Good words from Joseph Pearce at The Imaginative Conservative. Here’s a snippet, but take the time to read the whole essay.
The problem is that machismo is a mark of immaturity. It is the failure to grow into the fullness of what it means to be a man. The mark of machismo is the boast and braggadocio of the braggart. It is the mask of pride, worn by those who lack humility; it is the rant of one demanding his rights because he does not have the courage to face his responsibilities. It is the “manliness” of one who is not really a man.
In my own case, I would have to confess that I have spent most of my life as the macho man who was not really a man at all. It took marriage to make a man of me, which is to say that it took a woman to make a man of me. And not just a woman; it took a wife to make a man of me. And not just a wife, it took children to really make a man of me. I can say, therefore, echoing the words of Wordsworth, that the child is father of the man. My own children have been the fathers of my manhood. Without them, I would still be a pathetic macho man, making all sorts of masculine noise without having any of the real masculine substance.
