Scholar: Liberals, Feminists Have Made Men Afraid to Embrace Their Manhood
A healthy society needs fathers. Men, therefore, need to embrace their manhood and recognize the important role they play as husbands and fathers in a family, Dr. Jennifer Roback Morse advised Friday in a panel on the problem of fatherlessness at the Conservative Political Action Conference in National Harbor, Md.
The important role men play in a family is due to their natural instincts to protect the weak and vulnerable, Morse explained, but liberals and feminists have made men afraid to embrace their unique role.
"This is what the left despises about the family – they cannot control it and government is not necessary for it," Morse said.
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"I want the men listening ... to embrace your manhood," Morse said. "Do not be ashamed. ... There's nothing wrong with being a man. That's what we need from you. We need those who will take responsibility for protecting the weak and will sustain the family. There's nothing to be ashamed of."
Morse criticized some of the libertarian views expressed at the conference for not recognizing the importance of families.
Conservatives love the free market, Morse said, because it is an act of social cooperation that does not require the government. Conservatives should recognize as well, though, that "marriage is the most basic unit of social cooperation that doesn't need the government to be involved."
With a marriage, she added, "a man and a woman come together ... and produce a child together," and because of that "they have an incentive and a reason to stay together, they have a common project. ... They create a little society, a little self-sustaining, self-regenerating, society called the family, called the home." The family "flows naturally from the human body," and "male-female differentiation."
"The need to love is written into the human body," Morse added. And, one of the things that liberals do not like about the family is they "cannot control what goes on in that little society, the family."
The father's role in the family is "to provide and protect the family, and they do it naturally and spontaneously. The father can keep order inside the family ... without government."
"The father can keep order with a dirty look. You know that look?" Morse joked as the audience laughed. "Libertarians should be involved in this."
Opposition to the nuclear family runs deep in liberal ideology, Morse explained. It can be found as far back as the writings of 19th century socialist philosopher Friedrich Engels.
"The fact is sexual differences are built into the human body and the fact that we are different is all it takes to trigger a leftist hissy fit," Morse complained. "They see monogamy and private property as flip sides of the same evil, oppressive terrible coin. And they have introduced the language and reality of class warfare into the home. That's what the feminist movement did. That is why so many men are afraid to speak out, because they don't want to be seen as oppressors."
The panel, called "Fatherless America: The Headwaters of Poverty, Crime & Social Dysfunction," was moderated by Niger Innis, national spokesman for Congress of Racial Equality. Morse was joined on the panel by talk show host Charles Butler, Stuart Epperson, co-founder and chairman of Salem Communications, and Dr. Richard Land, president of the Ethics & Religious Liberty Commission and executive editor for The Christian Post.
Using a comprehensive study from the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services and other sources, Land noted the many benefits provided to children who grow up with a married mother and father who stay married. Compared to other children, Land said, they are seven times less likely to live in poverty, six times less likely to commit suicide, less than half as likely to commit a crime, less than half as likely to become pregnant out of wedlock, more likely to finish high school and college, more likely to get married and stay married, less likely to experience physical or sexual abuse, and are more physically and emotionally healthy.
"We've conducted a four decade experiment on whether or not fathers are optional accessories in the rearing of healthy adults, and the answer is a resounding no," Land said.
