Why Masculinity Needs to be Celebrated

Recently, I got a text from Verizon telling me that I qualified for $800 off an i-phone 13. Usually, I rush about my days in true Sara fashion and ignore things like this, but this time I decided to drop by Verizon on my way home from work to see what was up.

Sure enough, I qualified for an i-phone 13 and before long, I was choosing between the few colors they had on hand—black or red.

I groaned inwardly because what girl wants a black or red i-phone? (Ironically, my daughter does choose black over pink!)

“Wait a minute,” he said. “There might be a pink one in the back.” And he returns with the most lovely pink which I accepted immediately.

A few minutes later the young man started talking life, his wife, and their baby on the way. Making a comment on something men are good at, had him stalling and apologizing in an effort to assure me he’s not sexist or anything.

I smiled and told him I’m quite okay with gender differences and I think they’re important. Which brings me to the topic often pressing on my heart.

I’ve been reading Genesis and blown away with the account of creation, how God made man in His own image, how man was to care for the garden, and then, how man was alone and God knew that he needed a helper suitable for him.

God created man from the dust of the earth, but He created woman from man’s rib, a place close to his heart. Literally, woman was created by God from there, when she could have been created from dust.

Let that sink in just a little. Man was formed from the dust of the ground, while woman was created from a rib close to man’s heart, designed specifically to complete that which was lacking in man.

Man and woman were different from the start. Eve’s body was designed to grow children inside her womb. How amazing is that? Yet, she needed Adam to place his seed inside her because she didn’t have what it took to create a child on her own.

Adam gives his seed, Eve gives her womb, and a human life is born into this world.

Man cannot grow a babe in his body, yet a woman cannot even begin to grow one without part of a man.

Every part of man was created to come together with every part of woman, and vise versa. We are different, with different roles, yet equally important.

But our bodies aren’t the only things we differ in. Why did the Verizon tech instinctively know I might love a pink phone?

And why, when war breaks out, do women instinctively look to men for protection?

Who rushes to front lines first?

But who tends to wounded soldiers when they return?

I’m watching society shift from celebrating and honoring gender differences, to wanting “all humans equal” (as if we’re not already equal in value).

I’m watching women lose femininity and frankly, I think this adds to the problem of gay or lesbian couples. Why would men be attracted to masculine or abrasive women, and what in an effeminate man draws a healthy woman?

I’m watching women lose respect for men and think it a prideful thing that men would crave respect. And I’m watching men wilt under a constant scrutiny of quick judgment for anything that could be labeled as “too much masculinity”.

I’m watching women lose their beauty, their life, their nature in an effort to be “as good at everything a man is”.

But truth be told, sister, there will always be more men driving dirty pickup trucks and picking up guns during hunting season. If you let them be good at their thing while you cultivate your own thing, the world will have what it needs. Of course some girls hunt as well, but we’re making a different point here.

Twenty first century women are killing what they crave. The more our society removes honor from men, the less real men we will have.

Scoff at men long enough and you’ll end up with a society void of manliness. You want milk toast men who won’t offer to change your tire or lift that heavy sack of dog food into your car? Scoff at men, dismiss the unique qualities a man has, turn down his efforts to help and protect—and you may be looking around wondering where real men are the next time you need one.

Yes, you’ve been hurt.

Yes, some men are real, live jerks.

Yes, some men are merely boys in adult bodies.

But there are also many, many real men who deserve a place in society where their leadership is applauded rather than dismissed.

Never allow the abuse of one man to make you dismiss the goodness of many men.

Tell your world we need no gender differences, but I will tell that same world that if we remove a woman’s femininity or a man’s masculinity, we remove from the world exactly what it needs to thrive.

A lesbian couple will NEVER make a balanced, complete parent team.

The more masculine one will never be a man, neither will she fill the role of a man well. She will always be a woman even when she despises it, and she will never be a good replacement “dad” for a child who needs a healthy father figure in his or her life.

Homes need one man and one woman.

Children need one mother and one father.

Churches need couples.

The world needs families.

Ladies, you can emasculate a man merely by dismissing the very qualities that make him a man. If enough of you are out to prove you don’t need men, society will suffer from lack of men willing to stand up, step up, speak up. Men are becoming timid, afraid of insulting women by offering help.

I’m grateful that I still know real men who don’t hesitate to step up for me. I’m grateful my daughters see that. I’m grateful that some men won’t allow themselves to be pushed into something they were never meant to be.

A real man will never trade his masculinity for a watered down, twenty first century, feminist view of his gender. He will be kind, humble, honoring—-but he will be a real man.

It’s time to wake up and bring back into our culture a genuine appreciation for masculinity, for their natural ability to protect, provide, lead, and love. It’s time to celebrate manhood.

Our daughters are looking for real men, and discouraged at the effeminate boys they see all around them. When a man opens a door for you, look at him with a genuine smile and thank him sincerely. The same instinct that makes him want to open your door is the same instinct that also makes him want to protect you in crisis.

Will you scoff at his manhood in one moment, yet ask for it in a moment of need? A man cannot shut down and rise up as you want him to. A man needs to be able to be a man, 24/7. If you let yourself receive it, you will learn to love being a woman.

And if you’re married, don’t be shy about expressing honor, just as you don’t want him to be shy about showing love.

The twenty first century needs real men and real ladies more ever. Girls should still look like girls, and boys should still learn the guy stuff. Balance to our world will only come when we align ourselves to creation the way God made it to be.

Take general human kindness one step further and look into how men are created, how women are created, why that is, and what each gender needs most. Let children grow up to see men and women cultivating themselves rather than trying to condition themselves to be like the other gender.

Let them see whole, healthy families, and they might see school shootings less.

Because sometimes, living out God’s design does more for change in a society than trying to remove guns. Men were born to hunt, and they need guns. That’s a whole other topic, but I’m just saying.

And lest any feminist thinks I’m categorizing women and putting them into a box, come on by sometime and I’ll show you how fun it is to shoot an AR-15, free-fall from a plane two miles in the air, or run a chain saw.

A healthy world starts with healthy men and women who can raise children in God ordained families. No one will ever improve God’s design.

For now, let’s sit with that.