Boys Will be Boys?
My son has little interest serving at Mass anymore . He's just turned 13 and wants to be a priest, but whereas he used to love to serve, now he does so reluctantly and only out of duty.
I figured it was an age thing: the teeny-bopper's sense of cool (even though he, thankfully, doesn't carry the obsession with coolness that his peers carry). But when he and I went to Mass yesterday morning, it struck me that there were two female altar servers, no boys. It then dawned on me that most of our altar servers seem to be girls now (at least they're the ones that are showing up).
I started to wonder, "Does the fact that it's a mixed-gender thing water down the appeal to the boys? Even if the boys aren't aware of a bias, are they somehow slanted against altar serving by the simple fact that girls are doing it, too?"
I then thought of other groups I've belonged to that struggled as soon as women were admitted. I've seen this dynamic at least three times: a struggling or "flat" men's group admits women, the women provide a great shot in the arm for awhile, then the organization goes down hill even more and, to the extent it does excel, it's because the women are doing the heavy lifting while the men's participation dwindles and dwindles.
Is there something about the presence of women that make men lazy? Maybe, but I suspect it's something a bit more primordial.
I believe men (boys) are, in a sense, innately chauvinistic. If women (or girls) are admitted, the luster of the job, group, or responsibility dulls. I'm not saying it's right, I'm not saying it's cool, I'm not saying it's lawful. But I do think it occurs.
Is it because men intuitively think less of women? Perhaps, but I think it's more from a natural urge to do "manly things." Men like to be men. If women are doing a thing, then it's no longer a manly thing. It might still be a good thing, a virtuous thing, a beautiful thing, an important thing, a profitable thing. But if women are doing it, too, it ain't manly and its virility varnishes. If a man intuitively seeks out manly things, that thing will no longer hold a manly appeal.
Of all this, I feel anecdotally certain.
Where I'm stuck is, is this type of chauvinism a sin--a "hard wiring" from Adam and Eve? Or is it natural--a "hard wiring" from God? If the former, we should try to root it out (each man individually, preferably, not by government coercion). If the latter, then it ought to be respected.
Good arguments can be made on both sides of that issue, and I suspect some forms of this kind of chauvinism are rooted in a sinful kind of discrimination, whereas others are just healthy forms of male "bonding" (loathsome term). Problem is, our culture and laws deem all such "chauvinism" as innately evil and therefore, wherever possible (the Right of Association be damned), illegal.
This is not a good state of affairs. I could extend this post by thousands of words to explain why, but I'll let the following suffice: Where nature is repressed, it will manifest itself in troubling ways. If men aren't allowed to be men naturally, they'll be men perversely. This doesn't mean they'll turn gay. But it does mean they'll seek manly pursuits in less-healthy ways. They used to hang out at the Lodge, work in the service club, or serve at church. Those things are increasingly gender mixed. Manly activities are now relegated to chat rooms, fantasy football drafts, and getting drunk in the basement while playing video games and referring to women as "ho's."
Such things are getting more and more popular as women increasingly infiltrate traditional male strongholds. Coincidence?
Maybe I'll ask my thirteen-year-old son.
