Remedy for Educational Male Emasculation in Schools

By Dr. Joe Renfro

Here there is no confusion about there being two distinct sexes created. Being a man or having pride in masculinity is on the wane, and much of the influence toward this is from the practices of our education system.

There is a definite male emasculation taking place in Western education. It is the denial of one’s masculinity.  The males are falling behind!  The questions come, “Is this situation something that is creating the sexual confusion that is increasingly plaguing American schools?” Genesis 1:27 says, “And God created man to his own image: to the image of God he created him: male and female he created them.”   But many in Western world seek to change it all, and one way is to erase masculinity!

In Jesus Christ the pattern is set from the Christian vantage point as Galatians 3:28 brings it out by saying that in Christ—”There is neither Jew nor Greek, there is neither bond nor free, there is neither male nor female: for ye are all one in Christ Jesus.”  One should be thankful for being a female, if you were born that way or a male if you were born that way.  The Christian prospective sets a balance, but the educational focus in the Western world is seeking very much to alter this balance, and major problems are in the offing—well because we are attacking the Judeo-Christian foundation from which the Western worldview developed.

Sex is physiological. “Gender” is psychological and not quite so distinct as something like “sex” is.  But gender is basically the product of one’s sex.  Everyone has both androgens, the male hormones, and the female hormones, estrogens, which influence both the psychological and physical characteristics of the development of an individual.  One’s sex influences the effects of the hormones.

There have been a number of genetic and neurological studies that clearly demonstrate there is a distinct difference between male and female other than just the sexual organs. This includes 6,700 sex specific genes that differ between male and female. Brain regions differ in size between men and women (amygdala and hippocampus), as they tend to contain especially high concentrations of receptors for sex specific hormones–testosterone in the male and estrogens and progesterone in females.  Testosterones belongs to a class of male hormones called androgens.  (BMC Biology, 2017). It is in God’s creation.

In the book, Our Kids, “Boys are Lagging in the Schools: Has Feminization Gone too Far?” author Paul Bennett discusses the divisive issue of gender and pedagogy, as they inter-relate.  The Canadian Toronto Globe and Mail newspaper published a whole series of in-depth articles entitled “Failing Boys” and focusing on the so-called “boy problem” in our schools and in the wider North American society.

As recently as 1998, the popular press was full of stories about schools short-changing girls and residual examples of gender bias in our supposedly sanitized, politically-correct textbooks, suggesting the girls were being left behind and calling for change.  However, true that was is debatable, but beyond question, there is definitely developing a new gender gap in education, not only in Canada but throughout North America, as boys now rank behind girls on nearly every measure of academic achievement and young men are now being superseded in universities and the professions.  Most college graduates are now women.

The question is asked, Can the ‘feminization’ of educators and the value of education be affecting boys’ achievement in school?  The so-called “Boy Problem” has crept up on us in schools in Canada and the USA, and very likely in the whole Western world, although I don’t have evaluations from Europe. But the basic facts in North America can no longer be ignored, for the males are very much falling behind the females in academic achievement.

One of the key factors of the emasculation of the Western male is the feminization of education, along with things such as the appeal of video games, the boy code of behavior, developmental differences, and the lack of positive role models. The most contentious of these is “feminization of education” because it raises fundamental questions about the unintended consequences of one of the most important social movements of the 1960s and 70s, the rights movements that neglected  the development of individual responsibility.

Paul W. Bennett observes that:

Progressive educational philosophies, rooted in the writings of Rousseau, Herbart, Froebel and Dewey, continue to exert a powerful influence in modern education. It has resulted in “child-centered education” where teachers strive to make schoolwork not only relevant, but sensitive to the interests of children. Instead of challenging pupils to master content, they simply entertain (i.e., try to make learning interesting or stimulating).

Educational reformers seeking higher standards have termed this approach “soft pedagogy” and contend that it has been furthered by the feminization of the teaching ranks, especially in the Western World. Pupils, they say, are no longer trained to have the strength of will to do the hard and the uninteresting work of life. In class, the mostly female teacher force generally find today’s adolescent boys unruly, tuned-out, or inclined to skip heavy reading classes.

Not only is it a fact that the “feminization” of education is having negative effects in schooling, but it very much relates to the confusion of sexual identities. Boys often don’t regard education as masculine, and thus in their struggles with sexual identity often rebel against it.

