Toxic Masculinity–and the Power of a Great Dad: Nancy Pearcey

As a little girl, I looked up to my dad so much.

I was the youngest of four. But I can remember being scared of the dark, and I ran into my parents' bedroom. And I would snuggle in between my mom and dad. And I remember my dad would put his arm around me, and I would feel so protected. And then my little head would move into his rib, and I could feel and hear his heartbeat. And I felt so cared for and protected. I loved my mom. I had a great relationship with my mom. But there's something about my dad that made me feel safe. And I always wanted his attention.

I wanted to be seen by him because he was so important to me. Today, you know, we've been talking for the last couple of days about sort of toxic masculinity. And we've got Nancy back who's declared war on toxic masculinity.

Nancy Pearcy is back in the studio. And I'm joking, but the title of your book is The Toxic War on Masculinity. And in a sense, you have a fiery spirit in you, college professor. And you've delved into this.

You've got boys. We've talked about the journey men have been through from the colonial age to industrial revolution. Well, let me say this to Nancy, am I right in saying, as you've seen the culture defining and bashing men, and who they are, and how they're so toxic, did you feel like, wait a minute, I feel like you've said that, like, she did kind of go to war against it a little bit? Well, one of the things I think is really tragic is that it overlooks the fact that men and boys are actually falling behind today.

They are doing worse than they did in the past. Boys are falling behind at all levels of education from kindergarten to college. You know, the average college now is 60% female and 40% male. Graduate school, more women than men are going to graduate school, and even professional school. You know, you're the researcher.

Well, let me tell you more the problem. And not just boys, but men. Men are falling behind. Men are much more likely to commit suicide, to be addicted to drug or alcohol, to be both victims and perpetrators of violence.

90% of people in prison are men. Men are falling out of the workplace, by the way. The rate of employment among men today is at Depression-era levels.

Depression-era levels. And we don't know it because they're falling out of the employment statistics. They're not trying to find work anymore. And so they're not counted.

You have to count them other ways. And their life expectancy has gone down, while women's has stayed the same over the last four years or so. There's a publication called The New Scientist that said the major factor in early death now is being male. So this is the irony that while men are being attacked and accused of being toxic, men are actually doing worse today. And if you try to bring any sort of programs that are just geared to men, like Christina Hoff Sommers, who wrote the first book on boys falling behind, she called it The War Against Boys. And she writes, as I tried to get programs for boys, feminist groups would constantly oppose them. They'd say, no, no, you can't help out boys.

We have to help the girls. But as a result, there's no money going into creating programs that are helping men and boys today. So that's the irony of the war. The war on men, quote unquote, is that men are actually doing worse. And perhaps it's partly because they're being accused of being toxic.

That's what I wonder, too. They're losing their confidence. I did quote in my book, a psychiatrist, her name is Erica Commisar, and she writes for The Wall Street Journal. And she said, I am getting more and more young men into my practice who feel defeated because they're growing up in a culture that's so hostile to masculinity. And I'm seeing it in my practice, young men in particular, because they're the ones who grown up with that, with that negative message. So I'm very concerned about boys.

I have two of them. Yeah, and we have three. So even as we read your title, like it's concerning of what's happening not only to boys and men today. So where do you go to say we got to change the narrative? So the biggest long term solution is fathers, fathers being more engaged with their sons. And that's a problem, too, because America has the highest level of single parenthood in the world. Forty percent of children in America are growing up with no contact with their natural father. Forty percent. Forty percent.

And it's the highest in the world. And our media treats fathers as the doofus, the dimwit, you know, the butt of the joke, you know, so much of our movies and so on. So I got into that and I have a whole chapter on fatherhood because we all know that if fathers are not involved with their children, especially their sons, their sons are going to have more trouble in school, more trouble with addiction, more trouble with crime. I used to work for Prison Fellowship, which is an international prison ministry, and we knew all too well that most of the men sitting behind bars are coming from fatherless homes, especially violent criminals. They're coming from fatherless homes. So what do we do about fathers being disrespected and mocked and ridiculed in the media?

Again, everyone knows that, but they don't know where it comes from. And once again, it's the Industrial Revolution. What happened when fathers were no longer working side by side with their children all day, day in, day out? Well, they got out of touch with their children. They got out of touch with their children's needs, their children's personalities and skills and talents. They no longer knew the dynamics in the household. And so already in the 19th century, you see this in the literature. People start mocking fathers and saying, oh, they're so irrelevant.

