ArcaMax

Men in the U.S. are stuck -- stuck in dissatisfaction, stuck in judgement and stuck in a culture that increasingly tells them that they aren't strong enough, attractive enough or mean enough to matter.

In a perhaps related development, American sailors appear to be trying to escape the U.S.S. Abraham Lincoln, an aircraft carrier deployed in the Middle East for almost nine months, by the only means available to them: jumping off it into the ocean.

"There have been widespread reports of shortages of basic supplies, water contamination, plumbing issues, deteriorating mental health, deck safety concerns, and disruptions in the mail system, which have caused many care packages in route to the ship to be lost in transit for months," Sen. Richard Blumenthal (D-CT) wrote to the Pete Hegseth, the secretary of defense, in a letter asking for more information about conditions on the carrier.

Without responding directly to the substance of the reports, Hegseth said the situation on the Lincoln had been "completely misrepresented."

But that's no surprise. Hegseth has already made it clear that he's not interested in girly nonsense like empathy, mental stability and drinking water that doesn't make you poop your pants. He seems rather inclined to do away with women in national defense entirely, in favor of a hyper-masculine military, one jacked up on testosterone injections and thirsty for the blood of our enemies (or anyone who kind of looks like they might be one).

Instead of ensuring that sailors get the kind of treatment that will preserve their physical and mental health and make the onerous task of defending their nation a bit less miserable, Hegseth seems to want to return to the buckle-down, shut-yer-trap days of yore -- whatever he thinks those were like -- when women were women and men were Humphrey Bogart.

I'm not entirely sure what Bogie would have thought about Pete Hegseth, but I can take a guess at how well he'd have fit in with a fake tan and supplement-laden male culture obsessed with jaw surgeries, gut function and cryptocurrency.

There's something afoot, though, when women's right to vote has been seriously called into question for the first time in a century. Things are strange when Andrew Tate, a man accused by multiple police agencies of raping and trafficking women -- some underage -- gets a travel ban mysteriously lifted so he can flee prosecution on a private plane from Romania to the United States (into Florida, to be exact).

Inspiring some of the mind-warping dialogue about masculinity are pastors like Doug Wilson, who has guided some of Hegseth's worldview with his opinions about the nonexistence of marital rape, and proponents of a new "Broicism" that perverts Stoic philosophy and removes justice and emotion from the purview of men.

In this alternative realm, caring about others is weakness, feeling sad is womanly and strength is built through punishment.

For some, perhaps, it works, creating self-confidence in men by downgrading women. It works, that is, until it doesn't. Until a man needs help, until he's afflicted by suffering that craves support, until his emotions won't be denied.

Without the tools to understand that his salvation is in the acceptance of his human complexity, he is forever lost. A man may be strong sometimes and weak others, but he is a man nevertheless.

These things that vulnerable young men have been told are the manifestations of their masculinity -- manipulation, disregard for women, power achieved by cruelty -- are not expressions of maleness at all. They are expressions of fear.

When young men are confronted by the realities of life, when they see that human connection is the only protection we have against the monsters that drove us together into the caves thousands of years ago, they might realize that the manosphere has given them feeble defenses against the fear of death that plagues us all.

It is not feminism that threatens men today. It is not feminism that wants men to work tirelessly, the sole financial support for a family, under tremendous burden and stress. It is not feminism that wants men to reject their feelings, to push them inside and deny them, until they spring forth in a volcano of violence and confusion. Feminism doesn't want men to toil in a foreign war with vague purpose and unclear legality, perpetually suffering until their commanders graciously acquiesce to bringing them home.

Empathy, kindness and a spirit of mutual understanding -- neither masculine nor feminine in nature -- would not perpetuate mistreatment. The values men need these days are humanist ones.

Humanism, the idea that we are all connected by the universal and important experience of life, was first defined by philosophers like Petrarch, Cicero, Friedrich Immanuel Niethammer and John Dewey.

And they, if pictures are to be trusted, were -- all of them -- men.

COPYRIGHT 2026 GEORGIA GARVEY

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Copyright 2026 Creators Syndicate Inc.