Masculinity crisis

2026-02-15 - 02:10

The masculinity crisis is one marked by a pernicious interplay between present and absent factors—the presence of morally obscene, mentally corrosive messages in digital media; the presence and perpetuation of mindsets that glorify violence and womanising; the absence of ideologically sound fathers in the home; and the absence of influence that encourages discipline rather than degeneracy—and strength rather than weakness. Manhood has long been erroneously associated with the coming of a certain age. On the contrary, even a brief glimpse of Trinidad’s society today immediately paints a conversely sordid reality—there exist multitudes of fully grown, adult boys of the age, but not of the maturity, frame of mind or disposition of true men. They possess responsibility without capacity, power without character and influence without essence. As a society, we often fail to effectively trace the complex correlation between cause and effect. Inasmuch as our situation may be dire, it was not wrought overnight. Internal destruction often comes subtly and gradually, disguised by Trojan horses. Allow me to beseech your contemplation here; if you were to deface and mangle the fabric of masculinity in a society, how would you do it? Well, I’ll tell you what, whatever it is that your imagination conceives, there are principalities and powers today that are already far ahead of you. For instance, how exactly do you move a man to resort to an act as pathetic as theft? Well, it’s simple; bludgeon his drive and discipline by surrounding him with outlets that provide instant gratification and immediate but laughably temporary pleasure – albeit at the cost of his physical, mental and spiritual health. Examples include: alcohol, drugs, pornography and thoughtless, casual promiscuity. In order to desensitise him to the self-destructive nature of his habits, bombard him with media online that idealises that lifestyle as something desirable – double down by integrating it into a broader culture so that he is further compelled to fit in with the crowd. This method produces a man who is devoid of all ambition, distracting himself with pleasure for lack of true purpose. As a result, he will become quite accustomed to taking the easy way out —chasing after reward without effort. See where we’re going here? The combination of the aforementioned factors will get men disguising their shameless faces and disgracefully brandishing firearms in no time, robbing others of the fruit of labour they themselves were too weak-minded to perform. These men are nothing but immature boys with seared consciences, fragile egos, and lacklustre development of their self-image through legitimately worthwhile means. Furthermore, what exactly motivates a man to commit an act as atrocious as rape? Surely that man would have to be inherently evil— malevolent from birth—right? Not exactly. To get him to that point, you’d have to first depict women as nothing but sexual objects—means through which the impulsive desires of the flesh can have full reign. To do so, all you have to do is produce music that actively promotes near-animalistic sexual behaviour, mindless frolicking and intoxication—that ought to compel him to indulge in activities that dull his senses, weaken truly meaningful emotional connections and disarm his empathy. You couple that with free-access pornography to incite his senses and inflame his perverse imaginations, and there you have it—a male sufficiently grotesque in his thoughts to consider and perform such crimes. Jonah Boodjarrat is a Mechanical Engineering undergraduate and past national debating champion and judge on Guardian Media’s Make Your Point.