You know, they're so incompetent. What are they good for anyway? Actually, that's from a novel that was written in the 19th century. One of the characters said, I can't figure out what fathers were made for anyway. So you start to see this denigration of fathers just because they're not there. And so they're not integrated into the family the way they used to be. And so the long term solution has got to be fathers. There's a psychiatrist, Frank Pittman, who says we're not going to turn out a better men until we have better fathers, better fathers raising them. I do have an entire chapter in the book on, well, what does that look like practically? Like you said, we can't undo the Industrial Revolution.

So what do we do? So I do have a whole chapter on men who found ways to be more flexible in their job, find ways to work two days at home or start a home business. I have one person I interviewed who just left early, left at 4.30, two days a week to coach his son's basketball and soccer. And his boss gave him a hard time and told him he was coasting, but it did not end up hurting his job. And when his sons grew up, they say we want to be a dad like you, which is a whole lot better than any workplace award.

Yeah. I'll give you one story from the pandemic, too, because the pandemic has helped a lot of men discover, hey, I actually like being closer to my family. The New York Times had an article where the title was, during the pandemic, many fathers got closer to their children and they don't want to lose that. I see that. I love that title.

Me too. Another survey said 65 percent of men don't want to work full time in the office anymore. They want to be at least part time home. And one of my students, her husband was an IT professional who came home during the pandemic. And being home, he was able to be more involved with the homeschooling. He was able to take the kids to soccer. He decided he would do lunch every day.

He would take that on. He made lunch for the family every day. His wife, who was my student, she was an opera singer. She started a voice studio and the whole family benefited from the additional income. And when I interviewed her husband, this was the crowning point. He said the time that he used to spend commuting every morning, he now spends praying with his wife.

And he said, I'm never going back to a cubicle. So it sounds like anything a man can do to be able to navigate his job, to possibly spend more time at home, is definitely beneficial. And millennials want that. I read a really cool article with a survey showing millennials want to share both the bread winning and the caretaking in a little bit more even way. I like that they're doing this.

I think it's good for the kids, too. Well, I mean, I think I'm old enough to live through several decades of watching men and work. And there is a time I'm glad to hear this because it's changing. There was a time where if you saw a man in your neighborhood at two in the afternoon or dropping off the kids, you thought, what's wrong? He's not a man. He doesn't have a job. One of my best friends, Rob, lost his job in Michigan when 15 years, 20 years ago, and didn't have a job for maybe three months. And he told me, one of my best friends, he goes, you know, I love that I get to walk now in the afternoon with my wife.

He goes, I literally was self-conscious that people are looking at me saying he's a loser. He doesn't have a job thinking that the only way a man can work is leave the home, go to an office, go to a work site and then come home at dinnertime or later. And what you're saying is that that whole paradigm is shifting in a good way.

That is a good thing. There's different ways to work. A little silver lining in this pandemic is that a lot of men discovered that they really did like being home more. I know that it's sort of anecdotal at this point in the sense that you can't say, well, here's some general principles.

All you can do is give stories. So that chapter, I just have lots and lots of stories of men who found ways to be more flexible in their jobs and who found that it did strengthen their family relationships enormously. Well, I'm remembering because Dave was a pastor and his schedule was somewhat flexible. He would come early, home early some days. And without a doubt, if it's the summer in Michigan, he's outside and soon as the kids in the neighborhood see that Dave's outside with our three boys, every boy on the block is in our front yard because he knows Mr. Wilson's outside, we're going to play some game that's going to be a blast. But sometimes we would say we're the only parents out there like, where are all the parents? Like, let's play and be with our kids. And I'm not kidding, 13-year-olds would knock on our front door and not ask our younger children to come out and play. They would say, hey, can Mr. Wilson come out and play ball? We're playing like down the street.

Can he come with us? And it was pretty sweet. But it also showed me they want to be with him.

They want to be with a man. You were always encouraging boys. Well, the other side of that story is their dads weren't available. Yes, yes. And, you know, you talk about in your book, the fatherless boys, they were either working or they had left.

There weren't home. And it's something that the church, I think, needs to think more clearly about, you know, how do we have a ministry to fatherless boys? I think that should be a top level ministry for churches because father substitutes can have a tremendous impact.

Church youth group leaders and youth pastors. And I have some anecdotes on that, too, a man I talked to who coaches rugby, I think it was, a somewhat unusual sport. He coaches rugby and he said, I'm doing it for my kid.

But you know what? I'm doing it for all these other kids, too, because so many of these kids, these boys don't have a father in the home. And he said, I'm doing it as a ministry to these boys. Yeah, one of the reasons I coach high school football for 12 years is to be with my boys.

That was actually motivation number one. I want to be there. They're going to be there. I'm a football guy.

