There has been much talk about true manhood and masculinity in our culture.

It’s clear to both the left and the right that men are not doing well right now.

Evidence abounds for that truth, from males lagging behind females in school to an epidemic of male loneliness, to the decline of male participation in the workforce, and to deaths of despair linked to drug addiction and even suicide.

But the two sides of the aisle differ drastically on how to address those core issues.

The Democrats have spent the last few decades, even during the most recent presidential campaign, harping about “toxic masculinity” and lauding feminism as the height of male virtue.

Vice President J.D. Vance had a simple but very different answer.

When asked to deliver a message to young men at the Conservative Political Action Conference last week, Vance encouraged men to embrace rather than reject their masculinity.

“I think our culture sends a message to young men that you should suppress every masculine urge, you should try to cast aside your family, you should try to suppress what makes you a young man in the first place,” Vance described.

“My message to young men is don’t allow this broken culture to send you a message that you’re a bad person because you’re a man, because you like to tell a joke, because you like to have a beer with your friends, or because you’re competitive,” he continued.

At that point, Vance was drowned out with massive applause.

Vance noted that the culture “wants to turn everybody, whether male or female, into androgynous idiots who think the same, talk the same, and act the same.”

But he rejected that vision for our society, observing that God had something very different in mind.

“We actually think God made male and female for a purpose, and we want you guys to thrive as young men and as young women, and we’re going to help, with our public policy, to make it possible to do that,” Vance concluded.

VP Vance’s message to young men: “Our culture sends a message to young men that you should suppress every masculine urge, [that] you should to try to suppress what makes you a man in the first place… Don’t allow this broke culture to send you a message that you are a bad person… pic.twitter.com/6gWYsEn1jz

— Greg Price (@greg_price11) February 20, 2025

Those remarks from Vance resonated on social media because they are incredibly easy to understand, but also very rare to hear publicly in such simple terms, mainly because of a default liberal and egalitarian cultural attitude that indeed seeks to flatten all of human life into an androgynous, gray, and depressing mass of nothingness.

But God made a world full of richness and intricacy.

At the dawn of creation, in the same way that he separated the darkness and the light, and the land and the sea, God separated man and woman, and he called that “good.”

Men can and should pursue their unique callings as men, whether that involves working hard, acquiring skill, developing physical strength, or protecting and providing for those under their care, sacrificing in love as Jesus Christ sacrificed for his bride, the church, even unto death.

Women can and should pursue their callings as women, from beautifying their homes and providing hospitality for their loved ones, to bearing children and raising them in the fear and admonition of the Lord.

We have been taught to be ashamed of these simple realities.

That is part of why our society is so miserable. But women should not be ashamed of being women, and men should not be ashamed of being men.

It’s refreshing to hear these basic truths affirmed from the highest levels of our national life for a change.

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