Let a woman be a woman and a man be a man

Pop star Miley Cyrus’ baby sister Noah Cyrus aimed a nasty racial slur at political commentator Candace Owens in response to the young conservative taking umbrage at Harry Styles wearing a dress on the front cover of Vogue.

Cyrus posted that British popstar Styles “wears a dress better than all u nappy ass heauxz.”

Owens set off a firestorm commenting on Styles photograph on the front cover of the esteemed fashion magazine, writing “There is no society that can survive without strong men… bring back manly men.”

She has since doubled-down on what she sees as “ the steady femininisation of men” and gone further declaring, “terms like toxic masculinity were created by toxic females. Real women don’t do fake feminism. Sorry, I’m not sorry.”

Many Hollywood stars and liberals have decided to throw brickbats at Owens and denounce her for not embracing gender fluidity and the metrosexual lifestyle.

But there has been no disgust and condemnation aimed at Cyrus for her racial epithets. Where is the righteous indignation? Where is the full-throated renunciation of young Cyrus for reverting to racial dog whistles? Cyrus is ugly on so many levels, not Candace.

When Cyrus said, “all u nappy ass heauxz”, was that aimed specifically at Owens, or all black people?

There are many who proclaim they are not racist, wear the PC breastplate  with pride and speak saccharine words, but their true selves come quickly to the surface when prodded. There is always another face behind the mask.

One only has to go back to early summer and ‘Central Park Karen’ to see how insidious this problem is. The denigration of black people serves to heighten tensions, and this is what is fueling the Black Lives Matter movement.

Call it what you will, covert/overt racism, after centuries black people are still having to endure it and be defined by it. Speak your truth and you get “wapped” with a racial cudgel, just like Owens.

Candace Owens is a bright young conservative who has a promising future. She is intelligent, articulate and thought provoking. She is an intriguing face on the scene of U.S. political punditry. What she has to say as a conservative shouldn’t be viewed solely from the prism of her as a black woman – but, rather, credence should be given to the merits of her argument. In short, she shouldn’t be rendered to a particular box that meets some specious criteria.

She didn’t remark on Styles’ race or where he is from or, for that matter, his physicality. She made a comment calling for the return of manly men.

Candace, you are so right on this one. There are so many young men in the western world who are totally lost. They live with no purpose, no drive, sitting in their parents’ homes in their 30s playing video games, unable to contribute to the upkeep of the household. They groan and moan when asked to take out the trash, sleep in the middle of the day and take every opportunity to borrow Mum or Dad’s car.

Many do not set goals and work to attain them. They want good-looking women, high-end cars, fancy baubles, yet bring nothing to the table and are unwilling to do what they have to for these acquisitions. They do not have the right stuff and it is disturbing. They are just too soft.

Again Owens is spot on when she says no society can survive without strong men. She is supported here by the history of the world. China under the Ming Dynasty, Persia under Cyrus The Great, The Macedonian Empire under Alexander the Great, Shaka Zulu in Africa, Genghis Khan of Northeast Asia – Jack Donovan sums it up: “Strength, courage, mastery and honour are the alpha virtues of men all over the world.”

A man is supposed to be a man and a woman is supposed to be a woman and there are many of us who still believe this. James Freeman Clarke sheds light on this when he says: “Manliness is the character of a man as he ought to be, as he was meant to be.”

You see where this is going? With the world in chaos today, filled with dread due to strange viruses, climate change, economic uncertainty, employment insecurity, gender wars, racial tensions, culture and religious battles, the last thing it needs is ambiguous manhood; men who don’t know what they are.

For years I have been an admirer of the writer Camile Paglia and again her acuity on this topic is insightful.

“A woman simply is, but a man must become. Masculinity is risky and elusive. It is achieved by a revolt from woman and it is confirmed only by other men. Manhood coerced into sensitivity is not manhood at all.”

My father was born in the ’30s and his father before him was born in the opening years of a new century. I have no doubt what they both would have made of men in dresses. They were of the old school and were very clear about what a man should be. This talk of gender fluidity and what today is called ‘toxic masculinity’ was not for them.

Throughout the course of their lives they lived by codes and did what was expected of them as men.

I can still hear my father telling me, particularly on the drive to university when I was 18, “When I was a child, I talked like a child, I thought like a child, I reasoned like a child. When I became a man, I put the ways of childhood behind me.”

Another saying I consistently heard from him was, “Being a male is a matter of birth. Being a man is a matter of choice.”

People would do well to remember that when rebuking Candace Owens.

The editors at Vogue are looking for unique content in order to sell their magazine; young Harry Styles covets publicity. Indeed, Iggy Pop and David Bowie have also gone down the cross-dressing route and there is something comic and eyebrow raising about a man in a woman’s dress.

However, Candace Owens was addressing something more fundamental, something primal. Where is western man in the 21st Century going? What will gender fluidity wrought on an already fractured society?

For that she was denigrated and racially abused.

Owens is not confusing masculinity with machismo – far from it. In life we all have our parts to play.

A young bloke said to me earlier this week that Owens was out of line and that toxic masculinity was destroying the world, that it didn’t matter what gender you are, just do your thing and let the great world spin.

This fatalistic approach to life didn’t surprise me, it seems to define this age but, when he quipped, “Masculinity and femininity are just styles, they are just interpretations”, I thought, with a world inhabited by men who think like this, I’m blessed to have daughters!

I do hope Candace Owens doesn’t give this Cyrus kid’s words too much import. Continue with your work, write good books and focus on your family. Keep making sense.

Already Noah Cyrus is walking back what she said because she knows ‘cancel culture’ will likely descend upon her and she won’t be ‘liked’ which means loss of income, loss of limelight, loss of relevance.

“I am mortified that I used a term without knowing the context and history, but I know now, and I am horrified and truly sorry. I will never use it again. Thank you for educating me,” she wrote by way of apology.

Yeah, right! In this social media/pop culture age with George Floyd being murdered and Black Lives Matter everywhere, you couldn’t grasp the consequences of what you were saying and now feign ignorance. That is very careless.

It brings to mind the Don Corleone line: “I spent my whole life trying not to be careless. Women and children can be careless, but not men.”

Noah Cyrus is a Best New Artiste Grammy nominee for 2020 and, despite her carelessness, will go on to prosper. Black people will continue to be racially abused despite their abusers saying they are sorry, and it won’t happen again.

Returning to manhood and what it means, the American author John Eldredge once said: “It was men who stopped slavery. It was men who ran up the stairs in the Twin Towers to rescue people. It was men who gave up their seats on the lifeboats of the Titanic. Men are made to take risks and live passionately on behalf of others.”