Men are Disposable

We always have been, but is it still necessary?

The role of the man has always been to protect women and children in order to ensure the continuity of the human race. From birth, men are trained to ready themselves for an early grave and to not care about their own well-being. First, we’ll talk about the history of this phenomenon, then we’ll talk about why it is important for the human race, and finally, we’ll ponder its usefulness in today’s society.

Historical Roles of Man and Woman

Men are larger and more aggressive than women. Duh. Women are physically weaker and seemingly more nurturing than men. When these traits are evident, what roles do you apply to which gender? The man would perform physical, risky work like hunting large game and/or labor-intensive agriculture.

The woman, who is weaker but more empathetic, would raise children, handle affairs of the home, and nurse men back to health when they were injured. It seems pretty straightforward and, biologically, makes a lot of sense. But what about danger?

Millions of years ago, danger was everywhere. The more dangerous an area was, the more necessary and valued men became. The male population in these tribes was much lower because of high rates of death and/or injury. Because men died more often, men often led the tribes (patriarchy). This is also why polygyny was an accepted practice, and in some cultures, still is.

Biology acknowledges this fact — that men die more because they are supposed to. This why more boys are birthed than women in every country in the world. This has been true since they began tracking these numbers. This is by design and reinforces the truism that men were created to die for their families.

As humans began to fan out, and as tribes grew larger, defending against the elements became less dangerous. Tribes then became less dependent on machismo, masculinity, and brute strength to see them through to the next generation.

This led to a more egalitarian and promiscuous group. But, as our tribes grew in size, so did other tribes. As a result of the consumption of space, competition for resources, and groups pushing into other groups’ territory, the idea of private property reared its ugly head.

With private property came the need for security, and with security required additional resources, which led to a hierarchy and apportionment of sorts. Given the competitive nature of men, the property disputes ultimately led to wars, which required the lives of men, which ultimately led to patriarchy coming back.

Because of this, it was still vital to communities that men be willing to sacrifice themselves to protect women and children, and now, private property.

Before we continue, I’d like to point out that much of the third-wave argument deals with the issues of hierarchy, private property, and, I’d argue, the capitalist mindset. Machismo and manliness are simply the most obvious things for them to point at. But, this is outside the scope of the article, so I digress.

Men Learn to Value Themselves Less From Birth

From birth, men are treated less valuable than women and they always have been. One man can impregnate hundreds of women, but a woman can only produce one baby roughly every year (which is more likely to be another male). Historically, without the protection of a man, women would have had difficulty protecting themselves and their children. But because men died so often, it was sometimes the case that a tribe lost completely and would be overtaken by another.

This is also why women may have biological responses to rape that protect them in the event their tribe falls to another.

The British Psychological Society has a study where males and females would listen to “14 two-minute audio recordings … [that] varied in whether or not a sexual encounter occurred between a man and a woman … and whether or not the activities were consensual.”

They found men were aroused more by consensual, non-violent encounters whereas women were more uniformly aroused by all of the scenarios. They believe this is a biological response to prepare women for rape by ensuring their genitalia is lubricated to prevent injury.

The sample sizes were very small and other parts of the study definitely need work, but these findings have been consistent in studies of similar testing. Also, rape victims are twice as likely to get pregnant: Gottschall. In fact, rape may induce ovulation in women: Tarin, Hamatani & Cano.

My theory is that this is a biological function of women to ensure the survival of their children and themselves. It is more likely a conquering tribe would bring a woman into their tribe as a participant, rather than a slave, should she be carrying one of the tribesman’s children. I have no study to cite here, but it makes sense. Simmer down, folks — it’s just a thought.

Okay, enough rape talk. Back to the valueless meat-shields.

When raising children, men and women treat girls and boys differently. The majority of women claim to treat both children equally, but a recent study showed that more emotion words were used with daughters vs sons.

In this study, Dads were also found to be more emotional towards daughters and more stoically-driven with sons.

Both parents participate in this subtle gender-defining treatment because, biologically, in order to be men, they must shove their emotions and feelings to the side. Why?

Because men are designed to sacrifice themselves in order to protect the woman and child. To be successful at defending their progeny, mates, and community, men cannot hesitate or be wrecked by emotion. They must react, without a care for themselves, and deal with the fallout later. This is now being interpreted as men being careless, stupid, or violent. Perhaps it is, but this is driven by our biology.

