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This article is part of\u00a0Upstream,<\/a>\u00a0The Daily Wire\u2019s new home for culture and lifestyle. Real human insight and human stories \u2014 from our featured writers to you.<\/em><\/p>\n ***<\/p>\n America spent two decades trying to \u201cfix\u201d masculinity. It nearly broke the country \u2014 and the guys who complained the loudest about it turned out to be the ones with the least ability to fix it. America needs manly men \u2014 not men who are afraid of their masculinity, and not men who only talk about it.<\/span><\/p>\n Let me back up. <\/span>In 2000, Christina Hoff Sommers published \u201c<\/span>The War Against Boys<\/span>,\u201d documenting how American schools had begun treating normal male behavior as something to be diagnosed and medicated. A seven-year-old was suspended for pointing a pencil like a gun at his friend. A boy in California was punished for running during recess and nearly suspended for jumping over a bench. Schools banned tag and dodgeball. Boys were five times more likely to be expelled from preschool than girls and accounted for 70% of suspensions \u2014 not for anything dangerous, but for roughhousing, defiance, and being loud. Instead of addressing the gap, institutions doubled down, remaking classrooms around female learning styles. They criminalized the \u201cbad guy\u201d play that men have channeled into building civilizations since the dawn of time. Almost nobody listened to Sommers, or they mocked her. For over a decade, the project to dismantle masculinity stayed contained in academia, slowly working its way through education policy like a parasite.<\/span><\/p>\n Then it broke containment. <\/span>By 2015, the national psychedelic trip we now refer to as \u201cwokeism\u201d was reaching its crescendo, and men \u2014 specifically straight, traditional men \u2014 were its favorite target. \u201cToxic masculinity\u201d migrated from academic journals to Thanksgiving dinner. \u201cMen are trash\u201d became something people said at brunch without flinching. \u201cMansplaining\u201d entered the lexicon. Gillette released an ad lecturing its own customers about the sins of manhood. No razors, just shame. Hollywood gender-swapped \u201cGhostbusters\u201d and sidelined Luke Skywalker for a new female lead. In 2019, the American Psychological Association issued guidelines pathologizing \u201ctraditional masculinity\u201d as harmful. The message from every direction was the same: Manhood was broken, and women would fix it.<\/span><\/p>\n I had a front row seat as a columnist for Playboy, the most famous men\u2019s magazine in the world, from 2015 to 2017 \u2014 the exact moment it stopped knowing how to talk to men. The organization was paralyzed by fear and overrun with young liberal women and gay men, which rendered it incapable of meeting the moment. Everything about the brand signaled apology. Playboy should have held the line. It was a wide-open lane. Instead, it followed every other men\u2019s magazine in the same direction: less for the man\u2019s man, more for the gay man and queer woman. Had it doubled down on unapologetically speaking to red-blooded American men, it could have led a renaissance. Instead, it chose surrender.<\/span><\/p>\n And in the space created when the culture forced men to be small, scummy opportunists filled the void. We got the Tates. The Sneakos. Parodies of men. Guys who are what a teenager thinks masculinity looks like when he doesn\u2019t have a good father: flashy Rolexes, rented Lamborghinis, and endless talk. Talk, talk, talk. The guys who screamed loudest about the feminization of America were engaged in an inherently feminine activity. They were podcasting. They were sitting behind desks and running their mouths. And when you put men in a space that\u2019s fundamentally about talking, their conflict becomes female-coded: reputational attacks, betrayal narratives, emotional manipulation, hissy fits. In real life, male interaction is moderated by the threat of getting punched in the face. Online, that\u2019s gone. So the most effective tactics are the ones women use. These guys didn\u2019t fight the feminization of culture. They became it.<\/span><\/p>\n I feel privileged to have known men who stormed the beaches at Normandy, who fought in the South Pacific, who came home and never spoke of it. Real men don\u2019t whine about sacrifice. They make it. And I feel sorry for younger generations who haven\u2019t known men like that \u2014 men who felt proud to serve, who understood trade-offs, who didn\u2019t see the world in black and white. Young men are desperate for identity, and if you don\u2019t give them Captain America, Ted Williams, and George Washington, they\u2019ll find Nick Fuentes and Andrew Tate. Jordan Peterson identified this collapse in meaning early; it makes young men terrifyingly easy to radicalize.