A Band of Brothers — Is Not — A Battle of the Sexes
Before anyone takes this title in the wrong way I want to say that there is also a band of sisters or a fellowship of sisterhood that is separate and equal to the point that I am about to make. For some reason, we seem to be so polarized to some sort of mystical tribalism that we can’t even acknowledge what God did from the beginning. He created both male and female on purpose. They were to have differences by divine design so this is not about sexism but about how we can find strength in our differences. It should be rather obvious that men love women and women love men so if someone wants to make this into something else… that is not on me.
A few years back I wrote a book about Real Men. My concern at that time was that men were falling to the wayside in their responsibilities. There were, and still are, too many men fathering children and not staying around to take care of their responsibilities. Females do not have that option as easily because once pregnant they are the ones that carry the baby to term, deliver the baby, and perhaps have to raise that baby alone if the father disappears. I am not discussing other options such as abortion in this article because that would erupt another fierce argument. My point is about men not stepping up to the plate to take care of their responsibilities and leaving the mothers to wage through this battle alone. This ought not to be. If for any reason two people had sex and the results ended up in pregnancy then there are two people responsible for that act.
This is not an argument about sex outside the sanction of marriage because that is yet another landmine. It appears that the act of sex has been made into something that has been weaponized both inside and outside of marriage. Rather than being used as a beautiful act of love, it is used as a bartering tool. It has been used as one of the oldest professions of mankind as well but again… another landmine. I wanted to state all the obvious objections first because what this essay is about and what it is not about could be taken well out of its intent. When I speak about a band of brothers, or brotherhood, I speak of a camaraderie that is beneficial to those who share much in common.
Back in the early 2000s, I had this idea to draw men together in discussion groups in order to talk about the issues we were facing in common. There can be no question that the roles men are portraying in society today has changed and is ever-changing because of all the current movements that pervade social media. Some for good reasons and some not. For centuries males had unchallenged authorities over their counterparts that had little to do with God but much to do with men being the stronger physically of the two so if there was a hand-to-hand battle the average male would have won. However, life is not all about muscles and manpower. Life has many delicacies that require other measures of whit, intuition, compassion, mental fortitude, and other qualities that have little to do with brute strength. In fact there are many qualities where females have a distinct advantage. However, throughout the years most of society’s functions were centered upon male domination qualities, females were relegated to being the smart ones that speak less publically.
That was then but we are no longer in such a society. I did not set the rules but I do freely see what has been in place since forever. Those days are gone! Males no longer have that brute power advantage over females. Most married men will acknowledge who the boss really is but they would have to make you promise not to tell anyone. If you are one of the lucky ones who survived marriage for a number of years you learned that the battle between the sexes never was about who was the smartest.
I remember years ago reading a great book called, Men are from Mars, Women are from Venus. That book really spelled it out for me and since then I get it. We are different by design and we should learn to take advantage of our unique differences rather than challenge each other. Typically men are warriors and they want to beat their chest and say they won. Even if they won the battle in most relationships, they most certainly lost the war. If mama ain’t happy… you know the drill.
Now, I said all that upfront so I can get to the heart of the matter I wish to speak about. There is a brotherhood among most males that have been lost behind all the social media movements. The average male doesn’t know how to deal with this because if you say the wrong thing or look at a person the wrong way, or if you are attracted by how certain females carry themselves… you could be in trouble. I don’t understand why females go through all the trouble of being so attractive if they do not want to be acknowledged for attracting attention to them??? Never mind! I hear you already!
My point of writing the book about Real Men was to get men to understand the unique roles that were designed by our Creator. The typical role of the provider and protectors of the family unit is still there but not in the same way as it once was interpreted. In today’s society, women have higher educational degrees on average and thereby are more qualified to secure higher-paying jobs. If earning money qualifies for being the provider then perhaps when your mate has the ability to earn more “Benjamin(s),” the male might want to learn how to do more around the home and spend more time raising the children. This is not to reduce the role of motherhood but to adjust the needs of society with the needs of family responsibility. A mother’s role cannot be replaced but the way we were accustomed to dealing with females never was correct. Women were and still are abused, held back, and not paid equally for doing the very same jobs as their male counterparts. That has to change. In time, it will because all those educational degrees will put more women in the top positions of businesses, and then let’s see where the cards fall.
In our discussion groups almost 20 years ago we discovered that our roles as males were not what we were taught by society. Marriage was not what we thought it was. Our roles as fathers were not the same. Being head of the household was not certain. Raising children was really hard work. And, dealing with marriage and marital issues was really, really tough. In essence, life had changed under us and if we did not make certain adjustments we would be left dangling in the wind. Do you ever wonder why so many marriages end up in divorce? It is because society never adjusted to the new norms. There were no classes where people could learn of the changes so people, both males, and females, struggled with the laws of change. More broken marriages, more children losing a parent, a weaker family structure, and to what gain? All were the results of society not adjusting to the laws of change.
Once both males and females discuss how life has changed right under us and everyone understands the new ground rules then life would be healthier again because the conflict would essentially be over. Couples should make concessions around what is best for the family. It should not be about sexism and just about sex but about striving to achieve common goals, raise children, and strengthen the modern family.
My point was to have males get together in discussion groups so we could speak openly about our most concerning issues. Although females naturally get together to speak of their common issues openly, males do not as a rule. It was considered to be weak if you admitted to having problems that you could not handle. If you were not the “man” of the family you would be considered weak. The only problem was, no one taught you what it meant to be a real man. The image we were used to imitating came from television characters. That is not how real life works and yet we were still trying to imitate make-believe television images. If you tried to copy that role at home and it did not work many marriages crumbled, mainly because of the lack of knowledge. They don’t teach this stuff in common public schools. How do you learn about the new roles of parenting and make adjustments towards where society has grown today?
The results of our male bonding meetings were astonishing. We learned that we had so many issues in common that were almost identical. But, since we never spoke openly about such things we did not share how to handle our common issues. In our discussion groups, we learned that our roles as males were not based upon real-life but upon some fantasy world that had nothing to do with real life. That image was created on a movie set! When the director called “that’s a rap,” the actors would pack up and go home. In life, you can’t call “cut” and pack up and go home because you are having problems in the home where you live. The only option was to leave home if it got too hot or chaotic, which more males chose to do. Had they known about real relationship techniques, or real responsibilities and defining how a family should operate as a unit, it would have been much different because this whole notion of macho-ism would be put into its rightful place.
From the baby boomer generation until the Gen-X generation of today is like the space between Mars and Venus. If someone is trying to live as those males did back then they are almost as extinct as dinosaurs.
So this band of brothers I mentioned is all about males coming together and discussing all the changes that are here today and adjusting their understanding of things towards reality and not towards television roles that never were real. We are not at war between the sexes, but at war with change itself. Women should be treated with the highest and greatest of respect and given credit for actually holding society together as males were trying to kill each other in macho wars. If there were no wars to fight what are males to do? God forbid they actually had to go home and have intelligent conversations with the wife and children. If you had a band of brothers they would tell you how that is done but the youngsters of today are still trying to play the roles that did not work then, and they most definitely will not work now!
What would males do without females? What would females do without males? Is that a society that you want to live amongst? I don’t get this battle of the sexes! God did not make a mistake when He created both males and females so we need to figure out how to take advantage of what He intentionally made. We are better together than we think we are divided. This band of brothers is all about males helping each other to become better at our newly defined roles for the benefit of society. Selah!
