In the book The Decline of Men, Garcia instigates his discussion of the American male’s loss of power precisely at the Burning Man Festival. In an eye-opening exploration of today’s American manhood, Guy Garcia elaborates on how the majority of the men are so much struggling to actually redefine the true meaning of being a man in today’s world is. Packed with informed pop culture and startling statistics and illustrated in the entertaining style for which Guy Garcia is known, he comprehensively sheds light on a problem that has seemingly wreaked havoc on the American family urging both women and men to address this national emergency together by critically looking past their gender wars. Garcia exposes the ugly truth that nearly all men want to put out of sight of this precision but desperately need this weakness elucidated.
Garcia posits that the classic male virtues such as aggression, physical strength, resolve and self-sufficiency that were very useful industrial and agrarian societies are seemingly fading and out of date in the post-modern world where co-operation, networking and communication are paramount. He further argues that women are willfully feminizing men alter their personalities by making them less masculine. As a result, the core is being destroyed and detaching from their masculinity and being as well. In his statement “men aren’t giving up, they are being run over because they are lazy” Garcia argues that men are losing traction in learning institutions especially in high school. Male students have lost their ambition and drive; this translates to women lacking an ideal guy who is not a slacker, loser, cheater or dummy.
In chapter three, Garcia notes that men of every part and stripe of America feel besieged, worried and confused that they have gradually lost their place in the society. They sense the male gender is increasingly dismissed, demonized, is adrift and denigrated by women, media and even by their counterparts, which is just a tip of the iceberg. I definitely second this allegation because today men and boys have taken into indecent habits of playing video games, watching movies and spending most of their time on the internet doing unconstructive work unlike women who have set the social agenda and have a vested interest in constructive tasks for the future (Garcia, 22).
Ostensibly, the American man is in a sorry way, torn between the need to call of the wild and cuddle, “men no longer know their actual role” a statement illustrated in Masculinity in Teen Magazines: The Good, the Bad, and the Ugly (Smiler 117). This statement confers with Garcia’s point that women have overtaken men in various fields and levels and seemingly, women are being educated far more widely and broadly than men primarily of their own ambition and drives. Precisely, Masculinity in Teen Magazines: The Good, the Bad, and the Ugly further charts the rise of changing societal roles of both women and men and the rise of feminism illustrating how men are pretending to be boys, metrosexual obsessions with body image and grooming, gangster culture and that they have erroneously redefined manhood). In addition to that, Garcia explores disturbing trends of men dropping out of college and high school in record numbers and leading socially isolated lives.
Men have literally dominated almost all aspects of American society including journalism and science, business and politics until now. According to the book The End of Men, for the first time in history, women gradually forge ahead while men are stumbling badly, roughly, 57% of all college undergraduates nationally are female which results of the girl-boy ratio tipping past 60-40 in just a few years (Rosin 84). This finding subscribes to Garcia’s account that men are struggling to redefine what it basically means to be a man. Instead of striving to attain their goals by struggling to achieve a promotion at work, most of American men have opted to waste their energy into fancy games such as Grand Theft Auto and mastering football league scores. This finding on modern male attitudes and behavior is both an extension and a validation of Garcia’s eye-opening message which is basically the case today as the majority of the American men are pros in gaming and poor in professional work and studies. On the other hand Thomas Oates in his book The Erotic Gaze in the NFL Draft disagrees with Garcia’s statement “we live in an age where all the strengths that helped us make it out of the caves has made us all but useless in the world we created” (Nakayama 221). Everything a woman might appear to enjoy about a man; flirtation, strength or a relationship is not really seen as erotica, but in all manner a source of fear. He says that nature has really played a big role in refining initial roles of both male and female genders.
The continued decline of men relative to women is inevitable and irreversible. Guy notes that “we just don’t need men anymore” (Garcia 158). This is accrued from the growing consumer power of women who have learned to be financially independent. There are signs everywhere of the fall of men and the rise of women. In my view this whole finding especially the pattern of male decline is part of the broader set of issues and the decline of men is not only the ideal problem but a problem wrapped up with many others. To support this statement, Garcia further projects that the majority of the industries that favor the mental and physical attribute of the male are gradually disappearing or sinking. Apparently, a new trend of women in ten largest cities in the U.S in their 20s, already out-earn men of the same age group is clear. Not to mention that men actually don’t like to talk about their predicaments and problems is a determining factor in changing the alleged game. As he alleges, denial is a river in Egypt, is not to back the whole allegation, instead, it is the starting point of redefining everything and admitting that there is actually an alarming issue to be addressed (Garcia 224).
In conclusion, it is coherent to note that like Garcia states, men really do not want to separate themselves from women, they never have and what come may, they never will. What men actually want is a sense of place, duties that differentiate them from women and most importantly a social role. The assumption that men should want to do the things women used to do is unspoken probably due to the fact that women want to do the things that men used to do. Garcia is correct when he says that the education system is now skewed against men because girls are outperforming boys at school not because they are more skillful at surviving in the diverse world or because they are brighter, but because of the freethinking engineering of state which has with time made it less so to those of boys and more sympathetic to girls’ learning skills. As a societal task I beg to agree with Garcia’s statement that feminism is not to blame for this gradual phenomenon instead, the blame is squarely placed on our patriarchal society. I find Garcia’s argument structurally sound from the fact that men of all ages are becoming increasingly suspicious, angry, isolated and reactionary because women have treated their natural roles without respect. In addition to that, more girls than ever are taking further and higher education which is gradually a natural sequence of generational acceptance of young and intelligent women’s continued emancipation.
Works Cited
Garcia, Guy. The Decline of Men: How the American Male Is Getting Axed, Giving Up, and Flipping Off His Future. New York: Harper Perennial, 2009. Print.
Smiler, Andrew P. Challenging Casanova: Beyond the Stereotype of the Promiscuous Young Male. San Francisco: Jossey-Bass, 2013. Internet resource.
Nakayama, Thomas K, and Rona T. Halualani. The Handbook of Critical Intercultural Communication. Chichester, West Sussex, U.K: Wiley-Blackwell, 2010. Print.
Rosin, Hanna. The End of Men: And the Rise of Women. London: Viking, 2012. Print.
