Senator Josh Hawley of Missouri marked Father’s Day by stressing the importance of male role models and masculinity in the current cultural climate.
Hawley appeared on Fox News to discuss his new book Manhood: The Masculine Virtues America Needs and warned of the ‘‘epidemic of fatherlessness” that has degraded American society.
“What the Left has said to men for, really, generations now – 20, 30 years – is that to be a man is to be toxic. That if you are a man, you are a terrible influence. You are making the world a worse place just by being you,” said Hawley. “I think we’ve got to send just the opposite message. That we need men to be strong. We need men to take on responsibility. We need them to be protectors and providers and to live in a sacrificial way that empowers other people.”
“A man who does that can transform his life, he can transform his family, and he can transform this country,” the senator added.
Hawley, who has two sons and a daughter, stressed that America needs “dads desperately.”
“As I continue to grow as a dad, I think providing for your family, protecting them, and then really nurturing them, looking to their growth, those are the key things that I think as a dad, at least in the stage that I’m in right now, are so important,” he said.
“Men are told all the time that to be a man is to be toxic, that if you’re a man, you make the world a worse place, and that fathers are irrelevant or maybe they contribute to the great injustice of the world,” Hawley added. “All of that stuff is false.”
National Public Radio commemorated Father’s Day by sharing the story of a pregnant biological woman who identifies as a man. Kayden Coleman, 37, discussed fatherhood and raising two daughters.
“One of the biggest things that people get wrong is that we hate our bodies and thusly anything feminine remotely is something that we will reject. And that’s included, but not limited to, pregnancy,” said Coleman. “Those of us who identify more on the masculine spectrum, just because we identify as such does not take away our desire to have kids. And if we have the body parts to do so, why not?”
Coleman continued:
A lot of people think that because we gave birth, that we suddenly become mothers. … Being a trans dad means I was assigned female at birth, and I was essentially raised to adhere to societal standards of what a girl is supposed to be, how a girl is supposed to act. I think that because of that upbringing for myself, I got to get the insight into how women are perceived by society…
I know how to prepare them for what society is going to be expecting of them and teach them that they have autonomy over themselves.
