left to the stuff of tween TV with gay students being slammed into lockers by peers who are addicted to violent video games. The reality is that boys are naturally active creatures who often see the world in competitive terms. Their addiction to concepts like superheroes who kill bad guys has more to do with problem-solving than violence. And very few boys ever transition from active to truly aggressive. But, because facts don’t mesh with Quigley’s ideology, she simply ignores them.
But please, don’t mistake her strangely worded manifesto for mere second-wave feminist dribble. Buried within her prose is the statement that makes her motivation clear:
In subtle and not-so-subtle ways, we are teaching our boys that their role in our culture is that of violence, domination, power and authority.
As long as “power” and “authority” are equated with “violence” and men are believed to be the arbiters of power, men and boys will always be on the losing team. Social justice warriors believe themselves to be caught up in a perma-fight against “The Man,” the obscure figure cloaked in darkness who somehow lords over their free will at all times. Contemporary feminists need The Man, otherwise there’d be no need for feminism as it’s currently written. The real secret that keeps the SJW in power is that there is no “Man.” They, in fact, are The Man as in “the man behind the curtain” no different than the one who wizarded Oz.
Quigley’s conclusion is much like that of her feminist colleagues: If they can’t grow into females, we shouldn’t let boys grow up at all.
I wonder what the world would look like and be like if the norm was to teach our boys to be the loving, joyous, enthusiastic, emotional and whole human beings that they are at four years old? What if we were to raise them up in ways that preserve and protect who they are by nature?
Quigley’s Peter Pan fantasy reveals the real battle going on at the heart of contemporary feminism. These women don’t fear men, they fear death. Boys must remain boys forever just as they must remain girls, free of the duties and responsibilities of motherhood, free to pursue “career” interests, and free to walk naked unafraid. What they want is eternity, but what they fear is mortality.
Quigley also fails to mention another research-backed fact brought up by award-winning author and psychotherapist Erica Komisar: The boys and girls who do become aggressive often do so because they lack a strong, secure bond with their mother. If these mothers want to raise healthy sons, they’re the ones who need to get a little less aggressive with their platforming and pour all that energy into something more profitable: actually getting to know their sons instead of stereotyping them for political gain.
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