Pat Stedman | Dating & Relationship Coach for Men@Pat_Stedman
I genuinely believe you are operating in good faith.
But you and all the other conservative, Christian women who get on stage and talk about the problems with men (regardless of how correct you may be) unfortunately do not understand what you are doing isn't only unhelpful, it's inherently contradictory. Rather than solve the problem of male leadership you lament, you in fact underline the cause of it.
Men become leaders for one reason: because a man - either from his own Will or from fate thrusting it upon him - realizes that he must. He notices there is a problem that needs to be solved. He either sees incompetence or a vacuum, and decides he must step forward to either correct or fill it.
A man does not become a leader when he is nagged into it by a woman. A man does not become a leader when the legitimacy of his actions is measured by how much they align with a woman's interests. He does not have authority in such a scenario because his authority is constantly questioned. He has the responsibility of acting and bears the consequences of these actions, but he lacks agency to determine which actions to take. He might be out in front, but he is not a leader - he is a sock puppet. Really, he is a slave.
This is how most women want it, or at least it's what they have been taught is normal and correct. Liberal feminist women do not want men to have any authority and so this undermining is natural and congruent to them. Yet most conservative women in practice operate in the same way, even though they do not align ideologically with feminism. They DO want men to lead. They just want them to lead the way they want them to.
These women think this is OK, and that there is no reason they shouldn't tell men what and how to fix things, because this will help men to lead better. But it does not. What it does - especially for men who have been emasculated all their lives - is it makes them shut down and escape. They realize they don't have authority, so naturally they shirk responsibility. By instructing men you are telling them they are stupid and that you don't trust them to step up on their own. You are mothering: they respond like little boys accordingly.
So what are you supposed to do? You are actually, believe it or not, supposed to get out of the way. You are supposed to create the vacuum - to say "men, we have these problems - can you fix them?" You are supposed to submit and surrender to our judgement and authority, and to trust our competence - not to tell us what to do. You are supposed to believe in us and our latent capability and foresight - you are not supposed to second guess us or argue. And if we make mistakes, which is inevitable, you are supposed to have faith that we will figure things out and course correct.
I understand obviously this submission is scary for most women. It is the fairer sex's big stumbling block: you see it in the discourse on here all the time, the defensive and angry demeanors of women hardened towards life and love. It's unsurprising of course; many women have been disappointed and betrayed by men who have fallen short of their hopes and expectations. Yet while a woman should be judicious in her selection of a man, if she is to ever feel cherished and retain her femininity she still must ultimately give herself up to him. This requires deep trust, and it's why when women choose men in their love lives, they should choose men with vitality and most importantly integrity.
Yet hard as it may be to surrender, if a woman is to remain in essence a woman she must nevertheless find the courage to do it. In the same way that a man is defective if he does not lead, a woman is defective if she does not submit. This is what men mean today when we say "women aren't women anymore." Women like you, Allie, mean well but you do not know how to let go of control. You do not know how to get out of the way. Frankly, you do not know when to shut up.
The good news is that the response men are having towards you shows that men are actually becoming men again. It may still be the early, adolescent rebellious stage against the devouring mother that our society - and yes, our Church - has become. It may at times seem immature and petulant. But it is nevertheless the sign of a masculine spirit stirring: a spirit which is at its core is sovereign, and resists being controlled.
Because the first step of men becoming men again, ironically enough, is when they no longer care about listening to women. That is not because women aren't important to men; women at their best inspire and support us, indeed our growth and strength comes from our need to care for you and please you. It grows from the extent of our responsibility, which masculine men invariably seek out as they gain more authority.
But it does not come from listening to your lectures, which are not only disrespectful but frankly have little value to us - not because you are wrong about us per se, but because when women do not take responsibility for their own behavior, their judgment of us is unearned and becomes irrelevant. This is not sexist; it is also how men treat other men. Masculine men only care about the opinions of men who are in the arena. If you enter the domain of men be prepared to be treated like one.
In the end, if society is fixed it will come down to the men finally stepping up on their own and doing what must be done. Women can help with this, but not in the way they have been doing it. They can only do so by creating the vaccuum for men to step forward more easily. Indeed, the most productive thing conservative women can do with their platforms is to focus their attention on other women, calling out their own sex's vices and entitlement, and encouraging more humility. In other words, to focus on the problems women today have - which are equally manifold - rather than attempting to solve mens'. Men will sort out their own; we already are. What men need are not your exhortations, but your actual faith. And I mean faith in action. Your prayers for us are beautiful, but they come across as empty and self-centered without your surrender.
Not every man will rise to the task when you give him this trust. But most will - far more than most women appreciate - and the performance and courage of men in the West will rise in proportion to the amount of trust their women put in them. The blueprint for manhood is still in us, even if we have forgotten how to follow it. Yet what we require to remember it isn't your advice. It's your belief.
This is the power of feminine energy that has been forgotten by women today, in their foolish and unfruitful quest to be inferior men. They have forgotten that they have the ability to get everything by doing nothing. They are not builders at their core; they are amplifiers. Men naturally create structure, but it's women who create the reason to make it in the first place.
I hope that women rediscover this power in themselves. The West needs as many muses to survive, as it does warriors.