<\/span><\/p>\n And now these same guys \u2014 the ones who spent years raging about how pussified America is, the longhouse, the feminization of men, soy boys, turning the frogs gay \u2014 are now having hissy fits because America is actually being masculine. Militarily masculine. The real deal. And they\u2019re whining about how they feel betrayed. \u201cWe\u2019re not dying for Israel.\u201d You\u2019re not dying for anyone, buddy! You\u2019re not dying for America. You\u2019re not dying for anything except your subscriber count. You spent years cosplaying as warriors, and the moment actual sacrifice entered the conversation, you folded like every other fraud who has ever confused talking with doing.<\/span><\/p>\n Compare the Biden-era Army recruitment ad, an animated spot about a soldier raised by two moms marching in a pride parade, with what\u2019s coming out of the Pentagon now. A Special Forces trainer deadlifting 500 pounds: \u201cStronger people are harder to kill.\u201d Soldiers on a firing range: \u201cWe train until we can\u2019t get it wrong.\u201d Enlistment is at a 15-year high<\/a>. When you stop apologizing for what the military is and start showing men what it demands, they show up. That\u2019s what real masculinity looks like when it\u2019s not being run through the filter of \u201chow is this going to make Karen feel?\u201d<\/span><\/p>\n The culture is shifting everywhere, thanks in part to comedian Joe Rogan, who held the line and built a parallel comedy establishment that is unapologetically masculine, irreverent, and enormous. Bud Light \u2014 the brand that nearly destroyed itself partnering with transgender influencer Dylan Mulvaney \u2014 signed as its new spokesperson Shane Gillis, a comedian who\u2019d been dropped from SNL only to return as a host. And on February 22 \u2014 46 years to the day from America\u2019s \u201cMiracle on Ice\u201d \u2014 the U.S. men\u2019s hockey team beat Canada in overtime for our first Olympic gold since 1980. Those players stood at the State of the Union, grinning from ear to ear, and got a standing ovation. My nephews are obsessed with them. They see those radiant smiles and that pride in America, and they want to emulate it.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n In his post-game interview, hockey star Jack Hughes<\/a> said, \u201cThis is all about our country right now. I love the USA. I love my teammates. It\u2019s unbelievable. The U.S. hockey brotherhood is so strong and we had so much support from ex players, and I\u2019m so proud to be American today. So proud.\u201d That\u2019s not some guy ranting into a webcam about alpha males; it\u2019s the real thing, and young men can feel the difference.<\/span><\/p>\n The 2024 election was, in many ways, a referendum on all of this. The entire post-election media analysis centered on one question: How did Democrats lose young men? The answer was simple. They\u2019d spent a decade telling young men they were the problem, and eventually, young men believed them and voted accordingly.<\/span><\/p>\n Saving this country is going to require things that make some people uncomfortable. It is going to require men who are willing to be strong without apology, to serve without being asked, and to lead without waiting for permission. For 20 years, we told men to sit down. The men who are standing back up \u2014 not the talkers, not the grifters, but the ones who actually build and serve and sacrifice \u2014 are the ones who will matter.<\/span><\/p>\n But I\u2019m not going to speak for men. Instead, I\u2019ll let Sergeant Dan Hollaway, 82nd Airborne Infantry, share his thoughts on the resurgence of American masculinity.<\/span><\/p>\n \u201c<\/span>Masculinity is not a social accessory,\u201d he told me. \u201cIt is the backbone of every civilization that has ever endured. Masculinity began as an unspoken contract with reality: I will go where it is dangerous so others don<\/span>\u2019<\/span>t have to. If certain burdens are not carried, then people die. This is the natural law of masculinity, and it has never changed. For a generation, America<\/span>\u2019<\/span>s masculinity was mocked, undermined, and treated as something dangerous or obsolete \u2014 and many men simply withdrew. But that retreat is ending, and as men return to strength, discipline, and responsibility, the benefits are already becoming visible. American pride is on the rise, and we have the unique opportunity to save the greatest country in the history of the world by simply being men.\u201d<\/span><\/p>\n ***<\/p>\n Bridget Phetasy is a writer and comedian. She\u2019s the host of the show Dumpster Fire and podcast Walk-Ins Welcome. Find more of her writing on her Substack Beyond Parody at phetasy.com<\/a>.<\/em><\/p>\n