At a White House Christmas party, President Abraham Lincoln was mingling with guests, exchanging laughter and good cheer. He came upon a group that included a woman known for her biting tongue. Looking at Lincoln’s tall frame, she quipped, “President Lincoln, don’t you find your legs are far too long?”

Without missing a beat, Lincoln smiled and replied, “No, madam, I have always found them jus the right length to reach the floor.”

The crowd laughed, the moment passed, and the party went on. But in that brief exchange, Lincoln showed something important: there are many ways to respond to offense—and one of the best is humor.

Being Offended Is Part of Growing Up

We tend to treat offense today as a kind of harm. But in truth, being offended is part of life—and even more, it’s part of maturity. Boys in particular seem to intuit this. Watch a group of young males and you’ll see it play out: teasing, poking, sarcasm, verbal sparring. It’s not (usually) meant to hurt—it’s meant to test.

And those tests serve a purpose.

When a boy is told he’s stupid, or too slow, or mocked for his hair or clothes, he learns to respond. He might crack a joke. He might sharpen his wit. He might challenge the premise with logic or brush it off with a shrug. What he’s doing is learning to handle adversity—on his feet and with others watching.

It’s practice for the world.

The Skills Boys Learn Through Being Offended

• Humor – defusing tension, maintaining dignity

• Repartee – learning to think and speak quickly

• Logic – pointing out flaws in the jab

• Grace – choosing to let it slide

• Strength – not needing validation to hold his ground

These are not small things. They’re the building blocks of workplace confidence, relational resilience, and emotional independence.

The Cultural Shift: A World Where Offense Is Forbidden

But we now live in a time where being offended is treated as a kind of assault—especially if the offended belongs to a “protected group.” Entire institutions—from universities to HR departments—have adopted the idea that certain people must not be offended, and if they are, someone else must be punished.

But what happens when a group is shielded from offense?

They may never learn to develop the inner muscles that others do. They may never build the grace, wit, or confidence that comes from surviving discomfort. Like the body that withers in the absence of challenge, their maturity is stalled.

In the name of protection, we end up infantilizing them.

The Asymmetry of Offense

Let’s be honest: not everyone gets the same protection. Boys and men are fair game. So are Christians. So are people with dissenting views on political, medical, or cultural issues. These groups are expected—often required—to endure offense without complaint.

Meanwhile, others—especially women, certain minority groups, and favored ideological stances—are shielded from offense. The rules shift depending on who’s talking and who’s listening. But one thing is clear: there is a deep asymmetry in how offense is allowed and punished.

This disparity starts early.

Boys are more likely to be offended because they’re less protected. In fact, they often grow up in environments where ridicule, teasing, and verbal jousting are common—and not discouraged. In contrast, girls are more likely to be shielded from offense. Schools, parents, and media tend to be quicker to intervene when girls are targeted. The result? Boys get toughened. Girls get guarded.

Some call this compassion. But what if it’s something else? What if we’re unknowingly denying girls a chance to build the same emotional endurance we demand of boys?

This has serious implications.

Being offended, and learning how to respond constructively, builds the skill set necessary for leadership. Leaders must take criticism, navigate hostility, and remain calm under pressure. That doesn't come naturally—it comes from experience.

So if we raise boys to expect offense and learn to handle it—but raise girls to expect protection and institutional outrage on their behalf—we shouldn't be surprised if more boys grow into leaders. They’ve been trained for conflict, while girls may have been trained to avoid it.

And here’s the twist: when we limit offending women, we may also be limiting their capacity to lead.

This isn’t about discouraging kindness. It’s about understanding that discomfort is the engine of maturity. If we teach one group to handle offense and deny another that chance, we create a lopsided playing field—not by talent, but by tolerance.

We also send a subtle but damaging message: this group is strong enough to be offended, but that group isn’t. That’s not respect. That’s condescension.

“Offense becomes a weapon, not a wound.”

