Celebrate American Men on International Men’s Day

You may not have heard, but November 19 is International Men’s Day. It’s a far more obscure holiday than International Women’s Day, which was greeted with enormous fanfare by every major institution from Wall Street and Silicon Valley to the White House back in March. Instead, the sparse coverage of today’s celebration of men has been almost exclusively directed at . . . further undermining men. Metro took the occasion as an opportunity to speak “to men about their genuine concerns regarding their gender in our society,” and the Vagina Museum — yes, there is an entire brick-and-mortar museum dedicated to vaginas — tweeted that “it’s #InternationalMensDay, so we’re going to introduce you to some trans men from history today.” Of course, the predictable corners of social media were flooded with complaints that the holiday existed at all — because “every day is men’s day under the patriarchy.”

We could gripe about these disparities as yet another illustration of how much of modern American society is hostile to the celebration of manhood. But listen: Forget all of that. Today is our day, fellas. There are 364 other days of the year to fight the good fight. Conservatism, as Yuval Levin has argued, is gratitude. In fact, it’s even more than gratitude — it’s joy. Amid all the gloomy talk of civilizational decline, we should not forget that we Americans are the beneficiaries of a glorious and noble inheritance. Even today, our tradition bestows enormous privileges on all of us. And American manliness — not just the legendary feats of our larger-than-life heroes, but the ordinary decency and goodness of countless brothers, sons, husbands, and fathers in the humblest corners of American life — is one of the most important privileges of all.

About the Author

Nate Hochman

Nate Hochman was a staff writer at National Review.

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You may not have heard, but November 19 is International Men’s Day. It’s a far more obscure holiday than International Women’s Day, which was greeted with enormous fanfare by every major institution from Wall Street and Silicon Valley to the White House back in March. Instead, the sparse coverage of today’s celebration of men has been almost exclusively directed at . . . further undermining men. Metro took the occasion as an opportunity to speak “to men about their genuine concerns regarding their gender in our society,” and the Vagina Museum — yes, there is an entire brick-and-mortar museum dedicated to vaginas — tweeted that “it’s #InternationalMensDay, so we’re going to introduce you to some trans men from history today.” Of course, the predictable corners of social media were flooded with complaints that the holiday existed at all — because “every day is men’s day under the patriarchy.”

We could gripe about these disparities as yet another illustration of how much of modern American society is hostile to the celebration of manhood. But listen: Forget all of that. Today is our day, fellas. There are 364 other days of the year to fight the good fight. Conservatism, as Yuval Levin has argued, is gratitude. In fact, it’s even more than gratitude — it’s joy. Amid all the gloomy talk of civilizational decline, we should not forget that we Americans are the beneficiaries of a glorious and noble inheritance. Even today, our tradition bestows enormous privileges on all of us. And American manliness — not just the legendary feats of our larger-than-life heroes, but the ordinary decency and goodness of countless brothers, sons, husbands, and fathers in the humblest corners of American life — is one of the most important privileges of all.