Nolan Freeney in a Time article, “Women Are Now More Likely to Have College Degree Than Men ,”  October 7, 2015 wrote that:

For the first time since the Census Bureau began collecting data on higher education attainment, women are more likely to have a bachelor’s degree than men.

Last year (2014), 29.9 percent of men had a bachelor’s degree, while 30.2 percent of women did, the bureau reports. A decade prior, in 2005, 28.5 percent of men had bachelor’s degree, while only twenty=six percent of women did.

Young women are driving the change. In the 25-34 age group, 37.5 percent of women have a bachelor’s degree or higher, while only 29.5 percent of men do. (Rates of college attainment for men and women in this age group are increasing roughly equally.) But for the over-65 crowd, only 20.3 percent of women have such degrees, compared to 30.6 percent of men. 

Much of the societal focus in recent years has been to attack the status quo, to attack the traditions, and to attack the categorization of sexes between that of male and female, but has had a real negative effect on the education of the males in our society!

Who are the boys and who are the girls?  The transgender movement is creating chaos in the classroom.  Sexual and gender confusion is coupling with the feminization of education to really create major problems in Western learning, one of which is the emasculation of the males! This is true, just as it is true that females they should be proud of their female personage, but forces are definitely attacking-the so-called white protestant males!!

Edwin Benson in his book Return to Order concluded his writing about what the Bible says about being male and female by saying that; “Eventually, the plethora of “genders” will create so much confusion that society just breaks down. That will suit the revolutionaries because they will be standing at the ready to reassemble the pieces according to their own design.”

Benson brought out that:

The New York City Council recently passed a bill that allows New Yorkers to designate an “X” for their sex on their birth certificates if they don’t identify as either male or female. Additionally, a parent can do the same thing for their newborn children. The measure was passed by a vote of 41-6…

Similar actions were taken by the States of Washington, Vermont, California, and Oregon, as well as the District of Columbia. The language of the Washington State directive is eye-popping, “a gender that is not exclusively male or female, including, but not limited to, intersex, agender, amalgagender, androgynous, bigender, demigender, female-to-male, genderfluid, genderqueer, male-to-female, neutrois, nonbinary, pangender, third sex, transgender, transsexual, Two Spirit, and unspecified.

This is a recipe for real confusion and failure in the educational domain and ultimately in society.

In Washington D.C. a school district is going to allow students select “non-binary” on their enrollment forms instead of “male” or “female.”

The Washington Post writes:

The District’s public school system is slated to become among the first in the nation to let families select “non-binary” — rather than male or female — when indicating the gender of their child on enrollment forms.

The option is scheduled to go into effect for the next school year, and school system leaders said it is part of a broader effort to ensure that transgender and non-binary students feel welcome in classrooms in the nation’s capital. (Culture Watch, November 15, 2018)

The D.C. enrollment forms will allow teachers to know which students in their classrooms identify as non-binary without families having to inform them. School officials said collecting data on how many students identify as non-binary will ensure that the school system has enough resources available for those students, including access to gender-neutral bathrooms and extracurricular activities. This school district is making a policy change that has parents up in arms.  (Culture Watch, November 15, 2018)

This move is yet another attack on the fundamentals of our American society, re-classifying sexual identity which was once as either male or female.

God created mankind as two sexes, male and female.  It was not “Adam and Steve,” but it was Adam and Eve, male and female.

There was an article in The Hidden Dominion, April 27, 2017 that brought out that:

Manhood in America has been under attack for many decades. With falling sperm counts, lowering of testosterone, feminizing of boys, lack of traditional male role models, and the “privilege trap” – masculinity is taking hits from all angles

Why is male emasculation in America, today?  Avomat blames this male emasculation in America on the rise of modern feminism.  He brings out that the media is on the side of feminism, male roll-models are most often not men of real moral character or discipline, and the court systems are most biased against the males. A high percentage of boys are reared by single mothers. He observes also that there is a movement dedicated to destroying biological distinction between the genders.  (“Male Emasculation in America,”—by Avomat, The Hidden Dominion, April, 2017)   It is not good!