Traditionally, being offended was understood as a personal emotional response. Someone says something, you feel hurt, insulted, or challenged—it’s unpleasant, maybe painful. A wound. But it’s something you deal with, like Lincoln did, through humor, logic, or resilience.

But in today’s culture, offense is often treated not as an emotional experience, but as a moral accusation.

Now, when someone says, “I’m offended,” they’re not just saying, “That hurt my feelings.” They’re saying:
“You’ve done something wrong, and I now have the right to punish you.”

• Careers are destroyed over tweets.

• Public apologies are demanded for misstatements, jokes, or even factual claims.

• Institutions overreact, fearing backlash—not because harm was caused, but because someone claimed harm was felt.

This turns offense into a strategic tool—a weapon to silence disagreement, gain status, or assert dominance. And here’s the deeper truth: this behavior often stems from an inability to respond maturely to the offending message. When someone lacks the internal tools—humor, logic, composure—they may externalize the discomfort instead. Rather than engaging the message, they attack the messenger.

The more ruthlessly someone wields this strategy, the more power they acquire in certain environments—media, academia, HR departments, online culture. And the more others scramble to appease them.

Society begins to bend not to the wise or the strong, but to the emotionally volatile. This doesn’t promote dignity or equality. It promotes fragility and fear.

Real Maturity: Offense and Reciprocity

True equality means that everyone has:

• The right to offend

• The duty to withstand offense

Lincoln didn’t file a complaint. He didn’t lecture the woman. He made a joke and moved on. That’s what strength looks like.

Conclusion: Offense as an Opportunity

When we forbid offense, we shut down an ancient and necessary process. Human beings grow not by being protected from all discomfort, but by facing it and finding a way through.

Let’s stop pretending that offense is violence. It’s not. It’s a signal, a chance, a test. And if we meet it well—like Lincoln did—we just might reach the floor with our dignity intact.

Men Are Good.

I recently read a New York Times article by Rachel Drucker titled “Men, Where Have You Gone? Please Come Back.” The subtitle reads: “So many men have retreated from intimacy, hiding behind firewalls, filters and curated personas, dabbling and scrolling. We miss you.”

In the article, Drucker shares a personal story about meeting a man named James online. Things started off well—but then James disappeared. From there, she explores her ideas of why so many men seem to be withdrawing from relationships and intimacy.

Here’s a link to the article if you’d like to take a look:
https://www.nytimes.com/2025/06/20/style/modern-love-men-where-have-you-gone-please-come-back.html

I wanted to share two responses to the article—both from men, and both striking in their own way. One is by Jim Nuzzo, my favorite researcher, and the other is by Paul Nathanson, co-author of the most comprehensive and fascinating series ever written on misandry.

Enjoy the creativity—and insight—of men!

First a tweet from Jim Nuzzo.

 

https://x.com/JamesLNuzzo/status/1940296998072226262

Next, a written response from Paul Nathanson that I saw on a mutual mailing list. I think it captures this woman’s ignorance of men and our present situation very well:

This article makes me angry. For many years, I have tried to foster inter-sexual dialogue, a project that seems like utopian science-fiction for the time being. With that in mind, I read the author’s discussion of one woman’s deceptive plea for men to “come back.”

Rachel Drucker claims to understand what drives men away from women. “I get it,” she says. But she clearly doesn’t. Otherwise, she’d be “interrogating” women instead of complaining about men. Listen, I’m a gay man. I’ve never played mating games with women and have no personal stake at all in the rules—old or new. But even as an outsider—or maybe for that very reason—I can see the depressing reality that’s becoming more and more obvious to straight men. It’s true that many men, at least in the most articulate and influential circles, are withdrawing from women. But that’s mainly because women have already withdrawn from men. And no one who reads the Times does so without being aware of its historical and cultural context. For half a century, these women have made it clear that they, as a class, consider men the inferiors of women at best and the evil oppressors of women at worst. In other words, they have indulged publicly in subtle condescension at best—this article being one example—and open contempt or revenge at worst. Consider an article, both famous and infamous, for the Washington Post. In it, Suzanna Danuta Walters openly abandons the most basic moral principle of all by asking, “Why Can’t We Hate Men?” (8 June 2018).