Women are reared in such a way to love and nurture the man and the children so that the man will make a full recovery upon injury, because once he is trained from day 1 to “suck it up” he values his health less than a woman values hers. This impulse to love and nurture is to ensure that the family is safe — if the male is alive, he can live to die another day. This is now interpreted as “we do EVERYTHING for men and they do nothing for us in return!”

Men’s function is to die for, and provide for, their women and children. If that’s nothing, then what is something? Again, this is biology-driven and not fully applicable in “civilized” society, but it is what it is.

It’s No Longer Necessary, Is It?

The modern feminist movement claims women have been tormented and mistreated for centuries. They feel controlled by men, dictated to by men, and given no outcomes beyond what ‘patriarchy’ decides. So they fought for equality and won. By law, in the United States, women are equal to men. But, men are still not as valued as women are by law. Take the draft, for example. Men can be drafted — women cannot (this may change). There is a biological pushback for men to see their women on the front lines, fighting. It isn’t that men are being sexist but there is an innate wrongness for asking women to fight like a man because that steals our role as meat shields for you.

Sorry to break it to the feminists, but a woman’s life has ALWAYS been valued more than a man’s life. Men have been killing themselves for you and your children forever. Men destroy their health, their backs, and their body to provide for women, children, and their community.

Men are 10x more likely to die at work than women. In every human population on Earth, the male life expectancy is shorter than a woman’s. In fact, all mammalian species where the male is larger than the female, the life expectancy of the male is lower.

Is there a push to fix the issue of men dying in unequal numbers at work? Is there legislation on the horizon to address this issue? No. But the moment women are at risk, society jumps at an opportunity to save them. Here’s an example of that: a law was passed to “support States in their work to save and sustain the health of mothers during pregnancy, childbirth, and in the postpartum period.”

This legislation was created and passed within one year of a man who lost his wife during childbirth. Yet men keep dying all the time from homicide, gun violence, work-related injuries, and poor health.

Where’s the push to save men? There isn’t, because men are disposable in our society. Women are not.

But is the view that men are to sacrifice themselves for women still relevant today? Should we train men, from birth, to value their health and relevance less than women? Should we continue to teach boys that their emotions and physical issues are less important than girls? Probably.

The Difference in the Male Role Today

The main difference between our society today and the society of yesteryear is that there is no impending disaster for tribes — at least in the US — that would warrant the need for human meat-shields to protect women. As a result, we’ve experienced something of a Kumbaya moment where the roles of men are forgotten.

Nothing has recently occurred that would result in men suffering large casualties — like war — to the level that society would begin to notice. But just because it hasn’t happened, doesn’t mean that it won’t happen.

Men are, for the most part, still trained to be disposable. But because their sacrifices haven’t been readily apparent over the last fifty-plus years, men are no longer appreciated for their natural role.

Manhood and manliness used to be valued and even celebrated, both by women and men, but that is no longer true (for the most part). It is criticized, looked down on, and shamed.

Women no longer push to truly care for the men that offer their lives for the continuation of a female’s life. It is true that there are a lot of women today that still value manhood, but it is also true that third-wave feminism — even though we are legally equal — is pushing, not to only train new generations differently, but to force already-trained sacrificial lambs to be something they aren’t and cannot be: emasculated meatbags with a penis.

I believe this will eventually rectify itself with the next major war and/or depression. When war/depression threatens our women and children causing male deaths to increase — and resources to become scarcer — the arguments against masculinity will have far less value and impact. The role of manliness and manhood will rise again given the necessity to protect our women, children, and communities.

Biologically-speaking, women are geared towards self-preservation and preservation of their progeny, but they are not physically as capable or aggressive as men to fight off all dangers. This is why men are here. We aren’t being sexist either — biology is.

So the next time you, as a woman, wish your husband would open up emotionally, remember that we were born this way. Men and women are born to train our boys to be this way. We have to do this in order to forget about our inevitable demise for your safety.

We have been created, taught, and treated as disposable beings here to serve the family unit’s continuity. We are your protectors. We are your providers. We always have been, and always will be. It is okay that you scream hatred towards us and try to humiliate us by creating buzzwords and hashtags. It’s okay because it is our role as men. Even when you hate us, we’ll still protect you. We promise.