Fathers Are Mere Tenants

The manhood brand is dead, kaput, and that is no accident. Men, who built the legal and physical infrastructure of this country from scratch, have, over the past 36 years, chosen to allow women to marginalize and overshadow them. It’s as though the entire history of men was written on an Etch-a-Sketch and then shaken until erased. Maria Shriver, wife of The Terminator, has proclaimed America a woman’s nation, and she is right. How pathetic.

The epitome of dead manhood is the corrupted structure of parenthood: mothers own children, fathers rent them. Such is the outcome of the Roe v. Wade decision, which unconstitutionally handed women more reproductive rights than men. This 1973 US Supreme Court decision told women: it’s your body, your baby, your choice.

While a pregnant woman ponders her unborn child’s fate, dad is out of the equation. But, if she chooses motherhood — baby ownership — he, namely his wallet, is in the equation. Contract law stipulates a correlation between ownership and financial responsibility. Not in maternity.

At the moment of birth, mother becomes the father’s landlord, to whom he pays rent. Worse, he must fight for the key to his flat! Does one need more proof than the inexplicable custody fight that fathers are mere tenants, not the owners of their children?

As owners, mothers get lots of behavioral latitude — in ways that fathers, as tenants, never could. No matter how badly mothers MissBehave, as Brooke Burke and Denise Richards prove while contemplating the mixing of motherhood with bikinis, America celebrates them.

Perceived Power

Men built America, landed on the Moon, and comprise 85% of legislators. So, how did America become a “woman’s nation,” where 60% of college graduates, 50%+ of med-school graduates, 50%+ of law-school graduates, and 80%+ of veterinary-school graduates are female — where Barack Obama created an unconstitutional Council on Women and Girls and now wants to institute a Title IX-like push for women in science & engineering?

Simple: men, who have a perpetual fear of not getting laid, never had any real power. Back in the day when women were home baking cookies, couldn’t get credit, couldn’t own property, and didn’t run businesses, men had perceived power. As women began entering the workforce, earning graduate degrees, and using their reproductive rights as weapons, “manhood” waned.

Men are uncomfortable confronting women as peers, because they believe — wrongly — that males are more sexual than females, that kowtowing for sex is a prerequisite. Women, naturally, exploit this male ignorance to the hilt.

Result: Men reflexively buy drinks for women, propose marriage on bended knee, assume fault in every dispute, and rubber-stamp almost every piece of anti-male legislation (think VAWA). This is manhood?

Unproductive Expressions of Manhood

When men are bashed in TV sitcoms and commercials, they tolerate it. That’s why so much is on the air. Corollary: You never see woman-bashing on TV, do you?

Watch this exchange I had with Bill O’Reilly in February 2009 (click photo to watch). Bill doesn’t seem to mind the male-bashing: he opines that men are tough and can take it.

When the topic is Osama bin Laden, men are Rambo (McCain proclaimed that, if elected, he would follow bin Laden into the Gates of Hell). But, when the topic is women, men are Bambi — silent and deferential. To wit: The US Department of Labor, in January 2009, released a scientific study that proves no gender wage gap exists. But, you don’t see the male talking heads on TV discussing it, do you? They’re too scared.

Because men have allowed manhood to become synonymous with impotence, they express masculinity in unproductive, artificial ways. Here are five examples:

• Loud motorcycles
• Blaring music from automobiles
• Extreme fighting
• Tattoos
• Tolerating violent women

Despite giving them temporary testosterone rushes, these behaviors, ironically, defeat manhood. They are substitutes for real expressions of manhood: standing up to women, disagreeing with them, saying no to them. Their fear of being rejected in the bedroom is so great, yet so unfounded, that men would rather live in a gynocracy and mourn the death of manhood than reverse this sad situation.

The NoNonsense Bottom Line

Rebranding manhood is possible only if the product — the man — changes. Otherwise, there’s no brand to rebrand!

Men cannot revamp perceptions and laws and policies if they refuse to change themselves. For example, if a man doesn’t have the balls to talk to a woman in a bar without buying her a drink, he doesn’t have the power to change custody laws.

Men must change their views of themselves and of women, and begin treating women like peers. Equality means equality. The Constitution states nowhere that women have special rights or privileges or protections, yet men keep granting them — each time destroying the manhood brand.

Manhood does not derive from deferring to and coddling women; it results from facing and demanding respect from them. Until men grasp this, the manhood brand will remain dead and America a “woman’s nation.”

About the Author

Marc H. Rudov, The NoNonsense Man®, is a globally known radio/TV personality, relationship coach, and author of 100+ articles and the books Under the Clitoral Hood: How to Crank Her Engine Without Cash, Booze, or Jumper Cables (ISBN 9780974501727) and The Man’s No-Nonsense Guide to Women: How to Succeed in Romance on Planet Earth (ISBN 0974501719). The 2008 recipient of the National Coalition of Free Men’s “Award for Excellence in Promoting Gender Fairness In The Media,” Mr. Rudov is a frequent guest on Fox News Channel’s Your World with Neil Cavuto and The O’Reilly Factor.

Rudov’s books, articles, radio/TV archives, and podcasts are available at TheNoNonsenseMan.com.

Copyright © 2009 by Marc H. Rudov. All rights reserved.