I have a background, so maybe I can be on the field with them. But as they left, I stayed. And it was that. I was like, most of these boys in this high school don't have a dad in their home or they don't have a good model for a dad in their home. And I knew every day as I walked down to the practice field, I prayed and said, God, use me as a dad and a model in these young men's lives.

They don't have a model. They don't even know what a dad looks like or feels like. I get to be a representative of you to these boys to show them what a man is. And your last chapter, the power of a man. Not that women don't have power. You have incredible power. But there's a uniqueness that God has put in us as men, as husbands and dads.

We can impact not just the family, but a whole community. What's interesting to me is that even non-Christians see this. There's one non-Christian historian who writes, a culture's view of manhood derives from the view of God. And he said, take the polytheistic religions.

Here's his language. They fought, they winched, and they elevated military power. So polytheistic religions, think of the ancient Greek gods or the Norse gods.

To be a man is to be a warrior. And he said, well, there's some truth to that, but it's incomplete. So he says, what about monotheistic religions? Well, some monotheistic religions treat God as completely transcendent, separate.

For example, Islam. God does not have relationship with people. I actually quote a Muslim who says the very idea that God would condescend to have a relationship with mere mortals is repugnant.

That's how he put it. It's repugnant to Islam. So that view of God emphasizes power, you know, authority, the guy on top. Then he said, the same historian says, now Judaism comes along. And Judaism is monotheistic, but God does have a relationship with people. God has a covenant relationship with his people. So God is a father, a loving father. To be a man in Judaism is to be a loving father. Then he says, Christianity came along. And within Judaism, he said, but Christianity complexified the view of manhood because Jesus comes as a servant leader.

I come not to be served, but to serve. And he says, all of a sudden, character traits with thought to be more feminine become appropriate for men, like gentleness and love and forgiveness and compassion. And he said, Christianity gave rise to a much more full-orbed, balanced view of men than any other religion.

So I thought this was fascinating. Christianity calls men to be whole, not to be chopped off, you know, just certain stereotypes, but to be whole persons made in God's image, reflecting the whole personality of God. And that even a non-Christian could see the difference that Christianity makes.

That's beautiful. I mean, as you ladies think of a title for God, which one comes to your mind first? I mean, he's king, he's creator, he's the king of kings, the Lord of lords, he's father, Jesus was a son. I mean, does any one of those come like, this is the one I resonate with the most? I go for father.

That's what I thought would be true. Well, I think part of that, like, if you would have asked me this years ago, years and years ago, I would have probably looked at the God of the Old Testament different than the Jesus of the New Testament. And I could have seen the God of the Old Testament as being a little scary and judgmental. I don't think I had a good context of who he was. And so when Jesus says, when you've seen me, you've seen the Father, all of a sudden I'm like, oh, now I'm seeing the goodness of God and I'm seeing the Father piece. Yeah, I would say Father too now. But back in the day, I was a little scared of God, but I was like, I'd hang out with Jesus. And it's because of some of the old pain and the wounds that I had and the unworthiness that I felt before God.

I thought that he would smote me. And let me expand our scope a little bit too on how the Christian view of God has an impact in other cultures. Because in my book, Toxic War, I focus mostly on America because you've got to put limits so the book gets too big. But I did put some findings from other cultures because it was just so amazing. The cultures like South America, there was one anthropologist who studied Colombia, for example, a very secular person, and she expected to go in and find that the impact of Christianity would be to make men more patriarchal and more domineering. She found the opposite.

She was so stunned. She said, no, no, no, it's machismo culture. It's the general secular culture that teaches men it's OK to ignore your family, that you become a man because you're out there gambling and fighting. When a man becomes an evangelical Christian, he takes all his money and invests it in his family. And the family experiences a higher standard of living.

The whole family benefits because the father becomes engaged with his family. Here's how she put it. She said, Christianity is the best women's movement.

Jesus was, yes. And there was the even larger study done by a British anthropologist. She went beyond Colombia. She went through into Africa as well and Asia. And she found the same thing. Bernice Martin, I think, is her name. I don't know how you remember all of her stuff.

I am amazed at this. But she said the same thing. She said, it's not liberal Christian groups that have helped women. It's these, quote unquote, backward, unsophisticated evangelicals who've helped women more than any other group. And she, too, said if there's anything that can be called an international women's movement, she said evangelical Christianity is it. I was telling you earlier about a New York Times columnist, too, who wrote the book Half the Sky. It's a bestseller, so maybe some people in our audience will have heard of it.