Transsexualism and transgenderism are very much in the focus, and the question comes which is the cause and which is the effect.  In determining what is transgender, it is important to see the difference between sex and gender. Gender is an internal sense of being male or female and is based on societal or cultural definitions of masculine or feminine. Sex refers to differences in chromosomes, hormones and external and internal sex organs.  A transsexual goes through a physical alteration, a greater change than a transgender experiences, as a transgender and is but a person who feels he or she belongs to the opposite sex. They have a desire to assume the physical characteristics and gender role of the opposite sex. The transsexual person may use hormones or other medications to suppress or enhance characteristics of the opposite sex – such as facial hair, or more developed breasts.  But most transsexuals are men who chose to change their physical characteristic are appear to be female.

In a 2011 study it was found that after sex reassignment surgery, more than 300 Swedish transsexuals faced a higher risk for mortality, suicide ideation, and psychiatric issues compared to the rest of the population.   (“Transgender Surgery: Regret Rates Highest in Male-to-Female Reassignment Operations,”)  By Lizette Borreli,–  Reprinted in Newsweek, January 11, 2019

In male-to-female reassignment surgery, doctors will reshape the male genitals in the form of a vagina. The surgery also includes removing the testicles and an inversion of the penis. In female-to-male procedures, doctors remove the breasts, uterus and ovaries and extend the urethra so a transgender man can urinate standing up. Male-to-female reassignments are more common because they are considered less expensive and more successful.  (“Transgender Surgery: Regret Rates Highest in Male-to-Female Reassignment Operations –  By Lizette Borreli, 10/3/17 – Reprinted in Newsweek, January 11, 2019

With his book, “Trans Life Survivors”, author Walt Heyer who has now written at least six books on this subject of transsexuality and how to overcome it. Mr. Heyer, who is a self described “sex-change regretter,” continues to weave his cautionary tale, book after book. The movement against therapists who hold Biblical views of sexuality and gender also ignores a growing population of Americans who openly regret engaging in transgenderism. Heyer speaks against this group of psychotherapists.

In 1983 and lived as a woman for eight years before he became a Christian and accepted his biological sex. He released Trans Life Survivors in October, a book of stories from dozens of individuals who regret their decision to undergo sex change surgery. The book only tells 30 stories, but Heyer said hundreds contacted him and said they wished they hadn’t identified as transgender. (Therapy bans and trans-regret  —  by Joel Maas & Killey, Crossland, January 11, 2019)

Heyer argues that a childhood event—sexual abuse or being cross-dressed by an adult—often precedes gender dysphoria, which sometimes co-exists with other mental conditions. He contends doctors should slow down and first search for the underlying issues before recommending hormone therapy and surgical procedures. When patients realize a transgender life does not bring the hoped-for relief, the same system of doctors “abandons them to their pain,” Heyer said. (Ibid.)

Laws that ban Bible-based counseling make getting help for such minors impossible and ignore deeper issues.   Yet, this is the situation in the counseling world today.

Male emasculation is a sad picture for many boys or men who deny the gender or sex with which they were born.  For various reasons they seek to be someone they actually are not.  I recall that once Ruth Graham once told me that “for everything God has real, the devil has a counterfeit.”  Gender change and sex change are but counterfeits.  True, people and especially children in school have identity problems, but the best way to resolve this is not sex or gender change as some pursue.  Rather, It is to realize the grace of God in Christ in which there is no confusion about there being two distinct sexes created. It is to look to God to find the help in realizing and controlling their gender focuses and their sexuality.

There is a remedy for male emasculation and for misogyny or erasing womanhood in women as well.   In Matthew 19:4-5 it is recorded that the Lord Jesus said: “Have ye not read, that he who made man from the beginning, Made them male and female? And he said: For this cause shall a man leave father and mother, and shall cleave to his wife, and they two shall be in one flesh.”  Neither transsexuality nor transgenderism should be seen as normal, but this does not mean to reject those who seek this avenue to resolve their identity crisis. It is one thing to reject a person and something else entirely to reject an idea, teaching, or a philosophy.

Teachers, sad to say, have even been fired for using the pronoun of one’s sex by birth instead of the one a student might have resolve to claim. Neither should it be regarded as immoral, illegal. or harmful to point students to a way to resolve such problems, and faith in Christ is the best remedy!