Okay, maybe many men are unaware of what’s going on. They’ve never actually read feminist denunciations of marriage as legalized prostitution, for instance, or as legalized rape. (According to feminist theorists such as Catharine MacKinnon and Andrea Dworkin, women are incapable of consenting to the sexual advances of men due to the “eroticization of power,” which supposedly makes women capable of sexual arousal only in the patriarchal context of submission to rape.) But most men are indeed aware by now that women have organized themselves politically as enemies of men, at least of those men who don’t convert to feminism (and not even those men deserve redemption according to the woke version of feminism). This hostility is as obvious in the relatively safe context of casual entertainment, moreover, as it is in the riskier contexts of friendships or “relationships” with women. Why would any reasonably healthy man be willing to put up with the lurking possibility of incessant complaining, relentless insinuating or implacable ranting? Enough already.

Explaining the current state of affairs is one thing, and recommending an alternative is something else. I’m not advocating the position of either Men Going Their Own Way (who have reasonable grounds for fearing entanglement with women despite the high cost to themselves) or the “incels” (who cannot attract women and therefore have unreasonable grounds for hostility toward women). I mention all this for two reasons. First, men and women are biologically programmed to unite not only for purely reproductive reasons but also for childrearing purposes. Because no society can endure the estrangement of men and women, reciprocity lies at the heart of any social contract. Second, human existence would be meaningless and unendurable without at least the hope of moving beyond cynicism toward altruism. Striving for reconciliation between any groups in conflict is also, therefore, a moral imperative.

Some women really do “get it” by now. Janice Fiamengo sure does, for example, and she’s not alone. Being explicitly anti-feminist, though, they have a long road ahead. I doubt that I’ll live long enough to see the dawn of genuine inter-sexual dialogue, but I’ll do anything that I can to join them in that effort.

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Thank you Paul and James! Men Are Good!

I’ve grown accustomed to hearing politicians talk about men’s health, usually focusing on the idea that men need to stop taking risks and start going to the doctor. The implication is that it’s somehow men’s fault that they’re at risk of dying early, and so on. Of course, this is what feminists often refer to as "blaming the victim."

That’s why I was so pleased to read Donald Trump’s message for National Men’s Health Week. He spoke candidly about the disadvantages men face and the ways in which men and masculinity have been targeted by a vicious campaign. It was a breath of fresh air.

No matter how you feel about Donald Trump, you have to give him credit for calling out the reality of men’s issues in today’s world. Below, I’ll paste the entire message for you to read. It’s a step in the right direction.

Link to the White House page https://www.whitehouse.gov/briefings-statements/2025/06/presidential-message-on-national-mens-health-week-2025/

For far too long, the health, happiness, and well-being of our Nation’s men have been neglected, contributing to a troubling reality: men in the United States have a life expectancy five years shorter than women. They visit healthcare providers less frequently and often delay critical care. Men tend to have their first heart attack an average of 10 years earlier than women.

This neglect has been compounded by a vicious campaign against masculinity. This war on manhood has left many American men in a state of loneliness, confusion, and emptiness, with devastating consequences: men in the United States are four times more likely to commit suicide and more than twice as likely to overdose than women.

This National Men’s Health Week, I make a solemn pledge to honor the men in America: we will always have your back—and we will never waver in our promise to embolden you to lead long, healthy, and safe lives.

Just last month, I proudly signed an Executive Order to deliver most-favored-nation pricing to American patients, improve access to quality medical care, and lower the price of medications. Together, with my Make America Healthy Again Commission, we are empowering men to prioritize their health and prolong their lives.

Under my leadership, we will relentlessly pursue a healthier future for the men of our nation. We will always lift you up rather than tear you down, and we will champion the voices, values, and wellness of hardworking American men across our country.