It’s tough to be a man these days. Any woman reading this will no doubt roll her eyes, but hear me out. I’m not an incel, a MGTOW malcontent or a right-wing blowhard. I don’t blame women or feminists or liberals for the manly plights of this modern age. I’m just sayin’…It’s tough to be a man these days.
Many would have us believe things were better in the not-so-distant past, when our identity as men was clearly defined by genitalia and gender roles. When a cock and balls made you a man by default, and a man behaved like a man. He was the breadwinner and the head of the household.
But even in those simpler times, it was never quite as simple as that. There has always been more to manliness than a hard-on. It wasn’t just your penis and your place in society that defined you. It was how you fulfilled the role. If you didn’t walk the walk, you weren’t really a man. You were either a blowhard or a coward. And if you didn’t pull your own weight in the world, you weren’t a man, you were just a boy. You could pack eight inches in your jockey shorts, but if all you had was a pecker, you still didn’t measure up.
But somewhere along the way, we’ve lost track of something essential. We’ve lost the substance of manliness and replaced it with bombast and image. Of course, image was always a thing, even in the good old days. Think of John Wayne. Manliness personified in a movie role. He could play a cowboy or a cavalry officer or a Green Beret. But he never went to war or stood up to the likes of Liberty Valence for real. He just hit his marks and spoke his lines for the camera. It was role play and movie magic. Underneath the cowboy hat, there was a toupee, and under that was the real John Wayne, whose birth name was Marion Robert Morrison. He was an actor by trade, and the business of playing a hero in the movies was a workaday job that gave him the means to support his family. That was the real man, the man beneath the wig and the makeup, not the archetypal hero he played onscreen.
For most men of that era, that’s what being a man was all about — the day-to-day grind of bringing home the bacon, something a man did just because it was expected. That, and being a role model for the kids…and now, there’s the rub. At the risk of sounding like a culture warrior, role models are the reason it’s so damn hard to be a man these days.
It’s not that we don’t have role models, but the role models we have leave much to be desired. Don’t blame John Wayne. He tried. He really did. Granted that he didn’t always know how to treat a lady…You know, you’re awful pretty when your mad…but he was always protective, and he always stood up for the underdog. Standing up to bullies used to be a manly thing to do. But these days, it seems, manly men don’t stand up to bullies. They ARE the bullies. It’s not about sticking up for someone, it’s about sticking it to someone. Apparently, a man stands taller if he’s standing on someone’s neck.
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And not only that, but it’s fine and dandy to brag about it, too. It used to be that a real man didn’t brag. If you grew up when I did, then maybe your old dad set the standard, and went about his business without a lot of fanfare. He might have reminded you from time to time that it was his house and his rules because he was paying the way, but most likely, he wasn’t saying that to brag. How sad it would have been to sit at the dinner table and listen to Dad blow his own horn. It wasn’t manly then, but now, the supposedly manliest “Man of the Year” brags pathetically while adoring fans cheer.
Is it any wonder that women nowadays prefer the bear in the woods? Especially since the current trend is to confuse gall for guts and equate a lack of shame for a set of balls? How is it that people have come to think that being a dick is the prerogative of anyone who has a dick? This is the problem. People confuse dominance with aggression and think it’s “manly” to be an asshole. We don’t have “men” these days. We have assholes and dicks.
I think of Paula Cole’s lyrics…
Where is my John Wayne?
Where is my prairie song?
Where is my happy ending?
Where have all the cowboys gone?
Where is my Marlboro Man?
Where is his shiny gun?
Where is my lonely ranger?
Where have all the cowboys gone?
…and I echo the question, where have all the cowboys gone? I survey the mediascape, and all I can see is John Wayne with a bug up his ass or the Marlboro Man with hemorrhoids, sitting painfully in the saddle and complaining because, let’s face it, women of this technological era are proving themselves as capable as men in the breadwinning game. Women have earned their place at the table, even in what used to be the exclusive domain of men, the “man’s jobs” that were once denied to women categorically. Now, women can be firefighters and cops and helicopter pilots and corporate CEOs. A guy looking for a man’s job now might find a woman has beat him to it. As I said…It’s tough to be a man these days. And maybe a little tougher yet when the better man for the job turns out to be a woman.
It won’t help to blame it on DEI. Or the leftists, the liberals, the feminists, whatever… Scapegoating won’t change reality, nor will slut-shaming throw the calendar back to 1950. Your body, my choice? Dream on, boys. The MAGA man talks the talk, but my money is on the women in the long run. Today’s political climate won’t keep them down.
Women know their value as human beings. They know they don’t have to settle for a meal ticket when they can buy the kitchen. Nor do they have to pretend to be impressed when you pose with your M-16 on social media. They’ll pass you by because they know a boy with a toy when they see one. They’ll opt for a man who knows how to use his tools, not a man who acts like one, a man who can hammer and drill over a man who just shoots.
Yes, it’s a tough time to be a man, but when was it ever not? But maybe now is the time to face the mirror and take a hard look. Is it really a man looking back, or a boy posing for a selfie in the Xbox window of a social media zoo? And remember this as well… Unless you’re a dog, you don’t leave your mark on the world just by pissing on the wall. Yes, it’s tough to be a man these days, but that’s always been the case. It’s always been tough to be a man of substance.
©Michael D. Jones 3/12/2025
