Update: The College Fix reports on the more widespread trend of devaluing masculinity in American universities, and a member of the British parliament apparently thinks James Bond, too, conveys a message of “toxic masculinity.”

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The US Air Force Academy is proudly leading a “pioneer program” designed to reduce “hyper-masculinity” in the US military. Aimed at both genders, the topics for the female cadets seem encouraging:

Female cadets focus on women’s issues within the Academy and overcoming unique challenges for female cadets…

Shockingly, the official Air Force article unashamedly lauds the fact the program discourages the male cadets [emphasis added]:

Male cadets focus on understanding the social pressures of hyper-masculinity and the negative impacts of these attributes in leadership within a diverse military environment.

One of the female cadets said she came away from the forum understanding “how to cope with some of the things we might face.”

Apparently, the male cadets came away from the same forum understanding how they’re not supposed to be so manly, and how bad it is to be manly in a truly “diverse” military.

Older articles indicated the forums — which occur annually throughout a cadet’s four-year career — are intended to discuss the impact of “socially constructed gender expectations.” The problem, of course, is that not all gender expectations are socially constructed — nor are they all inherently “bad.”  Should these forums degrade into denigrating gender expectations, the military risks further accusations of conducting “social engineering.”

(Interestingly, the tone of the Air Force Academy article may be a bit rose-colored, as other stories indicate USAFA cadets may not be as open to this anti-gender training as the Air Force implies.)

Society has been emasculating men for decades. This is a trend many Christian leaders have been fighting, and a trend that was also responsible for the rapid rise in popularity of men’s ministries like Rough Cut Men, Marked Men for Christ, Promise Keepers, and many others that have sought to encourage men to be men.  Those ministries are popular, of course, because men want to be men — because God designed men to be men, regardless of society’s attempt to feminize them.

Even with that social trend, the US military had, in some ways, been the last bastion of true manliness — where men could serve with honor and respect, and where they could be honored and respected for behaving as men. This has been largely true even as the military opened itself to “other sexuality.”

Now, though, it seems the military is “pioneering” the idea of training its men not to be so manly.

Think about that for a minute: A military that does not want its men to be too masculine.

This may simply be the product of the long, slippery slope that began decades ago. But it may also be the product of recent changes both in society and the military.

Error, after all, abhors truth. And so long as there are men who hold to the truth, their example will remind others of their error.

The world’s solution, of course, is not to address the error, but to try to change the Truth.

In case you were curious, the article also said

The forums are mandatory for all cadets.

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