Half the Sky. He, too, says it's the Christian groups that help the poor more than any other group. They'll go out and really help these women. In the book, they say it's Christianity that has helped so many women be able to counter the alcoholism, the adultery, the other sort of traditional male vices in these cultures. They get the church supporting them. That's how he puts it. He's not a Christian.

But the church helps them, in a sense, pull men out of that secular culture into the church culture where they focus on their families, to coin a phrase. I remember an actress on a show that we used to watch decades ago. So I knew who she was because I liked the show. And I remember reading this quote in a magazine that she said she was asked if she was a Christian. And she says, I was at one time as a child, but I'm not anymore because of what Jesus did to women. That was her quote. And I remember, this is before social media, today I would direct message her.

You know, if I could have gotten a hold of her, but I would have said, that can't be true. If you understood what Jesus did to women in that culture, you would not make a statement like that. He elevated women. He celebrated.

He put them in. It's crazy to study, you know, as well as anybody, what he meant for women in that time. And as I think about that, I think that's what women should feel now when we, evangelical men, live out our faith.

They should feel seen and worthy and alive because we're not toxic. We are the best thing that ever happened because we copy and we live as Jesus did. Yes, so I do have a section in my book on how Jesus treated women. But it's also helpful to ask, well, where did the misconceptions come from?

And there's two major places. Genesis 1, where it says Eve was created, woman was created to be a help. And we tend to think help means like the assistant.

He does the really important stuff and she's the little assistant. I struggled with that when I was younger and I thought, well, maybe I'm getting that term wrong. And so I looked it up in the Webster's dictionary and it said, a gopher, a person who does the dirty work, someone important tells them what to do. So obviously, when God created a woman and he said the word helper, that's not what he had in mind. We have to go back to the Hebrew, first of all.

Yes. Webster's is not going to help you. Exactly. In the Hebrew, it's pronounced azer. And in the Old Testament, it is used most often of God when it's ever present help in trouble. So clearly, it does not indicate an inferior subordinate person. The word itself does not mean that. And it's in some male names like Ebenezer, Eliezer. Hebrew fathers would not give their sons names that meant they were weak. Or less than.

Or less than. So the word itself, I think it's very important that we explain the word azer means an ally, someone who comes to your side and helps you when you're in trouble. Thank you, Nancy, for all you're doing. Well, thank you for having me. I appreciate it.

I'm Shelby Abbott. You've been listening to Dave and Ann Wilson with Nancy Piercy on Family Life Today. Here in just a second, we're going to hear Ann reflect on this conversation, what it meant to her and how Nancy's time with Dave and Ann was so impactful to her. But first, we wanted to let you know that Nancy has written a book called The Toxic War on Masculinity. How Christianity reconciles the sexes.

A lot of people ask the question, how did this idea arise that masculinity is dangerous and destructive? Well, Nancy talks about that in her book, and she talks about also, more importantly, how to fix it. This book is going to be our gift to you when you partner with us financially. You can go online to familylifetoday.com or give us a call with your donation at 800-358-6329.

And feel free to drop us something in the mail if you'd like. Our address is Family Life 100 Lakehart Drive, Orlando, Florida, 32832. As I was thinking about men and leading and loving in the home, the picture that came to my mind, when we were in Israel and we attended a Shabbat dinner, and with an Orthodox Jewish family, and it was, it was beautiful. And when the woman, the mother of the children, and the wife lit the candles, which is a place of honor, the husband stood up and then he read from the Torah, or we would call it Proverbs, and he would stand up and he'd say, a wife of noble character, who can find? And he would lay his hands on his wife, and he would kiss her, and then he would bless her. And then he would turn to each one of his children, and he would bless them and speak life to them. And as I looked at that picture of our Heavenly Father, of saying, this is what a man does.

He looks at his wife, he blesses her, he sees his children, he blesses them, he protects them, he lays down his life for them. And Dave, I feel like you've done that. Like I feel like you've always done that to me. You've done a really good job of that. Like you have blessed me, you honor me, you talk so highly about me, and you've done that for the boys. You lay down your life every day for us.

And so there might be some toxic masculinity, but our evangelical men that are walking with Jesus, that are seeking him, they're the ones that are representing Jesus and the church in a beautiful way and to the families. It's marking us and it's making a difference. Don't give up, men. You're doing it.

So some people ask the question, maybe verbally or mostly in their head, what does a strong sex life hinge on? Well, we're going to talk about that tomorrow as Dave and Anne are joined by Julie Slattery. That's tomorrow. We hope you'll join us. On behalf of Dave and Anne Wilson, I'm Shelby Abbott. We'll see you back next time for another edition of Family Life Today. Family Life Today is a donor supported production of Family Life, a crew ministry, helping you pursue the relationships that matter most.